We’ve been feeling a bit stressed and budgeting very hard recently, due to the (we hope) move that we are about to make to a house on the North Shore. Monkey decided to take me out on a date night to a nice restaurant using one of the coupons in the Entertainment Book - a great discount book which provides us with lots of 2-for-1 meal vouchers that allows us to afford to go to more expensive restaurants while still remaining within our budget.

To cut costs further, we had a bottle of wine at home beforehand (a German Riesling called Devil’s Rock - a new, inexpensive favourite of ours) then headed to Griffins at the Farimont Hotel on Georgia Street. All of their entrees are pretty expensive but they all include a dessert buffet (which you can also have on its own). Monkey had the prime rib with yorkshire pudding and mashed potatoes and I had the evening special surf and turf (5 oz tenderloin and a skewer of 5 prawns) with blue cheese potato parfait. Both dishes were delicious - the meat, especially, was perfectly cooked and so tasty. The dessert buffet had a lot of options - cheesecake, double chocolate mousse, fruit mousse cake, little macadamia nut treacle tarts, fig tart, profiteroles, chocolate and cointreau gateaux, cookies, creme caramel, chocolate bread pudding, fresh fruit and meringue cake - all of which were nice enough but nothing special. We were so full from the main course anyway that we didn’t need much dessert, but we tried to have a tast of each. In conclusion we give the restaurant a big thumbs up for the entrees but wish that there was an option NOT to have the dessert buffet included in the price. My surf and turf would have been much more appealing at $34 as opposed to $42!

The date night went well - we got chatting to a lady at the table next to us and she commented that we looked so good together that she thought we were newly married! Well, I guess technically we are still newly-weds, but having been together for almost 8 years now I’m not sure that terminology applies!

Further to my blog post of July last year about Grizzly bears starting to arrive on Vancouver Island for the first time, I read an interesting article in the Spring 2009 edition of British Columbia magazine this week. It appears that more grizzlies were spotted over the summer and that instead of trapping and shooting them, like I thought would happen, the grizzlies will be a protected species on Vancouver Island. The population of black bears are certainly not going to like the intrusion onto their territory but wildlife experts say that because this appears to be a natural phenomonon, we should just let nature take its course for now and review any problems that may arise as they arise.

I can’t post the British Columbia magazine article, but here’s a December 2008 Vancouver Sun article on the same topic:

Vancouver Sun Article

I found it very interesting to note that grizzly bears have mated with polar bears in the past, but not ever with black bears. Considering black bears and grizzly bears live in close proximity to each other in areas like the Kootenays I thought that some cross-breeding would have occurred.

The current economic climate is hitting the tourism business pretty hard, with American tourism way down and businesses needing to cost-cut. Tourism Vancouver alone has laid off 20% of its staff.

News article here.

Not good news with the Winter Olympics in Vancouver only a year away, when all these businesses thought they were going to cash in big time. However, the tourism sector is expected to recover towards the end of the year with the Olympics providing a big boost - see article here.

I wrote in a previous post that I had had a hard time finding a curry in Vancouver that in any way compared to my experience of eating curry in the UK. As I have recently come back from the UK and some curry tasting I am pleased to report that I have now found a place that serves the best curry in Vancouver, in my opinion.

It was a beautiful sunny day last Sunday and we had 3 or 4 hours to spare in the late morning/early afternoon before we had to do some viewings on our house, so we took a quick drive over to Ambleside village in West Vancouver - an area of shops and restaurants alongside Ambleside Park and Beach.

We sat on the beach for a long time just people watching, soaking up the unusual February sun and taking in the views of Lion’s Gate Bridge, Stanley Park, the UBC peninsula and, because it was such a clear day, the snow-capped peaks of Vancouver Island in the distance.

We eventually tore ourselves away from the relaxation in order to find something to eat and our first and only stop was Handi Cuisine of India, who were offering a “eat all you want Kabob buffet” for $11.95. We’d heard good things about this place and at that price we figured we couldn’t go wrong, and we were absolutely right! The buffet consisted of chicken tikka, tandoori chicken and shish kabobs along with mixed vegetable curry, palak paneer, dhal, butter chicken, rice, naan and salads. It must have been the best quality meat I’d ever had in an Indian restaurant and everything was spiced just right. The chicken tikka was absolutely amazing - so juicy and tender and it was the first time that I actually enjoyed butter chicken in any restaurant in any country. The palak paneer was one of the best I’d ever tasted as well and the naan was soft and fluffy. For dessert they offered some gulab jaman which, again, were the best I’d ever tasted - so light and fresh and sweet.

A definite two thumbs up for this place - we are sure to return, as Ambleside is such a nice place to hang out in the summer anyway.

The snow has finally gone in downtown Vancouver, although it still persists on residential sidewalks over higher ground where it has frozen solid, making pedestrians’ lives difficult. The weather was warming up, we were forecast clear sunny days all week but instead we have been subjected to a few days worth of lingering low-lying fog which is unlike I’ve ever seen in the city. I feel like I”ve been transported to San Francisco but somebody forgot to turn the heat up. It gives the city a special sort of mystic atmosphere but it feels really cold and damp!

We were in North Vancouver on Saturday and it was gorgeous and sunny there as it is well above sea level, but you couldn’t see downtown at all over the other side of the water. It was amazing how different the weather was just a few kilometres away. Apparently it got up to a balmy 12 degrees on top of the mountains.

Alas, I don’t have any of my own photographs to share so I am sharing somebody else’s - most of these are from this flickr website.

The unthinkable has happened. When we moved to Canada we had to constantly tell people that it wasn’t all a land of snow and ice, that Vancouver and the coast was actually really mild, with very little snowfall but plenty of rain in winter. However, Vancouver is currently experiencing a long period of sub-zero temperatures and huge dumps of snow unlke anything that the city has seen in decades. The last few days the temperature has struggled to get above -5C during the day, when it is usually hovering at about +5C at  this time of year. With the arctic wind blowing it feels much colder. The snow is coming down horizontally and diagonally in fine, powdery form which is settling fast. And I’m not just enduring it, I’m loving it! I never thought I could cope with living in a colder climate, but I have learned that although I don’t like being cold I love the cold. I would also like to boast that despite walking around in the snow and ice a fair bit this last week, I haven’t slipped and fallen over - yet!

I have dressed in layers and felt very snug throughout the entire period, when everyone else has been shivering and saying “Brrrr” a lot. The first time that word left my lips was on Friday night when we were walking around in -10 degree C weather and my cheeks and nose started going a bit numb. It is heartening to know that, with a balaclava, I could quite happily live in a place where winter temperatures hover around the -20C mark - it opens up lots more possibilities of places to retire to! The problem is that all those places that are usually as cold as Vancouver is now are even colder at the moment - it’s really is coast-to-coast snow and ice and Arctic temperatures right now and it is expected to be the first coast-to-coast white Christmas since 1971.

Edit: December 22, 2008. OK, it can stop snowing now! It was a bit of a hassle getting to work. Never having experienced much snow before I was caught a little off-guard when I cut diagonally across the road in front of my apartment as usual and came across a 2 foot pile of snow between me and the sidewalk. So I had to follow the road around until I could find an entry point onto the sidewalk. Following the channels created in the sidewalk by the nice people who had shovelled it proved rather frustrating in that they are so narrow that you cannot overtake slow-moving people. Hence I missed the bus by 5 seconds. Then I was late, the next bus was really crowded and when I got off there was no where to step except into a pile of snow up to my knee!

All fun and games. I wish I had my camera this morning though as the view eastwards down the Georgia Viaduct with the pale sun rising next to a gleaming, silver Science World framed by big powdery piles of snow on either side and NO CARS was just gorgeous.

On the odd occasion that we want to surround ourselves in Britishness we have tried to locate a British-style pub in Vancouver, and we have almost always been disappointed. Many of the bars are just humble sports bars that serve a few British items on their menu - SOHO and The Dover Arms on Denman street are very good examples of this style of bar.

Of course there are many different styles of pub in Britain and so it is hard to pin down exactly what makes a pub feel British. I would say that there are three main types of British pubs -

1. the traditional pub that serves a good range of real ale and maybe whisky but has a very limited wine and spirits list. The bartender is usually the landlord or landlady and will laugh in your face if you order anything other than a pint of beer or cider, a glass of red or white wine, or a shot of liquor with or without a mixer. These places are small, cozy, often dark and in old buildings with plenty of seating and the locals have been going for years and years and years. Entertainment consists of good old-fashioned talking, along with one or more of darts, pool, bar billiards, table football and a pub quiz. Music, if there is any, is quiet and chosen by the landlord or a local’s request or, in rare cases, a jukebox. Food is usually home-cooked and cheap - whatever can be prepared ahead of time and heated up - lots of soups, chilli, stews, pasta, curry etc. Quite often has a nice little beer garden for the sunny days.
2. Wine bars/chain pubs that focus on wine and cocktails, having a huge bar full of spirits, a long wine and bottled beer list but normally only offering European lager and one or two English brewed bitters on tap. Usually they are large, bright, modern, nicely decorated spaces with not much seating - these places are normally very crowded and full of people standing up, milling around or sitting down at a table drinking pitchers of cocktails. Loud up-tempo music, chosen by the many bar staff, is normally the only entertainment, unless there is a sporting event on in which case it is shown on large TVs. These places are normally patronized by young(ish) people getting drunk before heading to the next pub or a club, though some have dance floors themselves and basically turn into clubs after 10 p.m. Food is normally fairly good and cheap but mass produced - fish and chips, burgers and pasta dishes, and deep-fried things.
3. Family pubs and gastropubs, usually with a big garden, serving a good mix of drinks but focusing more on food. Often the same size as chain pubs and wine bars, but with more traditional decor and more seating. These sort of pubs are pretty much exactly a cross of the other 2 categories, with a total mix of patrons to match. There are usually a couple of pool tables and maybe a darts board, quiet music playing, sports events on TV but a much less rowdy atmosphere than the wine bars.

There are also many pubs/bars that are an exact cross between categories 2 and 3.

There are 3 pubs in downtown Vancouver that remind me of British pub chains - two of which (Rosie’s, The Lions) remind me of more expensive Wetherspoons with music and less choice of drink, and one (Elephant and Castle) reminds me of a Hogshead. The Cheshire Cheese Inn in Kerrisdale is quite like a British family pub, but I’m clutching at straws here! Really there is no comparison - Canadian bars are very Canadian, whatever their style, and the fact that you nearly always must have table service and a tab, that you can’t just buy a beer at the bar and wander around freely is the biggest difference at all. The next biggest difference is that there are always lots of TVs in Canadian bars showing different sports, and the third biggest difference is that you are usually expected and encouraged to eat a meal when you are drinking - if you go into a British pub after 6 O’clock you are not presented with a menu - you have to ask for it!

So, I am giving up on trying to find a British pub in Vancouver because I don’t think one exists and I know that I’ll never feel the specialness of being part of a lock-in again. On the plus side many of the Irish-style pubs are very well done and really hit the mark and there is always the WISEhall, which is very much like the traditional sports and social houses, or clubhouses, that are provided for various company employees in the UK. I must also visit the ANZA club at some point as it seems like it is extremely similar to the WISE, except founded by Aussies and Kiwis rather than Welsh, Irish, Scots, and English.

We drove to Telegraph Cove to book a kayaking tour of Johnstone Strait the next day and to our surprise and delight we spotted Willie Mitchell (one of our favourite Canucks players) sitting in the early morning sun, chatting to some fellow about babies and what not. I kind of smiled at him as we walked to the main Telegraph Cove office but I doubt he saw. I was determined not to get all star-struck like Monkey was (look who it is! Look who it is!!!!) so I just ignored him on the way out of the office, and we went to book our kayaking tour with the operator.

When we walked back to the car, he was still sitting there with his wife and dogs so Monkey decided that he wasn’t going to let this opportunity pass us by and he got his camera out and headed towards Willie to ask if he wouldn’t mind having his picture taken with us. He’s a nice guy so he obliged, his wife took a couple of pictures for us and we made some small talk about being on honeymoon and loving the North Island and Monkey told him I was his biggest fan and that he often saw him jogging round the seawall (read: once saw him jogging round the seawall) and how we lived by GM Place and what huge hockey fans we have become since moving to Canada.

I wanted to chat with him but I kind of clammed up, because really I know nothing about him other than hockey, and being the off-season I didn’t think it appropriate to ask any hockey-related questions. I also felt a bit awkward bothering him in the first place since he was on vacation himself - I’m sure he’s used to that type of thing, but still, I wouldn’t like it myself. Anyway, awkwardness aside it was lovely to meet him and shake his hand and tell him that we really enjoy watching him play. With all the changes on the roster and the departure this year of our captain Markus Naslund and alternate captains Brendan Morrison and Trevor Linden, we hope that Willie will become the new captain. He was a warrior last season and we hope to see more of the same this year, hopefully with a better end result!

Need to work on that stomach!

The day has finally arrived; I’m getting married this evening! I feel very happy and remarkably calm, although just had a panic moment when I discovered that I was locked into my room at my parents’ house this morning. I thought they were trying to tell me something, but it turned out just to be that the door is old and the handle/lock gets stuck - they were one side of the door furiously trying to get the doorknob to turn, and I was the other side practically pulling it off in desperation! I got out in the end though, and hope that there will be no more problems today.

I’ll be going on honeymoon for about 3 weeks from tomorrow, so will be taking a hiatus from blog-writing. I’m sure I will have plenty to write about when I get back regarding my travels in BC - we’ve been looking forward to this road trip for so long and will be visiting some beautiful places that have been on our “to visit” list for a long time.

This weekend I was feeling really tired so I could only manage to walk down the road and back. Luckily for me, just down the road is Gastown which was chock a block full of people and free live jazz acts to while away a Sunday afternoon with. During the International Jazz Festival there are hundreds of acts in town - many of them you have to pay for but there are daily free concerts too.

We started off by listening to a bit of Out To Lunch while going out to lunch (yes, really) at Sitar. Then we camped out at the Gassy Jack statue in order to catch the next act on stage - The Coat Cooke Trio. There was a sax, a double bass and a drum set and the warming up sounded OK. SO said to me “The trouble with modern jazz is that you don’t know when the warm up ends and the music begins”. Then the band were introduced properly and the alarm bells started ringing with the mention of “director of the improv orchestra”. Then it began. My god, it was painful - 3 instruments playing 3 different tunes, none of them melodic and none of them in time with each other to even discern a rhythm. I’m sorry, but modern improv jazz is just as terrible as modern art in my eyes - I like to see or hear a thing of beauty in creative endeavours. Just call me old-fashioned.

We left abruptly and went to the Lamplighter pub instead - it used to be a dodgy place but they have renovated it well, and as soon as we walked in we felt a wave of joy. The Ale Stars were playing some lively swing jazz and young couples were dancing between the pool tables while the regular customers played fusball. It was a wonderful atmosphere and the band were great and a lot of fun - I hope to see them again on Canada Day when they play at Granville Island.

We missed two festivals this weekend because of my tiredness - The Dragon Boat Festival took place on False Creek just a stone’s throw from our apartment, and the Greek Day festival took place at Kits. I was really peeved that I missed the Greek festival as I didn’t know it was on last year either until it was too late. Next year I shall make it a priority to go.

There are so many festivals and free events going on in Vancouver in the summer that you’ve really got to keep on top of the diary if you want to experience what the city is about. Last weekend we missed out on Vancouver’s Car Free Day which took place in four neighbourhoods, all close by (we were nursing our stag/stagette hangovers). At the beginning of the month we missed the latest In The House festival - where various bands/dance troupes etc perform in people’s living rooms.

Some of the many Vancouver festivals are listed here and here