Downtown

Don't hang around and let your problems surround you
There are movie shows downtown
Maybe you know some little places to go to
Where they never close downtown

Lyrics from "Downtown", sung by Petula Clark in the 1960s

The Vancouver International Film Festival is happening in Vancouver again this week and continues next week.  There are so many wonderful films to choose from.

How does one make a choice?

Well in this case, one of the ladies I know looked for a 'feel good' film for a number of ladies and she came up with

"Fanie Fourie's Lobola"

It's another fantastic film from South Africa. It'll make you laugh and it will make you tear up too. 

I've seen 4 South African films in the last 2 years and I have to say that I thoroughly enjoyed every one of them.  There are some wonderful films coming out of South Africa. I hope they continue to put out such spectacular work for all to enjoy.

Here is a trailer and if it happens to visit your city please do try and see it.

While I was in the vicinity of the theatre venue I snapped these photos because I think it's always interesting to take a peek at the places where other people live.

As you can see, it is still raining here and it rained quite heavily as I made my way to the venue.  When I came out it had stopped raining. Tomorrow we will have sunshine and it will be nice to have respite from the rain.

I'm always fascinated by trees growing at the top of a building.

 

I like the variety of roof lines in this photo.

This is the same as the photo above but I like how it came out blurred.

I was trying to capture the mountains behind the red wall but once I crossed the street the mountains were out of view.

I really like the art work of the Madonna above the windows. It graces the front of a restaurant that I've yet to visit.

Every year the city holds it's Remembrance Day or Armistace Day services in the small park across the street (where you see the tall, cylindrical cement structure).

I like looking down at this colourful scene.  Clearly this wall had some focussed attention from grafitti artists.

The mountains are on the other side of the inlet. Also the community of North Vancouver is directly across. You can take a sea bus (ferry) at the terminal just to the left of the photo (red brick building peeking out).  It's a nice short ride and you can see a lot from the waterfront.

The brewing company building anchors one end of the Gastown neighbourhood. Gastown is where Vancouver began and it is now a lovely tourist area.

 I took a lot more drive by photos but they didn't turn out.


I hope you are having a great week so far!

City Architecture

This post is part of a new series on posts about my city, the City of Vancouver in British Columbia, Canada. This particular post is intended to show you some of the city's varied architecture. It is not a post on describing the architecture as I am no architect or student of architecture. I simply like looking at different structures and buildings and I'm using the building as a jump off point to tell you a little more about my city. I hope you enjoy the little tour. In future and as weather improves, I hope to show you a lot more of our city's natural wonders so do drop by often.

Last week, I posted about the neighbourhood of Gastown. At the west side of Gastown is the Harbour Centre which houses the Vancouver Lookout. As the name suggests, here you can look out over the city and take in the 360 degree view. I haven't been to the Lookout for many years but when I first moved to the city it was one of the first places I went and the view was simply spectacular though the sky line has now changed considerably. The tower below the Lookout is home to 28 floors of business offices and to the satellite location of the Simon Fraser University whose main campus in located in Burnaby, BC. The Vancouver Lookout was opened in 1977 by the Neil Armstrong, the first astronaut to walk on the moon.

To get to the Lookout, you will enter a glass encased elevator which will whisk you to the top in record time. So don't blink! Your entry fee is good for the entire day so you can leave to go and shop in Gastown next door, have a meal and return. You can also sit in the Lookout lounge and enjoy a refreshment.

The Harbour Centre and Vancouver Lookout is located just steps to the west of Gastown. See photo below and read all about it in my post here.

The Harbour Centre Lookout is also located right in front of the main station for the sky train which is the hub for the City's Light Rapid Transit. The Waterfront station is the connection point for the West Coast express (commuter train to points east), the Sea Bus (city transport over the water to the North Shore), and the 3 different sky train lines which take you to many different points in the city and to the outlying municipalities. You can read more about the schedules for each of these transportation options here.


Burrard Station is the last sky train stop before you get to the Waterfront and make connections to points elsewhere. Alternatively it is the first stop after you leave Waterfront sky train travelling to points east. Burrard Station is also a bus connection hub. Many of the buildings you see behind the station are at least 50 years old and seem to be in what I refer to as the "blah" style.

The building below is St. Paul's Hospital and is located in downtown Vancouver. It was established in 1892 by the Sisters of Providence though the sisters no longer run the hospital. This is where my cousin's daughter has been staying all week recovering from major heart surgery.

Burrard Inn, formerly Bosman's Inn, is a smallish hotel with 71 rooms and suites and has recently undergone renovations. It is the only hotel I am aware of which is in the downtown core and has reasonable rates. The rooms are $65. (Canadian) for double room from September-May and goes up to $99. Canadian from May-September. This is a favourite place for my relatives to stay when they have to come to the city for medical reasons since it is across from the St. Paul's hospital. These rooms and many others in the city are completely sold out for the Winter Olympics which will begin very soon.

Vancouver Hotel (below) is now part of the Fairmont group hotels. If my memory serves me correctly, it used to be part of the Canadian National group Hotels but hasn't been for some time. In recent years this hotel it has completed an extensive 65 million dollar renovation. The results are stunning. You can see some of the beauty in these photos here. Don't you just love the roof of this building? In olden days, you could go to a club at the top of the hotel and listen to jazz.

The next three photos show the relatively new Sheraton Wall Centre. One of the buildings is called One Wall Center and is the second highest building in the city. Designed by Busby, Perkins and Will, it won an award in 2001, its year of completion for the Best Skyscraper. apparently, it has something called a tuned water damping system at the top of the building to counter act the swaying of the building.
The first two photos above were taken last week and the photo below was taken last summer. The sky scraper is quite aesthetically pleasing in a long view, don't you think?

The building below is St. Andrew's Wesley United Church. This is one of the United Churches that recognizes and embraces the gay and lesbian community. They also have a number of broad based programs to invite the community in to their sanctuary. One of them is Jazz Vespers every Sunday afternoon. I simply love the carved stone in the building and the archways of the windows and doorways.

That is the tour for today. There is so much more to share but we will need to do it in stages. Some days I may have themes as in today where I showed you numerous structures. Other days, it may be about one specific site or a natural scene of beauty. I hope you will join me again soon.

Gazing in Gastown

In my first giveaway which you can read about and enter here, several of you said you would like to see and know more about the city where I live. Lynne from Canberra said she would like to know what sights I would take her to if she came to visit. So here is my first post on the "touristy sights" of Vancouver. My home by the ocean.

If you were to fly in to Vancouver, stop into port on a cruise ship or stay at one of the downtown hotels, one of the key places you would likely visit is Gastown. I had to go there today as I was looking for a particular kind of Valentine's Day cards for my niece and I haven't been able to find them. Yesterday, I had one more recommendation as to where I might find these cards so off I went to Salmagundi's in Gastown. Unfortunately the shop didn't have the cards I was looking for but it made perfect sense to stop there as it was enroute to the St. Paul's Hospital where my cousin's daughter is having major heart surgery tomorrow morning. I wanted to stop in at the hospital and sit with my relatives for awhile before the big surgery event later this morning.

Here is the entrance into Gastown from the western side of this tourist area. You can see the pavers on the sidewalk, the Gaslight style street lamps and the cobblestone streets. This is one of the oldest parts of our city. It is a beautiful area with character buildings, tourist shops, interesting shopping experiences with both a local and a global flavour and some excellent restaurants. You will also find a wonderful collection of northwest coast art and other native handcrafts, as well as a lot of other uniquely Canadian creations. For example, you will find smoked salmon pate and lox as well as the world famous maple syrup and maple sugar candies.

Gastown was established in 1867, which is also the year of Canada's birth as a nation. This part of town is on the south side of what is called Burrard Inlet (see on the map below). In those days, this area was a wilderness with only a sawmill in the area and the mill owner did not permit any alcohol on the grounds.

One day a man named Jack Deighton came to town. His nickname was "Gassy Jack" because he loved to talk and could spin a lot of tales. He arrived with a barrel of whiskey and he promised the mill workers that he would serve them drinks if they would build him a saloon. It wasn't long before a saloon was built in the area. Thus Gastown was born.

[Click map to enlarge]

Just down the street from where the first photos are taken is a steam clock. It was first built and erected here in 1977 after the area underwent a revitalization. The clock was designed and built by Canadian Raymond Saunders. His clocks are also displayed in several other Canadian cities as well as Otaru, Japan and Indianapolis, Minnesota in the USA. The clock is a great tourist attraction in this part of the city. Visitors come from all around to watch the steam emitting from the clock; much like they flock to Prague's Astronomical Clock in the Old Town Square.

Gastown has had a rough and tumble reputation and has gone through many incarnations. In 1886 Gastown was incorporated as the City of Vancouver, named after Captain George Vancouver, a British Explorer. Sadly, just a few months later a brush fire burned out of control and brought the city to ruins leaving all but 2 of it's buildings in ashes. In the 1920s and onward,Gastown prospered but when the Great Depression hit, the area fell on very hard times and the area became a skid row. In the 1960s a group of people saved the area from demolition and obliteration and it was reborn and recognized as a dedicated Heritage Site in the early 1970s.

In the photos below, you will see a small sample of the many tourist shops that sell memorabilia to remind visitors of Canada and their stop in Vancouver.

[A stuffed bear stands guard in the uniform of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police]

I hope you enjoyed your short tour of Gastown and that you will visit again soon.

On Being a Tourist

The camera makes everyone a tourist in other people's reality,

and eventually in one's own.
Susan Sontag

On a jaunt the other day, I saw things that made me want to be a tourist in my own city. A Carnival cruise ship was docked for the day in the city's harbour. Cruise ships anchor just a few accessible steps from our city's historic Gastown with it's many tourist attractions and old town feel.

While snapping the cruise ship, I saw tourists riding by on the city's only trolley. The trolley is an enclosed trolley, not like the ones in San Francisco which are open on the sides. Moreover, it's sole function is to take tourists to all the main tourist attractions in the city. You can embark and disembark, as you desire, all along the trolley's route.

In the bus below, you have a choice between being in the open air or being fully covered. This comes in handy if you are not able to sit in the direct sunlight, or if it happens to be raining and you don't want to get wet!

Sometimes it is just nice to be a tourist in your own city and experience the sites and sounds of where you live, through the eyes of those that have never seen it before.

I might just have to hop on one of these buses before summer's end.