Shakespeare in Vancouver

Sara and I left the house around 11 AM today and walked 20 minutes through nice neighbourhoods and green parks until we arrived at some white tents - Bard on the Beach, the annual summer Shakespeare festival. We didn't have tickets and the play was sold out (the second last showing for the season), but luckily we waited around and bought some tickets from people that didn't show up.

The show was excellent! We had both read the play plot summary ahead of time., which really let us enjoy the play (otherwise I'd have had a hard time following). The acting was great, and the second half of the play was quite amusing. The show ran from 1 - 3pm, with a 20 minute intermission.

After the show, we walked back home, appreciating the sunny weather. We've been very lucky with weather since we got here.

Tomorrow, we have breakfast plans with Brandon M - my roommate from a summer program I attended in 2001. Then in the afternoon we're off to SFU Burnaby to visit my first cousin Mary Jo who's started first-year university there.

-Rob

Camping at Chekamus Lake

Sara and I spent Friday night getting ready for our first BC camping trip. Sara did a fantastic job preparing some delicious meals and organizing our supplies.

Saturday morning we drove north out of Vancouver along the the sea-to-sky highway towards Whistler. The view along the highway is spectacular: sharp cliffs rise high above one side of the road, the other displays panoramic views of mountains and sea.

We arrived at Garabaldi Provincial Park parking lot around 10am and hiked 3 km to Chekamus Lake camp grounds. The temperature was cool, perfect for hiking. The trail was through the trees, but we could hear the rushing Chekamus river for most of the hike.

When we arrived at the Chekamus Lake, we picked our camp site and set up. We hiked around for another 2 hours before settling down at camp to eat dinner and later, watch the stars.



The next morning, we woke up early to watch the sun rise. It took longer than we thought, so we ended up making breakfast and starting to pack up by the time the sun cast light on our camp site.

We finished taking down our tent, packing our bags, and hiking back along the 3 km trail to the parking lot. It was a beautiful, relaxing, successful trip.
-Rob

Our new home

No big adventures since we posted last weekend, but many small ones. We bought ourselves some very affordable bikes from Canadian Tire last week and have been riding them around the city. Lots of hills, but there are some really nice trails. We're almost done putting everything away in our new home. And in the meantime had a great visitor come stay with us for a while.

Jason Goldlist (a friend from McKinsey) stayed with us for a few nights. He's moving to Vancouver from Toronto for 6 months as part of the Vanoc Olympics team. Starting tomorrow he's going to be helping them with their venue operations. It was great to have him here and fun to have the tables turn so quickly, where we were helping him find a place to live and get settled into the city. He found a nice new apartment building in Gastown and along with a couple roommates, is now in the process of funishing the place. It looks amazing as is though, so I'm sure it'll be even better when we go visit!! :)

Since many of you won't be able to get out to the West Coast for a while still, and since things are starting to settle down here (and we finally have internet at home!), I thought I would post a few pictures of our new home. I'll try to take some pics of our neighbourhood soon, which is really the selling point here, but thought I would start inside for this post.

So here's a tour of our new home for those interested.

This is part of the living room that we've sort of divided up into smaller spaces. What you can't see off to the left is our TV and DVD set-up.










Another part of the living room - our little library/sitting area.











And the last space in our living room - the office.












Our eating area/dining room.












Our kitchen. Still some things here that need putting away.


















Large front hall closet for storage. We've got a smaller one right by the front door too. Sorry about the reflection off my running jacket!! Good for being seen in the dark tho.
















Entry way. Again, still some putting away to be done here.














Our bathroom from a couple of angles.


























Our bedroom from a couple of angles.
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Soon to come - a tour of our neighbourhood!
-Sara

Grouse Grind – Sunday, August 30 (early morning)

So in a continued effort to experience Vancouver and BC in the midst of moving, unpacking, Rob starting work, etc...we traveled to Grouse Mountain just north of the city this past weekend and made our first attempt at climbing Grouse Grind.

Grouse Grind is a trail the runs right up Grouse Mountain - it is about 3 km long and the ascent is around 800 metres vertical. We had heard lots of fun stories about the trail and about the Vancouver outdoors enthusiasts who are there every week working on improving their time. The official record is around 26 mins!!!

On our weekend adventure, we woke up at 6 am, left home by 7, took 3 buses, and arrived at Grouse before 9 am. We had each brought a warm shirt since Vancouver mornings can be chilly, that day was around 14 degrees. We were well-prepared: hiking shoes, energy bars, Gatorade, and water. When we started up the mountain, there were several other hikers, but it wasn't overcrowded.

About 1 minute into the hike, Rob was huffing and puffing...but so were most of the people around us. Guess all that exercise has done me a little bit of good, after all!! Since this was our first try, we just kept our slow, measured pace going and tried to remember to breathe.

We had read some "tips and tricks" about the Grind before going. The first 1/4 was supposed to be the flattest and longest (since quarters are measured in vertical distance), but every quarter is marked so you know how much progress you've made. And the last quarter is supposed to be the steepest.

So after taking about 3 or 4 short water/re-fuelling breaks, we figured we HAD to be close to the 1/4 mark. We knew it was long, but this was taking far longer than we expected. So when we saw the 1/2 way mark we were relieved. We weren't doing so badly after all! We took a nice long break there (also a tip from our online reading). We took the time for a photo op, enjoyed the tall, straight trees all around us, ate some snacks and caught our breath.

From there on, I think we only stopped once or twice. We both got into a bit of a groove and you just focus on the next step and stop worrying about the distance you still have to go. Getting to the top was pretty exciting - the trees finally clear out and you can see that you're in the clouds and looking out over the whole city. Amazing view! Our time was 94 minutes, just over the 90 minutes our online reading had told us to expect on our first climb. So we were pretty satisfied. Still room for improvement next time, though!!

There is a beautiful lodge at the top where we sat and ate some snacks, drank water, took in the view, and got ready for the trip home. Since you're not supposed to walk down the trail, we paid the $10 for the both of us to enjoy the gondola ride down. I'm sure it would have been another great view/experience if we weren't right in the middle of the gondola with about 40 people surrounding us, with the clear smell of sweat from all those who had braved the hike up.

Then another 3 buses home (including the Sea Bus!), and we were both pretty beat. We just got some things done around the house before finding the energy to play frisbee on our beach (read: Kitsilano Beach) for the first time. All in all, a great, active day, enjoying the outdoors around our new home.

-Sara

Stanley Park - Friday, August 28 (~noon)

In a word, beautiful. If I had a second word, fun. Sara and I spent the afternoon cycling around the perimeter of Stanley Park with our friend Kim Ong and two of her friends James and Maria (the three of them are in the same lab at University of Alberta and were visiting Vancouver for the weekend).

Sara and I caught up with the three of them around noon on Friday just outside Stanley Park. In search of bike rentals, we saw a large shop just across the street. Kim suggested we look for a smaller shop to support, James agreed, and I added that we should get organic bikes (Vancouverites are obsessed with supporting small local businesses and buying organic). The small shop we found didn’t have organic bikes, but they had the next best thing – tandem bicycles! Sara and I took a tandem, and so did Kim and James. Maria seemed very happy to have her own bike.

The five of us rode into Stanley Park, a large protected park adjacent to downtown Vancouver. While Kim and Sara took a bathroom break, I charted our route with the help of an info booth lady. The five of us set out on the 9 km bike trail that encircles the park. One side of the trail is the forest and the other is the water. It is beautiful!

We made several stops along the trail. First, we stopped and took some time interpreting totem poles (they were replicas). Kim quizzed the group on what animal the various carvings represented (collectively, we did terrible).

We continued biking and passed some cool statues, including “Girl in a Wet Suit” which is a statue surrounded by water, several metres from shore. After stopping to eat some subpar park food (Maria’s cheese burger was drowned in cheese whiz), we rode past a whole army of inuksuk lining the rocky shore. We decided to try our own hands at inuksuk-building. Turns out it’s pretty challenging to get the rocks to balance. Sara and I made a pretty good one.

Our last stop was the Tea House. I don’t know what I was expecting (maybe an ancient Japanese hut lying just above the clouds), but the “Tea House @ Sequoia Grill” fell short. They didn’t even have tea on the menu ! Nonetheless, it was a nice break to sit on the patio and talk before we completed the last leg of the trail.

We returned the bikes. Sara and my tandem bike cost $26 for the 3 – 4 hours we rented it. We parted ways with James, Maria, and Kim and headed home to do some more unpacking. Overall, a great adventure in Stanley Park! I can’t wait to go back and explore the interior of the park and see the aquarium.

-Rob