Totem Poles, Snowshoeing & Xmas

Sorry for being so lazy about updating this blog, it's been a crazy few weeks.

Anyway, before Christmas I made another visit to Stanley Park to finally see the infamous totem poles.

It was approaching dusk, and the sunset was awesome. I got to see a few other features as well, such as this sculpture...

and this dragon ...

The walk gave me a pretty amazing view of North Vancouver, which was amplified by the sunset, and the snow on the mountains beyond the city.

A few days after this I went up Grouse Mountain again with Liz from Safeway. This time it was at night, and showshoeing was the order of the day! This was a lot of fun as it had been snowing heavily for a couple of days beforehand, so the coverage and texture was perfect! Going up hill was fine, but downhill was quite tricky, and half the time I was sliding on my ass. However, the snowshoes helped with this.

Unfortunately this was the only half decent photo I was able to take. This was mainly because it was very dark, and partly because I was busy making sure I didn't fall down cliff or something.

On Christmas Day I went out for a dinner with a few SWAP participants.

We enjoyed a meal and plenty of booze at the Beaver Restaurant and Bar under the Samesun Backpackers Hostel in Downtown Vancouver. It was great fun!

Well that's it for now, and I'll try to post updates more regularly from now on. However, if you get impatient you can hear about my day to day exploits by checking out my twitter page. If you don't know what twitter is, it's basically a bit like facebook status updates. And if you don't know what facebook is, then check out this interesting video description of twitter here. Furthermore, when I post any blog updates (either to this blog, or my personal blog) they will be automatically referenced in my twitter feed with a link to the post. Well, until next time!

Ice Hockey

Last week I went on a SWAP organised event to see an ice hockey match. The "Vancouver Giants" were playing the "Chilliwack Bruins".

However, getting to the stadium became a bit of a mission. This is because the bus we needed to get to the stadium was completely full 3 times in a row. At this point we tried a different bus at a different bus stop and succeeded. However, there was a guy (who I'm pretty sure was on weed) that I sat next to who suddenly, and without warning decided to tell everyone to have a "happy happy day", and then started to sing "If you're happy and you know it, clap your hands". Weird!

Anyway, we finally arrived, and had only missed a few minutes of the start of the match in which 'The Giants' had scored a goal. The game was good, but the constant deluge of advertisements at every possible opportunity can get a little annoying. However, the beer helped!

From watching a couple of matches on TV I was expecting far more violence than there was in this game. I know, I shouldn't want more violence, but I do, I'm only human! Well, the final score was Giants 4, Bruins 1. It seemed very one sided, Vancouver rocks!

After we all left the stadium we had to wait for a bus, which took a while at that time of night, but we did have a laugh.

And here is the video, enjoy!

P.S. You may have noticed a new section on the right hand side of this page entitled "Vids & Pics". This is available wherever you are on my blog, and provides links to the vimeo video album, and each photo album that I've uploaded to facebook. These photo albums contain all the photos that I take (including those not added to the blog) and are of a higher quality than the blog pics.

Beaver Lake

The other day I was going to visit horseshoe bay, but I missed my bus and didn't really have time to get the next one as I was going to an ice hockey game that evening (more about that in the next post). Anyway, I decided that it was too nice a day to waste it, so I made my second venture over to Stanley Park.

Last time I voyaged over there I hadn't really planned it, so there were features that I missed which I wanted to see this time round; the main one being Beaver Lake. After ambling around the general area of it's location (I hadn't brought a map with me), I finally found it.

It was getting fairly late in the day and the sun had started to set. This meant that the lake came across as being rather eerie. This was exacerbated by the fact that there was hardly anyone around at the time. I quite like the atmosphere of the photos that I took.

I then headed south through Stanley Park towards Vancouver's Downtown area where I was to meet the SWAP group for the ice hockey, and came across a statue of the park's namesake and an awesome view of the dusk cityscape.

"To the use and enjoyment of peoples of all colours, creeds, and customs, for all time, I name thee Stanley Park."
Lord Stanley, Governor General, October 1889

Arrival!

Finally sorted out a new laptop, so here is my first blog post from Canada!

It has been a very hectic week, as you can imagine. The flight wasn't as gruelling as I originally thought it would be, and the other BUNAC travellers were very friendly, but the in-flight entertainment was a bit rubbish. The movies themselves weren't that bad (Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian and Sneakers), but the problem was that the screens were shared, and I was quite far away from mine. Anyway, after 10 hours, and a few questionable airline meals later, we arrived in Vancouver.

From the airport we made our way to the hostel in Downtown Vancouver, and got settled. Seeing as it was only early afternoon a group of us went out into Vancouver and wandered down to the waterfront. All the way down the street, and then more clearly when we reached the end could be seen the mountains to the north. A very strange sight when you are used to the London backdrop. We stopped at a bar and had a drink (had to be done), where we came upon a very nice dog who just wanted to play frisbee, and it really didn't care who threw it, anybody who came near was fair game. That evening we all went out for a meal, but it took forever to find a place that everyone wanted to eat at (there were 11 of us).

Sleeping over the week has been a bit off, the jet lag has almost gone now, but I'm still finding that I'm waking up way too early. On the first night I woke up at 3 (understandable I guess seeing as we went to bed at a little after 8).

Day 2 was orientation, which involved going to a presentation at the SWAP offices (SWAP being Canada's equivalent to BUNAC). Here they told us about how things work in Canada (like their culture of tipping for everything), and applying for a social security number etc. After the presentation I tried to use their computers, but they are either ancient or dying, so I couldn't do much more than check for jobs and accommodation. A smaller group of us went out for steak meal that evening at a place called "The Keg". The service was excellent, and it's the first time I've had a steak where I didn't have to eat around huge amounts of fat and bone.

Since then it has been a lot of wandering around Vancouver, handing out my résumé to various places and sorting out somewhere to live. I could have stayed at the hostel for longer, but it wasn't fun sharing a room with 3 complete strangers, especially when one snored like a freight train, and threw up on my bag one night. So I was glad to move out, and into a shared rented house in West Vancouver. The place is in a particularly pleasant area, and for the price is very reasonable.

So far Vancouver has been great. The people are friendly and the views are amazing. Now back to sorting out some money to check out the rest of this beautiful country!