Tourist Athlete

Last week I was fortunate enough to spend three days in Vancouver, BC and two days in Whistler, BC. These two cities without a doubt are the most beautiful places I have ever visited. It is good reason that these cities were chosen as the location for the 2010 Winter Olympic games. There is so much I could talk about, but will just mention some points briefly.

Good

Weather: I was fortunate enough that it did not rain at all during the week. The weather and air quality is amazing. Imagine a light fan following you around the city with a nice breeze, that is how I felt.

Scenery: Spectacular mountains as you enter the city and a gorgeous waterfront. I had the chance to take a ferry to Vancouver Island from Vancouver and toured around Victoria, BC.

Bad

Homeless people: Vancouver has a serious homeless problem. It is a lot more evident than Toronto. If you ever visit, avoid East Hasting street, people are openly doing drugs, although there is a police station across the street from them.

Real Estate: The most expensive place to live in Canada.

Random

As I waited for my ferry from Vancouver Island to Vancouver, I ran into a friend from Waterloo also on vacation with his family. Talk about small world and coincidence. I will leave it to my readers to guess that person.

Pictures

My panoramic pictures that I assembled (click on picture to view full image):

• View of Rocky Mountains half-way up Whistler mountain

• View of Rocky Mountains at top of Whistler mountain

• View of Rocky Mountains from Vancouver beach

Pimp my blog

I am one of the lucky ones to have been given an invitation to use the beta version of blogger.

The new version offers more selection of templates, tagging of articles and an easier user interface for managing your blog templates. I changed by template, what do ya think?

Congratulations to those who maintained their spot on my blogroll and to the new entries on my list ... it is quite an accomplishment ;-)

Blogging break

I am taking a break from "not blogging" to officially not blog for the next week. Similar to a joke I always hear, "I need a vacation from my vacation".

No joking now, I am officially taking my vacation and I am flying off to Vancouver for a week of site-seeing. Do not worry, I have packed according to the new regulations.

I did have a few drafts sitting that I was going to write up but will when I get back, so look out for those entries.

As my 3 year-old neice always tells me ... "rock-on" , or should I say "blog-on" to all you bloggers (yes, I know that is lame).

Pictures: The good and bad

Good

A nacreous cloud (top) appears high in the stratosphere some 20km above Australia's Mawson station in Antartica. I always had a fascination with Antarctica and the Arctic from reading National Geographic and more recently watching the CBC News National report on the Arctic.


Bad

Not much needs to be said here.