VANCOUVER SIGHTSEEING

 

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What a heavy, but beautiful day behind us! The weather turned out to be rainy today so instead of Stanley Park we decided to do lil shopping and sightseeing in the downtown. Lot’s of walking, lot’s of!! The downtown of Vancouver is quite ”compact”, everything can be reached by feet and so far we haven’t used any public transportation. The city is so beautiful! It has great atmosphere and nice combo of new and old architecture.

Checked out the Olympic Torch, Gastown Steam Clock and Chinatown. Before heading to the city we were warned not go to one part of Chinatown, which is just full of homeless, drug users etc. Well, of course we got bit lost and found ourselves in the middle of that part. I gotta say, it was quite shocking. That’s really the other side of the coin. We were speechless for a moment and that made me think how big contrast there is compared to the nice parts of the city. Now gotta get some sleep, woke up at 4.30 this morning.

Plan for tomorrow: Capilano Suspension Bridge Park! Ohlalaa!!


Ekat turistikävelyt hoidettu ja aika paljon tullu nähtyä. Vancouver on todella kaunis kaupunki – mahtava sekoitus uutta ja vanhaa, ja kaikki aikalailla kävelymatkan päässä. Julkisia ei olla käytetty vielä kertaakaan. 


Kolikolla on tietysti myös kääntöpuolensa ja tänään olikin vähän kuumottavaa, kun eksyttiin sellaiselle alueelle mistä oli puhuttu aikaisemmin, että sinne ei välttämättä kannattais rynnätä. Kulman takaa iskikin kokonainen katu täynnä kodittomia, juoppoja ja muuten vaan laitatien kulkijoita. Oli aika pysäyttävää ainakin mulle, sillä tollasta ei kyllä Suomessa missään näe. No tulipahan nähtyä, saa taas perspektiiviä omaan elämään.


Löysin muuten aika hyvän kilpailijan Norisushille, aivan mahtavia californiamakeja Gastownissa! Ja hei mites no nigirit?! Huomenna olis suunnitelmissa vähän luontokikkailua Capilano Suspension Bridge Parkissa. On muuten sellanen paikka, että sinne ei varmaan darrassa kannata iskeä, hah! Check it out!

Kulttuuri Matkat

FIRST IMPRESSION

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So here I am, in Vancouver. Flight was long, but tolerable. I met two Italian guys, Emiliano and Niccolo (classic!) on the plane, they were sitting next to me. Since their English wasn’t that good, I helped them out with filling the landing cards required for Vancouver. It came out that they are also going to Whistler and will start working as ski/snowboard instructors. They spoke nearly no word of English, but they were both so cute and friendly, typical Italians. We went together thru immigration and I helped them out with translating and so on.  Decided to go riding together once we’ve all settled down in Whistler. Funny!

It’s 6am here, so apparently I’m suffering from jet lag, but it doesn’t really matter. So far everything here has been great. Yesterday I bumpeb into few Australians and to one Finnish girl (another classic!) in the hostel where I’m staying at the moment. They all are going to be working in Whistler, same as me, so we all had same stuff to be taken care of here in Vancouver in order to start working in Canada. It took the whole day to organize a Social Insurance Number, a cell number and bank account to all of us, but in the end of the day we made it through. Everything was extremely (e-x-t-r-e-m-e-l-y!) easy going and people in the offices have been so nice&friendly, it’s just amazing! We were all quite stoked about it. Not wondering anymore why so many people want to stay in Canada.

We finished our day with some beers in the bar downstairs. I think there was like ten Australians around the same table, most of them all are heading to Whistler. Today we’re planning to do some lil sightseeing in Stanley Park. We’re planning to rent bikes and cruise around in the park, should be really nice.

Haven’t seen so much of the city, but so far it looks very beautiful. It doesn’t feel like a big city at all, no ones rushing nowhere, there is no traffic jams, everything is very clean…And the people; did I mention already how nice everyone is? Hah! The only negative thing I can say so far is that there seems to be many homeless people in the streets, and that’s very sad. My taxi driver told me that a house/ flat prices here are just crazy. House prices are starting from $1.5million and in the westside (which should be like the nicest living area) the house prices are starting from $3.0 million. The price of a 50m2 flat with one bed room is $500.000 in downtown – insane!!

Will keep u posted!

Kulttuuri Matkat