Notes from BC

This afternoon we drove 40 minutes east to Aldergrove so we could visit the Greater Vancouver Zoo. Aldergrove is a smallish place in the township of Langley and is only about 15 minutes away from the USA border. The ride over was very easy, it was nearly highway 1 the whole way and we got there way before we expected. The ticket prices were good, only $18 each (it was advertised at $20 but I assume they've dropped it slightly for the winter). You can also purchase an optional $5 train ride around the park too but we decided not to go on it as it's more for little kids and families. Not long after we arrived they fed the lions which was quite entertaining and it's the first time I've seen the animals up really close because usually at other places you can't get so near to the fences.

Although they still had animals like lions, tigers and giraffes the place seemed different to other zoo's we've visited before and it made sense when we found out that it actually started off as a game farm in the 1960's. In terms of an actual Zoo I'd say others we've visited in the UK such as Twycross and Blackpool are better, but it's nice in it's own way and it was still a good place to walk around. Also with it being a lot cooler weather now most of the animals weren't very active which is fair enough but they didn't have any indoor areas to view which was a shame. I also thought there was a lack of information on the animals except for small noticeboards (for example there were no gamekeepers or anyone to talk to except the person who fed the lions at the beginning). So it was good but not fantastic, I'd probably give it a 6 out of 10 if I had to rate the place. I guess one thing to keep is mind is the question I've read in books "when you're in a place that already has so much natural beauty and wildlife why do you need to visit a zoo?". One thing that was good was seeing more animals from the americas such as Cougars, Jaguars, Elks, Artic Foxes, Bisons, Coyotes etc. We would visit this place again the future but we'd probably wait until we were with people who had children or in the future when we might have some of our own (and that's definitely not on the immediate horizon!).

We spent just over 3 hours there before we left and we then went to find something to eat. We'd forgot to take lunch with us so we went for fast food, we're never short of options here when we decide to go that route! We tried a Wendy's for the first time which was nice and then we made our way home unfortunately not missing the rush hour traffic back. We're now just about to sit down and watch the Canucks vs Detroit, hopefully it will be a 4th win in a row!

                               

On Thursday afternoon we drove to the top of Queen Elizabeth Park to visit the Bloedel Floral Conservatory which (so I've read) is home to 500 species of plants, 100 species of birds and plenty of koi carp. We didn't count but it certainly seemed like those numbers were pretty accurate. The park is only a 10 minute ride from our house (in normal traffic) and it's quite easy to get to, I think it's still classed as Burnaby though I'm not 100% sure [Edit : I've since found it's actually classed as Vancouver]. The conservatory was built in 1969 after a generous donation to the park board from Prentice Bloedel, hence how it got it's name. It's a nice place to walk around and especially good to visit on a chilly day because it's nice and warm inside! You have to pay to get in but it is only $4.80 so it's very reasonable. We spent over an hour inside walking around taking in photos and getting very close to some of the parrots. One African Grey we came across was just walking along the path amongst the visitors and she didn't mind people getting close up to her. Lou was in photographer mode and took plenty of good photos, some of which I've included with this post.

                           

Today was officially the first day of Autumn, but surprisingly it was a really nice 26°c outside! Lou finished a little earlier than usual from training at work so we thought we'd make the most of it and head down to the beach in the early evening. We went to what is known as 'Spanish Bank', which is quite large and split into three sub-sections. We went to to Spanish Bank East which overlooks the city. Apparently the first european explorers of this particular area were Spanish and the beach got it's name after the English led by George Vancouver met the Spanish lead by Galiano and Valdés in June 1792. 

                 

It's been jokingly pointed out to me by a friend that it seems like I'm becoming a "transport geek", highlighting the fact I mention buses, cars and specifically the SkyTrain a lot in this blog. Well, it's not something I wasn't aware of - I've noticed it myself! The thing is Vancouver has great public transport (I joke that it's sometimes just a shame about the 'public' part) and also it has a decent road system. I can't help mention it a lot because it's so important in getting around and exploring this place. Some of the people who've been living here for years don't necessarily think it's too great but when you've come from somewhere in the UK (outside of London) you can't help but notice is a lot more efficient and better run here. There are always (mostly negative) articles about the public transport in 'The Province' newspaper, and I agree it's not perfect but it is a lot better than anything we've ever been used to. 

     

On my home from downtown (Granville Station) I managed to get the front seat on the SkyTrain so I recorded the journey to Joyce Station. I've speeded up the video so it it's not too long, it's usually a 15 minute journey but I've condensed it down to under 2 minutes.

Apologies for the time delay between recent posts, I've not been able to keep up with updating this blog daily. The job search is occupying lots of my time at the moment but more of an issue for me is the scorching hot weather which is making it hard to sit down for extended periods of time to write! It really is hot, hot, hot! 

Over the weekend there have been severe forest fires in Kelowna. Many people had been evacuated from their homes but thankfully some have been able to return now, unfortunately though some haven't been quite so lucky. Kelowna is about a 4+ hour drive from us so we haven't directly seen anything related to it but unsurprisingly it has dominated the news out here.
 
Our own weekend was reasonably quiet, we didn't do anything too outstanding to be honest. On Saturday we went downtown for a short while in the afternoon and then on Sunday we went out for dinner before spending most of the time at home catching up with a few things paperwork-wise. The weather has continued to be scorching hot each day and the fan that we got the other week has paid for itself about a hundred times over. Most days it is hitting the 30's so we try to avoid being outdoors around 2pm, usually opting for a nice air conditioned place around that time before continuing on with our day. Nearly every local is still telling us to make the most of the sun whilst it is here as they know full well what Vancouver's most famous attribute is - rain! We've still not been down to any of the beaches yet but we want to go when it's just a touch cooler than it is right now as otherwise I might end up doing the typical lobster thing.
 
Today Lou went to the gym for the first time as she now has all the correct attire and no more excuses left! Lou said she felt tired when she got back but felt good for doing it and she now aims to go each day or at least every other day. I'm not going to make any bold predictions regarding myself but I'd like to get in the habit of going down at least 3 times a week especially with it being included in the rent and being very close to home. In the afternoon we went to Brentwood to see if we could get some furniture like a proper desk and some accompanying chairs. We've been to the Pacific Mall downtown, and Metropolis at Metrotown far too much recently so we wanted to go somewhere a bit different just for a change! On our way to Brentwood we got off at Gilmore as we'd noticed a Home Depot place (like B&Q) as we rode by, but that ended up being wasted time as they didn't have anything we were looking for. We managed to get two fold out chairs and a small fold up table from Zealers (like a Wilkinsons / Woolworths place) in Brentwood, they are a slight step up from the cardboard boxes I had been using as a desk! Carrying them back on the SkyTrain was a bit of a hassle again, but we're becoming a bit thick skinned to it now. We also had a speculative look around at some cars as there were a few dealers close to the mall that we were visiting. Second hand cars are very expensive out here, and they definitely keep their value a lot more than the UK - especially (it seems) if it's a Toyota which is what we'd been hoping to get. This hasn't come as a complete surprise to us as we'd researched it before but it still makes our choices a bit harder and the options a bit limited. It's safe to say we will probably end up with a 'run around' initially as for something which I'd say is semi decent will cost about $10,000 here.
 
 From 4pm onwards I've been concentrating on the job search and sending out my resumé to some more places, it's early days yet but I'm still feeling positive something will happen sooner rather than later. Tomorrow and the majority of the week will be mainly more of the same for me (with a bit of football in between like last week) so I'll apologize in advance if there's a lack of interesting blog posts.

Tuesday was another day of rain, this time shower spells were a little more common than Monday. It wasn't heavy rain though but we had purchased umbrella's well in advance as that's a well known essential for living in Vancouver! It's no longer possible to see the tops of the mountains as they have now been covered by fog, and from the weather reports it looks like the weather will be like this for a few days. A few locals have been complaining about the weather, as you do, but it still isn't annoying us that much. We're really appreciating the cool weather and having a break from the heat to be honest, it's just like the UK at the moment.
 
Mid-morning we headed back to Collingwood on the Skytrain, going past our new apartment on the way (whilst wishing we could move in right then, oh well only 2 more sleeps until we can). We walked to our new bank to pick up some temporary cheques as a full cheque book will take a while to receive. We'll need these for paying our rent as they don't seem to be keen on debit payments for some reason and prefer pre-dated cheques. After visiting the bank we then explored the area a little further and discovered there are lots of Chinese and Korean stores, takeaways a supermarket and a couple of beauty salons much to Lou's relief. After more walking around we headed to a insurance broker (very common) to sort out home contents cover ($300) which we needed to have before we're allowed to move into the apartment. Whilst we were there we also got an estimate for some car insurance - $3,300 or £2,100 if we have a letter to prove we have no claims built up in the UK, luckily we did expect it to be pretty steep but it still is pretty shocking! We're just glad we already planned on getting one car and sharing it.
 
In the evening we stayed in the hotel just watching TV and doing some further research on our laptops whilst watching local news. There's been a bit of drama in BC over the last couple of days, there was a assault on a young girl in Surrey, an armed robbery in Stanley Park (very uncommon, and on the same day we intended to be there!), a racial attack in Courtenay and some protesting by homeless people in False Creek. When you hear of these things it seems quite strange because when you are walking around it visually seems pretty safe, I guess it's like any big place though and you always have to be wary, alert and aware of your surroundings. Talking of TV we're not really missing much at the moment, we've realized most of the programs we watch are American anyway and are just as easily accessible in Canada, probably more so. The only thing I'm missing TV-wise is Sky Sports News and Real Madrid TV especially during the Cristiano Ronaldo presentation the other day, it wasn't the same following it online. I've signed up for cable TV from Shaw and when they install it next week I will have TSN, Sportsnet and Gol TV which I'm led to believe will show plenty of football. Waking up for kick-offs at 8am will certainly be unique and it'll be cool in a way because the rest of the day will be left clear.

After what seems like an eternity of traveling we have finally got to Vancouver safe and sound. Our morning began at 5am BST when our alarm woke us up, we'd had little sleep that night before (maybe 2-3 hours) as we had so much on our minds it was hard to relax. We left Coventry at 6am and arrived at London Gatwick about 8:15am (it was better arriving early than rushing around last minute as you can never predict London traffic).
 
Check-in at the airport was a breeze, we literally walked straight up to the desk and were seen to straight away. This was one of the many advantages of booking premium tickets with Canadian Affair (it only cost an extra £38pp and we had fast check-in, extra baggage, extra leg room, better quality seats and many other small things that made it good value for money). I was very appreciative of the lady who checked me in too as she let me off with heavier than allowed baggage. We then found out that boarding would be earlier than we'd expected, 10:30am. We had planned to spend an hour with our family before we left but the stress and emotions became overwhelming and we decided to more or less go straight through to the departure lounge after checking in. Saying goodbye to the family was the hardest thing, nobody could hold back the tears and despite trying my hardest they were still streaming down my cheeks 30 mins later when sitting in the departure lounge. This is what happens I guess when you say bye to some of the people you love the most, knowing you won't see them in person for a few months.
 
We boarded the plane and finally set off at 11:50 BST. The take off was a nightmare, a minute or so into the plane speeding up all I could hear was shrieks from one of the cabin crew members and the sound of tons of water flooding out of somewhere onto the floor. It continued as the plane to began to lift up and progressively got worse and I clearly heard a lady shout at one point "it smells of chemicals, oh my god!". Needless to say this didn't do my nerves (which we were already on edge) no good. I think I nearly hyper ventilated as the water splashing sounds continued and If it hadn't have been for Lou I think I would have had a bloody heart attack! Luckily within a few minutes of the plane being in the air the Cabin crew seemed to be acting a little more calm and I could see them start to clean up the mess, it turned out to be some type of cleaning product. I never did find out where it was coming out of or why it had done in the first place, I was just relieved it had stopped. Thankfully the rest of the flight was fine, nothing too special but nothing bad either, just 9 hours and 40 minutes of mundane flight stuff really and as hard as I tried I couldn't get any sleep.
 
We landed in Vancouver at 10pm BST, 2pm local time. We had to go through immigration to get Lou issued with her official permit documentation. We queued for about 45 minutes but when she was actually seen to, it only took about 5 minutes to process everything. The immigration people were really pleasant too considering how busy and stressed the conditions they work in are. We collected our baggage and hopped into a cab around 3:30pm PDT (11:30pm though by our body clocks). We both sat in silence for most of the ride just smiling and shaking our heads, we couldn't quite believe we are here now after all this planning.
 
It took us about 30 minutes to get from the airport to the hotel in Burnaby ($40) and checked in at the hotel promptly (the room is lovely by the way!). After having a quick rest for 10 minutes and then a shower the excitement kicked in again and it drove us on to go out and explore. We went into one of the biggest shopping malls I've ever been to, it has something like 400+ shops, Lou's dream! We had a brief look around, grabbed some dinner and Lou also got her first pair of shoes. All the travelling has left us feeling a bit dizzy so we didn't really have the stamina to do much more. We then just nipped to the local supermarket, Save On Foods, and grabbed some small bits and pieces before returning to hotel which leads me up to now. It's now almost 10pm local time, 6am by my body clock. Lou has just slipped into dreamland and I will following shortly.
 
Tomorrow we just plan on taking it easy and recovering from today. We will probably just get on the Skytrain and head downtown for a few hours, then on Monday the serious home hunting begins. I haven't got the energy to proof read any of this so hopefully it all makes sense!