Through My Lens: Lunch Break
Last summer, these delightful giant pillows lay on Robson Street, directly in front of the Vancouver Art Gallery. This summer, they found a new home in front of UBC’s Koerner Library. They’re called Pop Rocks. Their fabric was recycled from the old sails at Canada Place (which were replaced in 2010), and they were stitched together by a local sail maker.
I wonder how many lunch-time naps they’ve witnessed?
Through My Lens: Pride in Davie Village
Davie Village has been adorned the past few weeks with more rainbow flags than usual. They’re in celebration of Pride Week, which culminates every summer on the Sunday of the August long weekend, when Western Canada’s largest Pride Parade takes place.
The most spectacular rainbow flag I’ve seen this summer is this one, at the intersection of Davie and Bute. It’s permanent, and a cheerful addition to the neighbourhood.
Sunny July
Only in Vancouver would 34 consecutive days of sunshine make the day’s biggest news story. But that’s what happened yesterday. Vancouver received 411 hours of sunshine in July, and it was the first calendar month ever (since Environment Canada started tracking weather data) where we didn’t get a drop of the wet stuff.
Today, the weather’s back to normal: grey skies and the threat of rain. Despite the cooling temperatures, a campfire ban covering almost the entire province went into effect yesterday. I don’t remember there being campfire bans when I was growing up in (sunny) Alberta, but, ironically, now that I live in a rainforest, they are routine.
Vancouver International Jazz Festival
I once had a home exchange offer from a couple in San Francisco who wanted to attend the Vancouver International Jazz Festival. The timing didn’t work for me so I had to turn down the offer, but I was so pleased to find out that our Jazz Fest attracts people all the way from California.
The festival got its start during Expo 86, and has been held every year since. It’s now Canada’s second-largest jazz festival (second only to Montreal). Some 300 performances (half are free), some 1800 performers, and almost half a million spectators enjoy some of the best music to be heard in Vancouver.
Jazz Fest is always held the last ten days of June ― just in case you want to put it on your calendar for next year.
Through My Lens: Kits Pool
It’s summer ― though you wouldn’t know it by the temperature outside. No, I’m not talking about today’s weather, but the date.
Today is the first day of the May Long Weekend, officially known as the Victoria Day weekend. It’s the weekend when Canadians traditionally open up the cottage or go off on their first camping weekend of the summer.
In Vancouver, it’s also opening weekend for our collection of outdoor swimming pools. Which is why I’m posting a photo of Kitsilano Pool.
Kits Pool is 137.5 m long, making it the longest pool in Canada, and is the only salt-water pool in Vancouver. It’s located alongside Kitsilano Beach.
Cruising Season
Yup, it’s that time of year. The cruising season is upon us here in Vancouver.
A cruise ship sails out of Vancouver’s Burrard Inlet, with Washington’s Mount Baker in the distance.
The first ship arrived on April 18, but the season didn’t really kick into high gear until this week with the arrival and departure of 13 ships in eight days. From now until the end of September, between five and seven ships will dock in Vancouver every week, with each ship staying just long enough to offload its passengers and get the next bunch safely on board.
It’s rush hour — three cruise ships leave Canada Place within an hour of each other.
A total of 17 cruise ships will be based in Vancouver this season, setting sail each week for Alaska. Their route takes them through the Inside Passage along BC’s coast. Later this afternoon, I’ll be boarding one of those ships, but my destination is nowhere near as exotic as Alaska. I’m headed south — to Seattle.
Holland America has five ships based in Vancouver this season.
Through My Lens: September
As much as I love to travel, I always love to be home again. Especially after a longer time away.
I was gone for six weeks this time, what with my house-sitting stint in Burnaby and my mad dash around the Eastern Time Zone. Now I’m back in my own space, in my own neighbourhood, enjoying all that I love about work and play in Vancouver.
Both this year and last, Vancouver endured a miserably cold, wet spring, but a fabulously long and hot summer. The highs this past week were an incredible 27°Celsius ― that’s warm for Vancouver at any time of the summer, but almost ten degrees above normal for late September. And so, everyone is spending as much time outdoors as possible; the beaches, the parks, and the seawall are filled with people enjoying the last gasp of summer. We all know it won’t last much longer.
Fort Tryon Park
On my third day in New York City, I discovered another of the city’s great parks: Fort Tryon Park. My friend and I went there to see The Cloisters (which I’ll write more about in another post), but also to meet up with some friends of my friend. They live near the park, which is in Washington Heights.
We enjoyed a picnic lunch and watched their children play. It was a lovely way to spend a summer afternoon in New York City.
New York dog walkers in Fort Tryon Park
George Washington Bridge and the Hudson River from Fort Tryon Park
Deer Lake Park
The other day I wrote that, during my time hanging out in Solo, I’ve discovered a few of Burnaby’s treasures ― delightful treasures that redeem some of the annoying and ugly aspects of suburban living. Deer Lake Park is one such treasure.
A friend introduced me to Deer Lake Park one afternoon about a week ago. Her townhouse complex backs onto the 500-acre park, so you could say the park is right in her backyard. We walked a loop around the park and I took some photos of the lake. Here are a few of them.
Deer Lake Park is a park for all seasons and I intend to come back to explore it some more.
Hanging Out in Solo
While my sister and her husband are busy eating, drinking, and loving their way around Italy, I’ve been on house-sitting duty. House sitting, I’m discovering, is an awful lot like home exchanging: it gives me a chance to enjoy the perks of someone else’s home for a while, and the opportunity to explore a new neighbourhood. The only difference between this round of house sitting and my previous home exchanges is that, if I need something from home, I can easily go get it.
The perks this time are pretty good. I have an enormous south-facing backyard all to myself, with a covered patio, a Rolls-Royce of barbecues, and an herb garden. Beyond that, there’s a back 40 filled with bushes dripping with almost-ripe blackberries. The herb garden has to be watered daily, as does a forest of small trees belonging to my brother-in-law. And then there are the six cats (two of them my own) who need to be fed and watered twice a day. I feel like I’m playing farmer, what with all these animals, crops, and chores, but hey, it’s summertime, and it’s pretty heavenly.
The neighbourhood, on the other hand? Not so heavenly. I’m in North Burnaby, in an area some developers are starting to call Solo ― that’s SOuth of LOugheed. (Go ahead, laugh. I did.) The subdivision where I am temporarily lodged is sandwiched between two highways: Lougheed (with the elevated SkyTrain running above it) and the Trans-Canada. That means I’m listening to the constant white noise of freeway traffic to the south, and the intermittent whirr of the SkyTrain to the north.
North Burnaby is not that attractive, in other words. It’s one mall after another, one industrial park after another, one arterial road after another. I loathe the whole car culture that is necessary here; I know it’s no different from any other North American suburb, but it’s what I hate most about suburbia and why I choose to live downtown. The other day I used a drive-through ATM for the first time in my life, and felt strangely defeated by doing so.
However, spend enough time in a neighbourhood and eventually, somewhere, somehow, you begin to discover its treasures. Burnaby has a few that are simply delightful, which I’ll write about in another post. For now, I will remind you (my faithful readers) and myself that the intent of this blog is to take a second look at our surroundings ― whether beautiful or mundane. And I’ll leave you with a photo of some marvellous engineering. After all, there is beauty in that, too, right?
SkyTrain tracks snaking their way east above Lougheed Highway
There and Back Again 