Vancouver 1

Yes, yes i referred to myself as a 'scientist' - stop your giggling! Also my wanderings aren't entirely random, since I'm here for a conference (two actually). Now that I think of it 'great white north' is a line from a song/comedy sketch rather than an actual nickname, so I guess it's not a very accurate title after all. Whatever, you're here, let's begin. Are you sitting comfortably? (my god I can't stop with the references!)

I'm flown to Vancouver on work but I've managed to get a little bit of free time during which I plan to do my usual highly organised wandering around the city. Being not quite the 3-week adventure my that my trip to Japan was (ha! a self-reference) this might turn out to be less of a coherent story and more of an arbitrary set of observations; but hopefully the observations will be of mild interest.

haha haha ... no

Anyway the first thing interesting thing I noticed after arriving and checking in at my hotel was a poster beside the lift explaining that the Canadian penny is being phased out. A very logical move I think and if you don't know why feel free to check out C.G.P.Grey's awesome video explanation.

After dropping off my stuff I went for a wander around downtown Vancouver. Like most cities it has its pretty angles and its not so pretty angles. But since no one wants to see pictures of cranes (okay maybe not "no one") I've opted to mislead you with the full power of my Canon Ixus 75 digital camera!

view from the bridge over Granville island

... and another

Granville street

The Vancouver Convention Centre looks kind of like a ship

The city itself is laid out like a regular grid which confers some advantages: buses stop at intersections (so you know pretty accurately where you will end up just by the name) and traffic lights for vehicles and pedestrians follow an alternating pattern where at any given time everyone can travel either north-south or east-west.

Among the pedestrians I've noticed there's a pretty large proportion of Japanese, but otherwise Vancouver is, as most big western cities are, pretty ethnically diverse. Which is a really great thing for dining options! I even found a small place which advertises the sale of both pizza and lahmacun (though they spelt it phonetically); which is possibly the first time I've seen an establishment recognise that such a distinction exists. After a brief visit to the Vancouver Lookout Tower I went to find my dinner and settled on a Japanese restaurant with actual plastic food outside!!!

Vancouver Lookout Tower

Like Tokyo except the labels are missing cryptic symbols.

It's return-of-the-pretense-that-this-is-not-a-food-blog! I was feeling very hungry so I went for Salmon Toro Zushi and a seafood okonomiyaki with the classic beer-edamame combination (just for the sake of nostalgia). The sushi was amazing but the okonomiyaki had a heavy cake-like texture to it. I was also slightly disappointed that a spoon seemed to be the only appropriate implement for eating it with, but I guess I had my hopes too high.

Some rather well presented sushi

After this I began to feel the jet lag creeping up on me and headed back to hotel to crash. So ended day 1!

Bonus photos:

Perhaps it is unfair of me to begrudge a sex shop its poor command of grammar.