For months Mike had been verbally, and enthusiastically spurring me into training for the 10km Vancouver Sun Run. The only way I found to quiet him was by either announcing all the wonderful training I was doing (in the form of a couple of hours of snowboarding followed by a couple of hours at the pub) "Yeah, Mike, you should've seen all the effort I put in yesterday!" Or by just retorting that "the pub was great - how was your training?" In all my pre-race training entailed some concerts, snowboarding, beer drinking, but no actua [View Full Entry]

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What??!! You don't like hearing about each of the concerts I'm going to? You want to remind me that this is a travel blog not a concert blog! And I was halfway through the "She Wants Revenge" concert story... You think there's more to life? More to Canada? More to Vancouver??? More to me? Let me see. I seem to recall something that may interest you.... A few weeks ago a small group of like-minded individuals gathered together in a darkened room. This room was at the back of a nondescript office in the outskirts of a mid to large sized [View Full Entry]

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The Devin Townsend Band at the Red Room in Vancouver - outstanding! The openers for Devy, a band the name of which I cannot recall (apologies), were interesting in a way that the change of seasons is interesting - some people get excited, some don't. Occasionally the singer would scream reminiscent of Pantera in their Cowboys From Hell days, and the drummer would repeatedly throw one of his drum-sticks into the air, with a flourish, only to have it contact the low ceiling and wheel off into the crowd. Yes, repeatedly. [View Full Entry]

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Doing his bit for the image of Australia one of my colleagues, an Australian expat named Kit, was sitting next to an American on a plane destined for Sydney, Australia. They got to talking and the American stated that he would be hiring a car at the airport. He asked if it was necessary to get a 4WD in order to get from the airport to his hotel in the city (what the..?) Frowning, Kit announced that of course it was necessary. The American accepted this as he had suspected as much. Apparently the look on the face of the American [View Full Entry]

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The Homeless: So anyway I was on my way to the Depeche Mode concert when I stopped for a coffee, and as I was reclining outside the cafe in the 5 degrees C evening I could discern over the deafening din of my headphones an intrusive kind of music. Removing my earplugs I realised it was less like music and more closely related to the intoxicated incoherent verbal rantings of a decidedly dirty and scruffy homeless guy staggering behind a trolley full of plastic bags across the other side of the street. Someone nearby commented how sorry he felt for the [View Full Entry]

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GM Place. It reminds me (a little too much) of the Entertainment Centre in Sydney. Cavernous, accoustically retarded, expansive (and expensive) - as you can see, this kind of place doesn't really impress me as a concert venue. Of course I'm sure it is perfectly suited for hosting the home games of Ice Hockey when the Cannucks play here. I wanted to see Depeche Mode, but went for the cheapest seats available. Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, the seat I landed was pretty bad. But on the bright side it wasn't the worst!! (Didn't come with complementary field glasses though...) On my [View Full Entry]

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As darkness set in I was a great deal more at home and relaxed than I was the previous evening. I don't know what the reason was - I was still on an unfamiliar, thickly forested mountain trail, after dark, well and truly in bear country (they have bear-proof garbage bins everywhere, including Whistler town!!), about 8km from the car, and still alone, etc, etc. But something was different. I was happy at least. I pitched the tent and unpacked my sleeping bag - something you shouldn't do in the tropics for fear of it filling up with crawlies, but something [View Full Entry]

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After returning to my car from this recent enlightening experience (as outlined in "Alone in the forest...?") I was determined... to do it again!! I drove up to Whistler and bought a map of the nearby hiking trails. Once again I was met with a little surprise at the time of year I had chosen to partake in this activity. However this time the guy was more understanding, and even offered a couple of useful route suggestions. By the way, I hope all you Aussies appreciate the effort I am putting in bolstering the image of the hardy (or was that [View Full Entry]

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Someone once said that every day you should do something to scare yourself. I thought "yeah, I rock climb, I go canyoning, abseiling, blah blah". But as of a couple of days ago I think I really know what that person was talking about. It's not necessarily the act of giving yourself a fright that counts - although it certainly gets the heart pumping (I counted 150bpm at one point). It's what your mind does in this time - what you think about. The scare could be (hypothetically speaking, of course) finding yourself along an unfamiliar thickly forested mountain trail. After [View Full Entry]

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So far the highlight of my visit in Vancouver has been the unexpected reunion tour of the very early Eighties dark rock band "Bauhaus". Yes, it beats the highlight of maybe being shot as an extra in a new Al Pacino Movie that's being shot outside my hostel!! And it even beats (hands down) the thrill of plane take-offs and landings!! If you want more info about Bauhaus before continuing then read this. Be sure to come back though! "Near The Atmosphere" is the name of the tour, and it was marketed as "A night with Bauhaus". Both [View Full Entry]

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