Tag: british columbia

Unexpected Canadian Things

One of the best parts about traveling is coming across random things you would never expect. These particular things are usually really small. Sure mountain peaks, intense bridges, tall buildings, skylines, monuments, ruins, battlegrounds and ancient castles are very special, but hundreds of thousands of people have seen them.

I took pictures of some of the random things I would come across when I was in Vancouver, BC.

One strange thing I saw was this cheeseburger, which was actually a cake. I saw this at T&T grocery, which is a giant Asian supermarket full of delicious surprises. I have never seen lettuce situated on a cake, nor have I ever seen strawberries being used instead of tomatoes. I wonder which tastes better.

Another strange thing I saw was this sign at a restaurant. It looks like a fish is trying to jump out of its tank or bowl of soup or something by yelling at the lobster, but will ultimately be pushed down by chopsticks. Then there are random orange flame stickers put on strange parts of this poster, such as adjacent to the fish, and above or under Chinese characters. All the while, the lobster dances.

Probably the strangest things I saw were the signs hung around the hostel I was staying at. This grimy abode was owned by some short, crazy Italian man who communicated with the guests by tearing out note book paper and putting weird, mis-spelled, crossed-out and edited messages on the wall that he wrote in markers.

I could not ever tell if they were serious or not, but they were highly amusing.

Compare and Contrast Travel

I have been in Vancouver, British Columbia, for 4 days so far. I have been staying in this downtown hostel that is more of a dirty flophouse in my opinion, which has been quite funny.

I realize that when I travel, I always tend to compare everything to other places I’ve been. Within a day, I made the observation that Vancouver reminds me of a combo of Toronto and Portland. I also have walked through Chinatown a few times, and decided I like it more than the one in San Francisco, less than the one in New York City, and of course more than the one in Portland, as it’s kind of a joke.

I was sitting in a park the other day on the water, and a German tour guide came by, and from what I made out of my knowledge of German, he compared the Lion’s Gate Bridge as the Golden Gate Bridge of this city, and Stanley Park as the Central Park. I have also walked down Hastings Street, which is supposedly the sketchy street of the city full of drugged-out weirdos, and decided it was no worse than Mission Street in San Francisco, or the west side of the Burnside Bridge in Portland. Yaletown looked like the Pearl in Portland. Downtown clubbing scene resembled home too.

Of course some things about this city are unique. In Chinatown, I became fascinated by this shop that had a plethora of dried-out dead animals, even though I’m a vegetarian. Never have I seen a specimen of double dead geckos on a stick!

I noticed there seem to be a lot of international ESL students, most of whom look Japanese and Korean. I notice these things because I used to work as an ESL teacher.

I also saw a seagull trying to scarf down a starfish, which is also a first. Later that day, I saw a seagull picking its beak at a flattened-out pigeon that had been run over on the street. Yum.

Well, I have a few more days in this city to go exploring. I am enjoying my time so far, and hope to run into more new stuff, or perhaps see if it reminds me of familiar places…