VanAussie Daily

Vancouver airport skytrain

Thursday, December 24th, 2009

A few months ago they opened a new transit line from Vancouver airport to downtown Vancouver. Called the Canada Line, it’s actually part of the greater Skytrain network that spans three lines, each of which terminates downtown at waterfront station.

The first pic is a happy snap of the airport station this morning, and most Aussies would probably com on the elevated walkway on the right from the international terminal.

Next is a pic of what a new arrival would usually see when on the skytrain heading downtown.

Final pic is my current view as I wait to board my flight to Cancun. Cypress Mountain on the left, Grouse Mountain on the right, with the sunrise touching one of the peaks behind.

Added a current one, just for shits n giggles.

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Posted in Downtown Vancouver, travel | No Comments »

The long winter darkness

Wednesday, December 23rd, 2009

We’re just past the winter solstice here in Canada, which means, in Vancouver at least, the sun is coming up after 8 and going down around about 4. I’ve also been feeling like trash over the last couple of months, so I finally connected the dots, and realised that I probably wasn’t getting enough vitamin D.

For those of you who don’t know, you either get vitamin D from this:

(That’s sunshine btw)

Or this:

So after my realisation the other day, I decided to try option B seeing as there’s not much sunshine around, and I’ve actually started taking one of the above in the morning with my breakfast, and boy, what a difference! I missed one yesterday and started feeling like trash again. It’s tough to explain, but being a pale skinned dark haired guy, I’m sure I’m probably deficient in D anyway, so it will probably always help to have more.

The point of this post? It’s a long winter over here in Canada, and you won’t see much sun unfortunately, so if you start feeling like trash, perhaps it might be worth trying Vitamin D… worked for me

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Posted in Food, Musings | 1 Comment »

Coffee coffee coffee…

Tuesday, December 22nd, 2009

Three things about coffee in Canada:

1. They don’t tend to do instant coffee. I’ve known friends to have cravings for Blend 43. Sicko’s.
2. Canadians drink rocket fuel coffee. I think it’s drip stuff, or brewed or whatever, but you can use it to strip paint. They love it though.
3. It’s tough to find somewhere that does a good latte.

It’s always hard to find a good coffee when away, particularly if you want to find a good local. I’ve taken to getting my morning latte’s (don’t laugh) at JJ Bean, which is a mid size chain in Vancouver. They’re pretty reliable and the lattes are usually damn good, with bonus crema art or whatever you want to call it.

In Vancouver there’s pretty much a Starbucks on every corner, which really is a good/bad thing. Good in that you can get coffee pretty much wherever you want. Bad in that they usually seem to put their newbies on the machines, and the coffee tends to suck. Over 18 months at my previous job, the Starbucks on the corner only occasionally got the coffee right. Shows me as a fool for going back!

I wasn’t kidding about the rocket fuel either – I got Nat’s dad one of those when in a rush and I asked for a flat white, got handed black and stuck milk in it. He was buzzing for the rest of the day, and couldn’t even drink the whole thing!

Here’s a happy snap of my local JJ Bean, where I usually tend to go before heading out to work now. More reliable than the multiple Starbucks on the way

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Posted in Different things in Canada, Downtown Vancouver, Food | No Comments »

Mountain Equipment Co-Op (MEC)

Monday, December 21st, 2009

A wondrous playground! A place where you’ll find treasures! A place where you can while away the hours, darting from rack to rack!

Don’t mind me, we’re half way through watching “Where the Wild Things Are”.

Mountain Equipment Co-Op is a chain of co-operative outdoor stores, where basically you have to be a member to buy stuff there, and gear is usually cheaper there. They’ve got stores across Canada, and they’re all very cool.  The good news is that a lifetime membership only costs $5, yes, $5. Not sure if you get a certificate with it, but you do get a card, and your phone number is attached to your account so anyone can then use that phone number to be able to purchase stuff. Not that I’d condone that sort of thing.

Still, it’s a great place to start if you’ve just landed in Vancouver and haven’t got your layers sorted out, or if you’re starting to realise they weren’t kidding when they called it “Brollywood” or the “Lower Rainland”.

We visited the West Broadway store yesterday to pick up some stuff before we head to Mexico on Thursday. Water purification stuff, as well as emergency meals, just in case we get sick of burritos and tacos. Or something.

Here’s the outside, and a quick street view too. This one is on Broadway right near a bunch of other outdoor stores, so if you’re in the mood to sniff Gore-Tex and Polarfleece, this is the area for you!

For the record, it got to a high of +10c over the weekend, quite warm! I’m not kidding, after a week or two of close to zero or less, it’s funny how warm 10 feels. Well, not that warm…

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Posted in Downtown Vancouver, Shopping, Weather | No Comments »

Commercial Drive

Sunday, December 20th, 2009

We had dinner over on Commercial Drive last night before a Christmas Party in the area, which is an area that is an interesting mish-mash (or fusion, if you’re trendy) of cultures. When I was living in Vancouver last time, Commercial Drive was pretty seedy, and lots of homeless people hung around. Now, a lot more families and trendy types have moved in and the Drive has really become a great place to hang out, but there is still some of that seedy element around too, which helps to keep the area edgy.

Here’s a shot from near the place we ate at, and you can see the lights of Grouse Mountain in the background.

Commercial Drive would be one of our choice places to live in, as there are great shops and markets there, really cool pubs, bars and restaurants, and it can be quite a nice neighbourhood. Just make sure you don’t leave any valuables in the car.

The other great thing about Commercial Drive is that the residents around there are willing to celebrate just about anything, and the road is actually shut down reasonably regularly for various gatherings and festivals. Last year Nat & I attended the Parade of the Lost Souls, which was a fantastic night… hopefully we can go again next year after they officially took a year off this year.

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Posted in Downtown Vancouver, Shopping | No Comments »

Buying air travel in NA… Gaaaaaah!

Thursday, December 17th, 2009

We’re off to Mexico this Christmas. Woo hoo!

However, there sheer amount of screw arounds we’ve had to get this trip have been insane. Now I’m all for cheap flights, and I’m sure if we’d booked this through a travel agent, none of this would have happened, however I would still (more…)

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Posted in Musings, Shopping | 2 Comments »

Got your tickets?!

Tuesday, December 15th, 2009

Picked up my tickets for the Winter Olympics yesterday! Woo hoo!!

We’re off to see the ski jumping, curling, ice hockey and a medal ceremony… I checked the other day and you can still pick up tickets on Craigslist at reasonable prices, so I may have to invest in some of those too… luge or skeleton would be awesome, but I think it would be great to get out and check out anything. Hence we have curling tickets…

What would you want to go see, if you had tickets? They didn’t believe me when I told them that there was supposed to be some gold medal hockey tickets in with my pack too for some reason.

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Tags: Winter Olympics
Posted in Downtown Vancouver, Sport, Winter Olympics | 3 Comments »

Snow! Well, just a little.

Monday, December 14th, 2009

Just a weather update today – we’ve had the first snow of the season that’s actually stuck, although it’s a bit of a pitiful amount. Here’s a snapshot from my drive to work, some people protesting something or other in the background on a street corner.

It was rather cool in Gastown this evening though, the snow was starting to come down and you could check it out in the lights, with this shot being near the waterfront station, that’s the north shore you can only faintly see in the background.

They’re forecasting 6″ overnight, but I’m doubtful…

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Posted in Downtown Vancouver, scenery, Weather | 1 Comment »

Local skiing

Sunday, December 13th, 2009

We went skiing up at Cypress Mountain today, which is the furthest west of the three ski mountains on the north shore of Vancouver. Great day! Chopped up/groomed snow for the most part, but it was snowing all day so there were some powdery parts. For reasonably early season stuff, it was good. And to think that this is the mountain that is the furthest away from Vancouver while still local, and that it only took us about 25 minutes to get back downtown, including traffic, it’s pretty awesome.

Cypress is actually hosting some Winter Olympics events too, so they are prepping up their courses, which means that some sections of the hill are off limits. With that, I think it still has more skiable terrain than Grouse or Seymour. The others are good in their own right, Grouse Mt is good for beginners, Mount Seymour nice and intermediate, but Cypress makes for a more action packed day.

Anyhoo, I’m buggered, so here’s a pic I snapped from the carpark. Another guy will hopefully be sending me through some pics he snapped too, and I’ll update the post with those when I get them. This is of Black Mountain, which is one of two mountains you can ski on, with the other being Strachan Mt.

Oh, and Downtown Vancouver got it’s first settled snow of the year today too. Most of it is gone already with some patches hanging out, but I hear that the snow has been coming down out in Surrey… could be in for another snowy one this year!

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Posted in Greater Vancouver Area, Sport | No Comments »