GRANVILLE STREET - VANCOUVER

Granville Street, Vancouver……..every city has one. You know that street in the part of town you don’t tell your mother you’re going to. A place that is full of vice and promise and a place where in no time at all you can find all the trouble you desire.


The somewhat strange aspect of Granville Street is that it is slap-bang in the centre of downtown Vancouver. Granville actually leads onto the main shopping street in Vancouver, Robson Street.

Granville Street is home to many of the lower priced, central city hotels, so a host of wide-eyed tourists traipse up and down Granville in wide-eyed wonder. Many in wide-eyed horror. I have stayed in such a low-priced hotel on Granville Street a couple of times now and wandered the street on many occasions. Although no expert on this city-centre part of Granville I am a keen observer of what goes on there.


If you were to walk down Granville around breakfast time you could probably get away with firing a shot down the middle of the road and not hit anyone as most of the denizen’s of Granville are late afternoon and night creatures. At this time of day the clean up from the night before goes on. A few drunken, hardy souls weave their unsteady way down the street searching for home or a darkened doorway to lie in.

There is a smattering of businesses along this part of Granville, fast-food outlets, sports stores and clothing shops but the most numerous tenants of the street are clubs and pubs, tattoo parlours and sex shops. Most lie dormant during the day and only spring into life in the hours of darkness as that is when Granville Street really comes to life.

As you walk along Granville at night your senses are pervaded by all manner of sight, sound and smells. There appears to be a beggar in every doorway, most with a chunk of cardboard with a message on it, my favourite being; “Homeless, Hungry and HIV positive.” A real winner that one it just makes me want to give.


Others are a little more industrious and they play a musical instrument, sing, well sort of, tell jokes or my favourite, play the spoons. The spoon man has a gammy leg, few teeth and wanders up and down Granville offering to play tunes with his spoons. He appears to pop up everywhere. One moment you see him outside your hotel and a few moments later he is on the other side of the road on the corner of Robson. How does he get there so quick? As he walks along he clicks the spoons on his leg in cadence with his limp. There is nothing much to it but it does have a certain mesmerizing tone to it. Spoon man is a hard worker as well, we saw him late one afternoon plying his clinking trade and from my hotel balcony 10 hours later I heard the spoons and then saw him accosting late night drunks as they left the clubs. No standard work day for spoon man it appears.


Fighting for doorway space with the beggars is a generally motley crew who appear to have no income or future. They are young people who are dressed in all manner of weird, colourful, torn and disheveled clothing. Tattoos are there badges of honour and tell their life story. Hair is optional or at the very least colourful. They often have a dog or two and sit in the doorway, chatting or trying to play and sing a musical instrument. They appear oblivious to the tourists who give them a wide berth and a distasteful look as they pass.

 The sex shops that advertise peep shows for 25 cents do a roaring trade with constant traffic in and out of their doors. Many tourists appear to shield their eyes and fumble in their clothing for a crucifix as they scurry past.


Night also brings out all the beautiful young things to Granville. The night clubs throb to the beat of music; long lines appear at the doorway where up to 10 burly bouncers, usually heavily tattooed stand arms folded in their apparent superiority. By their demeanor you would think these goons are the masters of the universe instead of plain dumb, intimidating muscle.


Granville around midnight is a people watchers paradise your eyes dart this way and that as there is always something going on. Girls parade past is the shortest of skirts, usually in a pack and a closely followed by drunken groups of young men doing stupid things to impress said girls. Sometimes they are impressed but more usually they are not.


The smell of marijuana fills the air; people appear to smoke the weed without fear of arrest. Young people stagger down the street looking for somewhere to be sick or hoping to find an easy way back home.


The throb from the nightclubs goes on and on. Granville Street has a life of its own.


Not once on these nightly wanders have I seen a police officer, not a one. Does that mean that there is no crime on Granville or is the crime self-regulated?


What I do know is that I find Granville Street an interesting amalgam of all levels of society, I am never bored walking the street just glad I don’t have to live the life and that I am beyond the days of nightclubbing and spoon-playing.

ON THE ROAD AGAIN

Our latest road-trip started with a very early morning start for the drive to Kelowna airport to see Cameo off on her summer trip to Ontario. Everything went smoothly and we were soon on our way to Vancouver Airport to pick up Sean and Greg.


As always the trip over the Rocky Mountains was inspiring. I have now done this trip more than 10 times and the wonder of the Rockies never ceases to amaze me with their sheer size and presence. Even though it is summer the higher reaches of the mountains are still covered with snow.


Once across the Rockies you reach the fertile flatlands that grow a variety of produce, the smell of fertilizer hangs in the summer air. The arrival at the flatlands also means that the traffic increases ten-fold and soon we start experiencing stop-start traffic snarls.


Our schedule is blown out by the traffic delays and we arrive at Vancouver Airport 30 minutes late. We have no idea if the boys have arrived or not. I get out of the car as Tammie goes and looks for a park.


I enter the packed arrival lounge and I am met by a wall of people. I crane my neck to see over the mass of people. A familiar voice comes from my left. “Dad”. And there they were having arrived safe and sound.


A quick greeting and we were on our way out of the arrival area to meet up with Tammie. More greetings and flinging their bags into the tiny TJ we were on our way into central Vancouver to find our hotel.

On check-in Tammie became our Canadian “chauffer” as the booking was made for three. The clerk looked on dubiously at this suggestion but said nothing. The room was fine we were on a high floor that allowed us a view of the city-scape.


Though tired we went for a quick walk up Granville street and had a bite to eat. As it was Sean and Greg’s first overseas trip everything was interesting and quick comparisons were made. Sean was almost falling asleep into his hamburger so he went off for a sleep as Greg had his rest a few hours later. The Canada trip was on.

SLACK!!

Yes, I know it has been a while since I have posted here. There is just one word for it, slack! It is partly the fault of inspiration.....I haven't had any for a few days and just getting around to it.

I always wonder if anyone cares or reads the blog but to my amazement I have had a few emails to let me know how slack I am. So here goes.

Firstly another Southern Okanagan weather update. Well the weather here is best summed up using a singular word again. Shit!! It is the height of summer here, folks have flocked to the area from all over Canada and the world to sample the lakes and the great weather.

Well it hasn't happened. It has been chilly, drab and wet these past few weeks and we haven't had a temperature above 26c in that time. Some days the temperature has maxed out in the mid-teens. And rain! There has been lots of it.

We no sooner take the top off the Jeep (TJ) and we find ourseleves putting it back on again. When you do ride in the TJ with the top down you ever freeze or get wet. Damn!

But all is not lost! Looking ahead the forecast states that the temperature will be in the thirties for the next week. No doubt I will be bitching about the heat in a future blog.

Not a lot of adventures in the past few weeks. Our guests have flown back to Ontario and we are busily preparing the house to rent out whilst we travel in Australia in August. It appears to be a sound decision to rent the place out rather than leave it empty for a month.

Tammie's eldest daughter, Mac has moved to Ontario where she will start university in the Autumn, the house is a little quieter and tidier for that.

The first of July was Canada day and celebrations were held across the country. We ventured down to the border town of Osoyoos to watch the fireworks display on the lake. An impressive show it was to and the pyrotechnics lasted for half an hour. Even the light rain didn't dappen the display.

Two of my son's arrive in Vancouver on the 7th July, something that I am really looking forward to. We have the first few nights in Vancouver and then drive down to Seattle to watch a Major League baseball game. The New York Yankees V the Seattle Mariners. It should be great.

After a few days in Seattle we then drive up the coast, catch a ferry for the 2 hour crossing to Gabriola Island to spend a few days kayaking, clamming and swimming. Life is tough I know.

The next day we make the trek back to Ok Falls across the Rockies which in the summer is a wonderful sight.

So a few more adventures to come so no excuses for not posting.

SPOTTED LAKE

Finally some warmish weather! The top is back off the Jeep and we are reveling in the wind blowing through our hair as we drive around.



Once again the past week has been relatively quiet with household chores taking up most of our time. Cameo played her last soccer match over the weekend. The year concluded with a tournament and the girls finished a good season with a loss on Friday night and a victory on Saturday.



The season is so short here, just a little over eight weeks. It does mean that we will now have our Thursday nights and Saturdays back again.

Tammie’s mother, sister and niece flew in from Ontario late on Sunday night. There was a mix up with the hire car which meant that they had to stay in a motel in Kelowna on Sunday night. Tammie drove back to OK Falls and her and I drove to Kelowna on Monday morning and hired an 8 seater van from the airport. What a great a bran new van for 7 days and only $280. Unfortunately you then have to add insurance, taxes and other surcharges but a great deal all the same.



On Wednesday afternoon the whole crew drove south towards the USA border to check out a local Indian sacred sight called Spotted Lake. The lake is just off the highway and protected by a heavy gate. We were lucky enough to gain access to Spotted Lake which is a rather wondrous sight.

 

The lake is cradled in between a range of low mountains. As a body of water it would be nothing special at all. What does make it special is that there are 365 circles of varying sizes within the lake, hence the name Spotted Lake.

The local Indian’s believe that the Lake holds healing power and they have been using the Lake for this purpose for as long as they can remember.



Curious I scooped up a handful of lake-water to have a taste. Yuk! It tasted terrible. The water was chock-full of minerals, salt and other unknown ingredients that made the water taste terrible. The taste lingered on and on and stained my hand white. I was actually amazed to see that small organisms lived in the water.

 

It is Mac’s graduation celebrations over the next few days and then everyone (including the dog) will scatter.

 

It was a great effort by the Socceroos this morning to beat Serbia 2-1. It was just a shame that they were beaten 4-0 by Germany in the first game as that put them behind the eight ball from the start of the tournament. In the end only goal difference stopped them moving onto the next round.



Canadian TV showed the Germany V Ghana game live so I had to revert to the internet. I couldn’t find the game and missed the entire first half. When I did find the game it was a Chinese feed so I had to mute the volume. I then lost that feed and watched a feed coming in from Brazil. Crazy!

MAC'S PROM

The rain continues to fall here in the South Okanagan and this is unseasonal to say the least. Wherever I go the weather is the hot topic of conversation. At the same time last year there was little to no rain at all and the daily temperatures were in the high twenties and thirties. For the past month it has rained most days and on most of those occasions the temperature has struggled to climb of the twenty degree mark.

Fortunately the weekend gone by was a little different, sunny and temperatures in the mid to high twenties. That was a good excuse to hit our small, lakeside beach with the fantastic views. The Christie Memorial Park beach would have to be the prettiest beach in all of the Okanagan and what makes it even better is that it is a secret to most and even on the hottest of summer days the beach is never crowded.


An added bonus of this beach is a portion of it is reserved for dogs and it is not uncommon to see a bunch of dogs chasing one another or balls into the water. Tammie and I went for a dip both days and the water was cold……..very cold!

Tammie’s eldest daughter McKenzie had her high school prom last Friday night. Mac looked great in a vintage dress we got for her in Vancouver. Tammie arranged a 1957 Metropolitan car to take her to the Prom. It is such a tiny vehicle that it was a squeeze to fit both her and the date into the car.

Apparently for some in this area the age of chivalry is over as Mac’s date did none of the organizing for the big night. Mac had to pick him up only to find him undressed and uninspired. He threw on an odd assortment of clothes which appeared to have been salvaged from the local Salvation Army store. He didn’t buy a corsage for Mac though Mac did buy a button-hole flower for him.

Sometimes we all make bad choices.


Now that the prom is over graduation is a just a week or so away and soon after that Mac will fly off to Ontario to start university there in September.


Our July plans are little up in the air at the moment. Two of my son’s arrive in Vancouver on the 7th July. Originally we were going to buy an RV and head towards Alaska, but that fell through when we realized that would not be an economical move. I was also going to take them down to Seattle to see a major league baseball game but that is in doubt now as well. Regardless of this they will have a great time here, the weather should be warm by then (hopefully) and if nothing else they will escape the Australian winter cold.

Spotted my first bear yesterday! This is the first one I have seen on this visit. It was just a fleeting glimpse from the car as we sped down Highway 97. The bear was only a little ways from the highway unconcerned with the traffic and noise. He was just poking along probably on the lookout for berries. There have been local reports of late that bear(s) have been raining garbage cans in Okanagan Falls. Perhaps this was one of the culprits.


We have visitors arriving this weekend and it is really the start of a busy two month period for us all.

GO THE SOCCEROOS!!

Gee it has been a quiet last week or so, hence the lack of content. It is really the quiet time before a flurry of activity. The weather has been ordinary with locals stating that it is the wettest spring they can remember.



The southern Okanagan region where we live is considered ecologically to be desert country but it is anything but at the moment with everything being lush and green. The temperature has crawled into the high teens most days rarely threatening the twenty mark. The beach calls but the water in Skaha Lake is still damn cold.



Now we only have the Jeep we play a constant game of top off/top on, no small task in itself. It is a real pain actually as before we go anywhere we have to predict whether it will rain or be too cold with the top off. The upshot is if we need to fit bulky items in the Jeep (which we have recently) we have to remove the top.



The good news is that the forecast for the weekend is hot and sunny with a top of around 28c. That means we can hit the beach!



We have been doing our version of spring cleaning a new railing has gone up on the deck as well as a lot of cosmetic changes around the place with more to come. I even put a new BBQ together the other day which for me is a huge task. The instruction manual almost scared me off at the start as it was thick and foolscap size. That I assembled it with a minimum of fuss was amazing.


We have family coming in a little more than a week’s time. Mac has her Prom on Friday evening and graduation later in the month and in early July two of my son’s hit Canada for a 3 week visit. The day they head back home Tammie, the two girls and I head downunder for a 3 week visit.


I would love to have everything booked and in place but because of this and that all I have been able to book is a trip for me to Darwin later in August for some RAAF Reserve training. Hopefully it will all come together soon.



I have fixed my watching sport via the internet problems but it cost me $300. I called a computer technician in to look at the desktop as well as my laptop. He was here for five and half hours at $98 an hour. I was getting more and more agitated as time wore on. In the end he couldn’t fix the desktop. He concluded it needed a new hard drive. Damn! My laptop is running marginally better and at least I can access sport online.



Because he couldn’t fix the desktop he said I would only have to pay $400. I said no way and we settled on $300 with him to return and fit a hard drive. I am still waiting.



I am looking forward to the World Cup starting this weekend. The South African time zone suits Canada and most games will be on late morning early afternoon.



Go the Socceroos!!!!!

FRUSTRATION

Frustration! The word means different things to each and every one of us.


To me frustration is paying to watch a live streamed Australian Rules football match and not seeing more than a total of 5 minutes vision out of an available 180 minutes.


I had waited with growing anticipation all week as I do every week for my taste of “back home.” My team the Sydney Swan’s were playing the Hawthorn Hawks at the Melbourne Cricket Ground. The Swan’s had lost their last three games and it was important that they got their season back on track with this game.


Over weeks of frustration of trying to find a live stream of Australian sporting events I had figured out that the easiest way to watch the games were to pay for them. Each game costs $6USD. Good value for 3 hours entertainment.


So I signed up as usual and wet my lips with anticipation for the first bounce of the ball that never came. My computer screen froze. I refreshed the screen and saw less than two seconds of vision before it froze again. I waited a minute, refreshed and was rewarded with another two seconds of vision. I shut the computer down and re-started it a long process and this time I got around five seconds before it froze. I wanted to throw my laptop across the room.


All I could do was wait for the score to pop up on the screen to know how the game was progressing. My team was never in front and that made it worse. In the final minutes of the game the Swan’s kicked a goal and drew level with the Hawks. I never saw any of this just the score update and the time clock showing 90 seconds to go.


Of course I missed the end of the game as I sat wringing my hands, beads of sweat on my brow. The next refresh showed that the game was over. Hawthorn players had smiles on their faces whilst the Swan’s players had grimaces. I didn’t have to look at the score to know that the Hawks had won. In fact they had won by a lousy two points.


Now that is more than enough frustration to last me a month but I went looking for more. My “other” favourite team, the South Sydney Rabbitohs were playing a match in the National Rugby League competition. And an important one at that! The fifth placed Rabbitohs were playing the second placed Penrith Panthers.


Now you would have thought that I would have learnt my lesson with the previous game. No way! I thought it was just a bad link and this one would be okay.


Fool I hear you say. Sport fanatics are like that they always are hoping for a miracle.


So I paid my six bucks and went through 80 minutes of ultra frustration. Exactly the same thing happened again. Damn! The only brightness to this mess was that the Rabbitohs won easily.


That I didn’t throw anything, kick the dog or hit the missus is a tribute no doubt to my growing old age. But boy was it a close run thing.
All the while I blamed the provider but later I found out that others in the household were having the same problems. It appeared that there was a power surge on Thursday night and whilst not frying our laptops somehow affected our laptops capabilities to stream and download.

That threw me in to a panic. How will I watch my footy this weekend? What’s more how will I watch the Socceroo’s in the FIFA World Cup. Double damn!


So in quick time I found a computer technician who will come to the house on Wednesday and fix the problem for 100 bucks an hour……………..I hope or the dog better watch out.