A Return to Vancouver

Every once in a while I get stuck in cities and towns that just suck. Really suck. Like Timmins Ontario and Humboldt Saskatchewan. Long evenings with little to do, or eat, or see. These towns are often stuck in the middle of nowhere meaning a couple of hours of driving during which there is also usually nothing to see. Hotels are a little sketchier, as well as the restaurants and sometimes even the people.

Vancouver is not one of those places.

I love Vancouver, it's become my favourite city outside my home of Toronto. Maybe even including Toronto. I have been lucky enough to spend a week there on three separate occasions and I had been looking forward to returning ever since the town of Surrey showed up on my project schedule. Surrey is 45 minutes outside of Vancouver and I could commute from downtown and take advantage of any free time I had.

My colleague A and I arrived late Sunday, tired but hungry so we set off in search of dinner and stumbled into a small Sushi restaurant that we would return to every several times during the week and headed back to the hotel to sleep off the time difference before an early start to our first day of work. The 45 minute drive from downtown Vancouver to Surrey was a confusing jumble of highways, bridges and construction as I dodged in and out of the suburb towns of Burnaby, Coquitlam and New Westminster and even at the end of the week I never really had a sense of where I was going. (It didn't help that the gps took me a different route each time.) The return drive seemed simpler and provided some pretty amazing vistas which I tried to capture via blackberry camera as I drove until I started thinking about how many accidents may be caused by drivers doing the same thing. I had wondered about oddly placed fences and trees and realized that they were quite likely blocking views that could absolutely be distracting from the highway.

One night after A and I had finished dinner at The Cactus Club I decided to go for a walk downtown. I ambled along Robson St, wandering in and out of tourist shops but really just people watching until I stumbled upon the remnants of a sort of street performer/busking fair. It had pretty much wrapped up but a mime and a living statue  performer still plied their 'acts' for coins and I stopped and watched for moment.. more like half a moment. Not surprisingly it doesn't take long to become disinterested when watching a mime and a statue. Not far up the street a woman sat at the edge of the sidewalk at a card table with a sign offering Tarot card reading. I walked past her but stopped after a few steps and decided to go back. I've never had a tarot reading and I thought it might be interesting to see what it is all about.

The reader and I seemed to have a bit of connection immediately and we chatted a bit before she laid out the cards and started talking about their meanings. It was quite uncanny listening to how the cards might relate to different things that had been forefront in my life and my thoughts recently. Relationships with family, as well as friends both past and present were illuminated in interesting ways and possible paths in the future were more than exciting to talk and hear about. The thirty minute reading stretched out for more than an hour and I walked away very glad that I had taken the experience. It was amazing that within the next two weeks I found happiness in unexpectedly renewing a distant friendship and found sorrow when a current relationship came to an end, both things that the cards had talked about happening (and I had vehemently denied..) in the very near future.

Walking back through Robson Square I could see lights and the sound of hip-hop music coming from the open air ice rink. When I got closer I could see about a couple of dozen dudes in small groups practicing and performing break dancing maneuvers and just generally getting down to classic beats on the smooth ice free surface of the rink. It was hard to tell if it was an organized event or just people hanging around dancing but I was happy to allow myself to think it was just random coolness. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pRI0COASCEg ..not quite busting out the cardboard in the streets of Brooklyn 1983 cool but cool nonetheless and I sat a watched for much longer than I had watched the mime for.

As much as I am beginning to love spending time in Vancouver soaking in the energy and atmosphere, after a few days in any city I start yearning for some relief from the hustle and noise of the downtown streets so when a colleague from the nearby town of Pitt Meadows called and invited A and myself to drive out for a quiet dinner I jumped at the chance. I would be spending a week in Pitt Meadows later in the month and it was a great opportunity to see what I was in for. The drive out took us through Surrey, Burnaby and to the edge of Maple Ridge and we gasped at the beauty of the mountains as we drove. You can almost feel the mountains presence when in the city but they are often obscured from view by the soaring commercial and residential sky scrapers, heading out of the city the white and green capped mountains are everywhere, rarely hidden from view and I snapped a few good pictures before heading out for dinner at a restaurant not far from town. It was a great first glimpse of the town and as G started talking about some of the attractions nearby I grew excited to return later in the month.

The next morning A and I got up early and with the morning to ourselves we set out so I could share some of the sites that I had explored in previous trips to Vancouver. Breakfast at the hotel was followed by a long walk along the waterfront, a bit of shopping and then a drive to Stanley Park where we snapped pictures of the totem poles, bridges, trees, and of course the mountains. It was a beautiful day and it was cool watching A's first reactions to some of the sights that I was becoming familiar, but no less impressed, with in what I agree is got to be one of the most beautiful cities in the world.

I left Vancouver with a strange feeling, not quite as giddy with the WOW factor as I have been on my last few trips. The 'new car' smell has started to wear off for me I think, the excitement of visiting a new and wonderful place has been replaced by a feeling of comfort, familiarity and maybe even too much routine. Other than the quick trip to Pitt Meadows I hadn't really seen anything new. It was the first time in a long time that I've felt that way about a place and  served as a reminder of an agreement I had made with myself some time ago. To make sure I keep stretching my boundaries, looking for the weird, the wonderful, the stupid and crazy things that are hidden below the surface, in towns and cities across this country, and as well as in life and love in general. 

Regina is one the few provincial capitals I haven't had the chance to explore and that's up next. I know two things about Regina, they have insane CFL fans and the mounted policeman are famous for a musical ride.. so I guess that leaves me to look for the weird and the wonderful.

Exploring Vancouver

Vancouver

The 5 hour flight from Toronto was delayed an hour for de-icing and then we sat on the runway for another hour because of a backlog of flights waiting to leave so by the time we arrived in Vancouver and I picked up my luggage and found my rental car it had already been a long afternoon. Rolling down the windows as I pulled out of the garage and and into the warm Vancouver evening I was anything but tired, I had been looking forward to my first trip to the west coast and was anxious for my first sights of the city.I craned my head to see part of the city skyline as I passed over the Fraser River and then turned down Granville and headed downtown to my hotel.

I checked in and headed up to my home away from home for the next few days. The room had a small balcony that gave me a great view north of a sparkling line of condos and east towards the downtown core. Due to the time difference I had a few extra hours in the day and decided to hit the streets and explore at least far enough to find something to eat. From the hotel lobby I could see what turned out to be Robson Square, a public area with a skating rink. The area was under construction with many areas blocked off with caution tape but I wandered where I could and snapped some night time photos.

The next morning I met two colleagues at the hotel restaurant for breakfast where we made plans for the morning. Steve had spent time in the city and volunteered to take us on a tour down to the docks so we ate quickly and were on our way. We walked north through several blocks of high end retail shops, office towers and condos until we turned a corner and were stopped dead by our first glimpse of the mountains. The mountains! I had forgotten about the mountains. I had flown in after dark so I hadn’t seen them coming in and now they appeared before me and I stood with my eyes wide.

Holy shit that was something... majestic- I was totally gobsmacked by what I was looking at. We continued towards the water until we were looking across at an incredible vista that included the famous Lions Gate Bridge, the soaring trees of Stanley Park, those majestic Rocky Mountains and the mouth of the Fraser River. We continued along the waterfront, public spaces mixed with quaint shops and although the the soaring condos were omnipresent, as in any major waterfront city, they weren't a barrier to the waterfrount. Toronto would've been smart to visit Vancouver before we made such a mess of our waterfront. One amazing example of eco-building we saw was a massive convention/adventure center featureing a roof covered with growing grass. Steve had to head back as he was on-shift at noon while Lisa and I had until four so after walking back to the hotel we agreed the two of us would meet in a couple of hours to drive over to Stanley Park.

If I didn’t get to do anything else while I was in Vancouver I wanted to see the totem poles in Stanley Park. We pulled into the park after a short drive from the hotel and followed the road for a couple of kilometers until we could see them rising through the trees. Then we somehow got lost. Following one sign for parking took us right back to the entrance, on our second attempt and following a different sign we ended up at a utility shed. We then drove down a one way road until we got stopped by security so I decided to park where we were and we hiked about two kilometers through an amazing forest of massive trees to the site where the poles had been erected. The totems were very cool although having them all in one small roped off area made it seem a little to touristy.. seemingly removing some of the allure of the monuments. The weather was amazing, such a refreshing change from the dreariness of Ontario in February, so we continued our walk down to the water and spent some time looking at sea shells and the mountains on the horizon.

With the afternoon slipping away we hiked back to the car and started into town for our afternoon shifts. Driving crosstown we passed through what locals referred to as the ‘street of lost souls.’ Hastings St is a magnet for the homeless, the unemployed/underemployed, and the addicted. Literally hundreds of men and women clogged the sidewalks along the road, possessions piled in corners and shopping carts. It was a real counter balance to the beauty we had experienced earlier and sobered our thoughts as we headed to work.

The next day after work I wanted to take advantage of my last night in Vancouver. Most of the group I was working with had already scattered to their homes across the country so I headed out alone. I explored more of the city, this time wandering through areas containing clubs, the famous Orpheum Theatre, tattoo parlors and tourist shops. I walked for a couple hours and then stopped at a local, and very authentic Mexican restaurant for dinner. I headed back to the hotel where I ate on the balcony in a t-shirt and sampled some local beers. Relaxing later as the sun set I sighed at the thought of returning home the following day. I’ve spent time in dozens of towns and cities across the country and there have been many times that I’ve got the sense that no matter how long I was to spend in town I would never feel at home- but after just a few days I felt completely comfortable in Vancouver.

The flight out of the city and over the Rockies was absolutely astounding. The clouds and the snow and the water merging into some very surreal landscapes. I love flying because of the amazing scenery (shots of incredible cloud formations and brilliant sunsets take up many megs on my various computer drives) but I don't think I've ever seen such natural beauty as that ascent from Vancouver.

24 hours later and I'm stepping put of Pearson airport in Toronto and back into a typical night in February. Wind almost blows off my hat off and I curse, remembering my gloves packed away in my suitcase. It has snowed and the highway is down to one lane, creating a backup even after midnight. Welcome back to Toronto.

My next trip is across the country to Cornerbrook, NFLD. Here's hoping someone offers to 'screetch me in!'