The blondest in British Columbia

Determined to spend only 2 minutes, entertaining myself watching the water go down the sink counterclockwise instead of clockwise I set out of explore Vancouver on Sunday 28 January. More peasouper fog and if I could've ate it , I would've. Instead, I spent the day exploring downtown Vancouver after visiting an excellent diner which screened old Warner Bros cartoons and where the waitresses seemed engaged in an intricate and rhythmic dance of serving coffee, keeping up a steady patter with the patrons, clearing tables etc. The service ethic in North America is excellent, as it was in Hawaii and the Aussies could learn a lot from them. They are only equalled by some of the staff I worked with at Tosolinis and the Hyatt during my student days, where discipline was tight.

Smoked salmon is popular and plentiful in British Columbia and one of the major primary industries. Hooray!

Unfortunately I had been overly optimistic that I would (a) be able to get over my jet lag in order to make it to church where my pastor back home has a friend and (b) that I would be able to find it in time for a service that morning, so that didn't happen.

When the fog eventurally cleared (1.30 pm) my jaw dropped on the pavement.

Massive snow covered mountains between buildings in the distance. Absolutely amazing. I can see why Vancouver was picked for the Winter 2010 Olympics. Modern city with spectacular vistas, bordered on several sides by water. The city is wonderful and has great potential. However, it needs to clean up its act. Granville St is one of the main streets and instead of looking like Martin Place or even George St, it looks like Kings Cross. Not the cleaned up Kings Cross. The old one, with beggars calling to people on every corner and drug addicts and dealers in alleys (which I didn't go down). The homeless are everywhere and no sign of any charity workers helping them. The version I hear is that the federal of provincial governments bus down extra homeless from Edmonton and Calgary in the winter so they don't die on the streets from the cold. Just neglect.

I went for a walk down to where they are building a massive convention site on the waterfront for the games and also to Gastown, the old part of town where you can buy a cuddly black bear in a mountie uniform, your Olympic merchandise or some "BC Bud" marijuana from one of the more fragrant cafes in the area. People were very friendly and generously helped me with directions when I asked. What was a little surprising was that I was the only blonde I saw that day. The face of Canada in that part of the country is significantly South East Asian. Filipino, Japanese, Cantonese, you name it. Vancouver was a very multicultural city and I stuck out. And I had a marvellous day. Given the choice between shopping at Sears, I went chasing the mountains with my camera to the Harbourfront.

I was in good comapny as there were many Japanese tourists doing the same thing and asking me to take their pictures for them. After doing this for so many years in various parts of the world, it was payback time for me. I managed to physically get in a few of my own photos thanks to a little reciprocal persuasion.