Move Along, Nothing to See Here

Nothing to See Here, originally uploaded by Tim McDonald.

It's not every day that you see a plane wreck on a city beach. This is apparently the set for the movie 'Passengers', being filmed here in Vancouver.

Otherwise, pretty uneventful weekend.

Seattle

Seattle, originally uploaded by Tim McDonald.

Last Saturday went for a drive with Nick and Annette down to Seattle. Seattle's about 3 hours by car from Vancouver, but this can vary wildly depending on how busy the border crossing is. We had a relatively easy crossing, though we did have to get out and fill out the green US immigration forms and pay US$6 for the privilege. All up, it took us about half an hour to clear immigration. The upshot of all this is that we now have a 3 month 'visa' for the US so should be able to come and go as we please until the beginning of May. I'm hoping to get Las Vegas and Hawaii trips in in this time.

The drive down was fairly easy as (would be expected) you take multi-lane freeways all the way into the city centre. The freeway to Seattle is littered with shopping centres ranging from outlet malls like Harbour town to giant Costcos. As we had skipped breakfast when we left, we made the mandatory stop into a Maccas. They probably do this in Canada too, but the breakfast menu at McDonald's in the States has items called 'McGriddles' which look like the normal muffins but with scones (or possibly damper) instead of the muffins. We just had the normal muffins.

Got into Seattle proper at about 11.30 (about the time the rain started, naturally) and headed straight for the Space Needle. Unlike Vancouver, the centre of Seattle has overpasses galore. Hopefully it will catch on in Vancouver and ease the traffic problems. The Space Needle itself looked smaller in the flesh than I had imagined but the view from the top was still great. Unfortunately due to the rain, I couldn't get any decent photos outside so had to make do with the one above taken from the lookout.

After the Space Needle we thought that a trip on the monorail would be a good way to see Seattle. After paying our $4 for the round trip, we waited, and waited, and waited. When the monorail finally arrived we were presented with a 45 year-old monorail car that looks like it was designed by the same person that designed the original Starship Enterprise in Star Trek. Once we boarded and found our seats we sta back and enjoyed the view of downtown Seattle from 10 metres off the ground. After two blocks an announcement came over the PA saying that we were approaching some stop at a mall and that we had to get off would have to get back on for the return leg. Yes, we paid $4 for a two-block return ride. We had a quick look around the mall and the immediate surrounds.

The city centre of Seattle is pretty much the same as Vancouver though it looks a bit cleaner (less litter) and we did not see any homeless people begging for money. I'm told though that it's worse when you get outside of the city centre. At this point, we thought we'd go for a drive and try to find the Boeing factory. The drive out to the airport took about 25 minutes and we pulled up at a place called the Museum of Flight to have a look around and ask for directions to the Boeing Factory. We soon learned that the Boeing factory was another 45 minutes' drive and as it was already 2pm we decided to leave it for another time and just look around the Museum of Flight.

The Museum of Flight is actually quite good; the first thing you see is a massive open area with old (pre WWII) aircraft hanging from the ceiling and a giant SR-71 Blackbird Spy Plane (the fastest plane ever built) taking centre stage. I have put a few photos on my Flickr page. Across the road are a number of airliners; most notably a Concorde and one of the ealry Air Force One aircraft. You can go inside these aircraft. Air Force One is particullarly interesting because you can see all the offices, meeting rooms and even the safes that contained the codes to the nukes. One of the highlights for me were WWI and WWII displays full of planes from both sides in the wars. The WWII one was great - full of BF-109s, Mustangs, and P-47s to name a few.

Left the museum at about 4.30 and decided to make the trip back home. Along the way back, we stopped off at one of the Harbour Town-esque outlet malls. There is a Nike shop there and shoes were incredibly cheap; about US$50 per pair.

The last point of note is our experience with the McDonald's drive through as we left the mall. One of the items we (I) wanted was a small coke. It transpired something like this:

Nick: Cheesburger, fillet-o-fish and a small coke
Girl: shake?
Nick: no, a coke
Girl: shake?
Nick: no, a coke. You know, coca-cola?
Girl: ok

I looked at the screen that displayed what we'd ordered and saw that she'd put down a vanilla shake. What the? How do you get 'vanilla shake' from coca cola? Any way, I managed to get a medium coke instead of a small coke and decided to quit while we were ahead.

I recommend a day trip to Seattle if you're in Vancouver, but you should leave early (around 6am) in order to get a full day.

Just don't order a coke at a Maccas drive through.

View from the 25th Floor

View from the 25th Floor, originally uploaded by Tim McDonald.

Had the Shaw cable guy around this evening to connect my cable TV and (more importantly) internet in my new apartment.

Took the day off on Thursday to move into the new place at the other end of town. This time, I'm on the 25th floor with, I reckon, a better view. It will be great when summer finally comes around. The picture above is a panorama of the view from my balcony that was created from five photos joined together on the computer. If you click on the photo, you'll go to the picture on my Flickr page and will be able to view a much larger version. When you look at the larger version, you'll also see where the software didn't quite get it right.

I'm now at the west end of downtown Vancouver near English Bay (the bay in the photo). Just past the building is the Stanley Park. The apartment isn't as nice as the Yaletown one, but it's much cheaper (half the price) but is unfurnished. All up, I think I'll save about $500 per month here after accounting for furnishing the place and monthly bills (the Yaletown apartment was furnished and included internet, cable TV etc etc). As a bonus, two of my mates from work also live in the building.

The area around is a lot older and a little bit 'grottier' than Yaletown but has pretty much everything I need on within a five-minute walk: Safeway, McDonalds, Starbucks, Dentist, bottle shop, Japanese restaurant, Indian restaurant, London Drugs (supermarket/electrical/computers/ chemist). There are also tons of restaurants within a 10 minute walk. One thing of note, is that the West End is the heart of Vancouver's gay and lesbian community. I was only made aware of this AFTER I signed up for the place, though the pink bus shelters and rainbow flags along Davie Street (the main street by my building) should have given it away. Not that there's anything wrong with that. Besides, I much prefer it to the yuppies in Yaletown poncing around wearing their rectangle glasses carrying a coffee (grande half-decaf soy chai mocha latte extra hot) in one hand and their bloody poodle in the other. Wankers.

Furniture-wise, starting to build up again- now have a bed (from Ikea) and a TV (37" Viewsonic LCD). Need to get a couch, though the styrofoam blocks that protected the TV are doubling as an ersatz couch for the time being.