hello Vancouver

Ive been visiting Vancouver for 3 months now (already!) and here's what i think of it as of now.

So far I've visited most of downtown area, a little bit of Burnaby, Granville Island, Squamish and drove through a portion of south west Vancouver.

Downtown
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I live in downtown Vancouver and i love it! (Yaletown)
This is certainly the most fun area if you are into music shows, bars, shopping, nightclubs and good restaurants, but its also really loud on weekend through the early hours of the night.
Ive been walking a lot trying to visit and see as much as possible.
Granville street and Robson are the streets with the most activities and traffic at night since a lot of people are going out at night even on Sundays so everyday is a day where you can go out and have some fun! The hardest part of it all would be to select the bar/nightclub that you will like... which will not be a trivial task. So many of them right next to each other doesnt help a lot, maybe you can look at people going in and you'll figure it out...

Vancouver Art Gallery
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Here you can find the Leonardo Da Vinci human body drawings covering all possible muscles, bones and their reason to be there. This is an incredible exposition since it shows how clever Da Vinci was at that moment in history where the only information about the human body was found by actually doing dissections on dead body at night. Moreover, you will be amazed at how much detail he could draw using ink that you couldnt erase ... so its a one time think... dont screw up otherwise you start all over and with all those details im sure he wouldnt want that.

Really interesting to see.

Stanley Park
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Stanley Park on a sunny day is one of the best things about Vancouver ... enjoy a day biking, hiking, getting a tan at one of the beaches and going to the Aquarium. The park has those huge trees that you can only find in Pacific Northwest area. The waterwall is a great place to bike around the park next to the water, beaches and mountains. On the beaches you will have great views of the water(obviously), boats and the best part of it all the high mountains with snow on the top while you get a tan in the hot sun. On the beaches you will find big tree logs that you can use to sit on or relax leaning on them. Each beach has a variety to it some with volleyball nets, kids games or restaurants.

Aquarium
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The Aquarium is a must see visit because it has some of the weirdest fishes, reptiles, and animals that live in the area and tropical settings. You will get to see astonishing black and white Dolphins that were rescued after being trapped and injured in nets. You can listen to some trainers who will talk about those dolphins and entertain the crowd playing with the dolphins who do great tricks. Those dolphins cant be released in the wild since they would not survive with those injuries they have so they are taken care of here and used as research to help understand more about them.
Also, you will be able to see a family of Belugas who seem to be enjoying their pool swimming around, playing with each other. You'll be able to learn more about them as well.

Throughout the aquarium you will see things you never saw before and maybe touch a see star ... its a great place to go. I enjoyed it for a couple of hours before leaving for third beach.
Going there on a sunny day is a better option since you will be spending a lot of time outside.

Gastown (Chinatown)
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I visited Gastown/Chinatown the other day and it was a stressful time I found.
Why? Because this area includes the infamous approved drugged/poverty district of vancouver... pretty much a dodgy area i would say... it doesnt feel safe at all with fights occuring, drug dealing and other such activities.
I walked around avoided certain areas as much as possible, the best thing to visit is the free garden but not really worth the walk i found.
Walked there at night yesterday to get to a music venue that was located in the middle of that dodgy area... I survived but ...


Granville Island
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I went to Granville Island during the Olympics so obviously there was a lot of people there. Next time I go might be a really different experience, but I found a great micro-brewery, good fish & chips, good restaurants and a good art institute (Emilie Carr). Nice to visit and you can get there by boat-taxi which is a faster and cheaper way to get there.

Kits beach area
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Kitsilano beach area has a lot to offer from the beach itself with volleyball nets laying around, the huge pool, restaurants, Space Museum, Vancouver museums.
It was really windy when I went so it was so great, but the view was really nice with those nearby snow covered mountains and the bike trails is used by a lot of people and you can pretty much go anywhere using it.

SouthEast-ish Vancouver/UBC area
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The area around British Columbia University is the next best thing after the downtown area Ive visited so far. The area feels like a calm suburb with really great looking houses and grass around! This could potentially be a great place for families since it looks good and safer than some areas in gastown... The University with its museum, soccer fields, japanese garden and great architecture needs to be visited. I need to do it too ;)

Burnaby
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I travelled to Burnaby twice. The first time to go see the Vancouver Whitecaps playing the Seattle Sounders at the Vancouver stadium. It was a boring game ending in a 0-0 draw, but still got to see some soccer action with an MLS team. The way to Burnaby is not so beautiful and you really know when you leave downtown Vancouver heading east to go to Burnaby since everything looks older and poorer which looks a lot like Hollywood Blvd in L.A.
Today I went to 2 soccer shops outside Vancouver: The soccer shop, which had great selection, but the staff was really not friendly so it was not a great place to go. Then I found in Burnaby on Eastings Saveco Sports which is smaller, feels more like a family shop and the owner was really friendly and we had a talk about Holland and having a hard time selling those shirts. is it that holland fans dont buy merchandise or they keep their old jerseys and never change them ?

Squamish
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I went to Squamish to visit but mostly to do some marketing research not so long ago.
Squamish is the Outdoor activities capital of Canada where you can pretty much do any outdoor sports you want in a great natural setting. The mountain called the Chief is one of the highlight of the area where you can do some hiking, moutain climbing, jump off the cliff, skiing (?). In the area, you can bike, kayak, kite surfing, skating and any other outdoor activity you can think of. People we met there were really interesting and friendly. You can get all the gear you desire in the area with great local shops to really get the info you deserve to know about everything.
Worst place I went to was the Activity Information Center where we were really poorly received (thats the least i could say) and left almost as fast as we arrived eheh.


well this is it for the places i visited so far ...