Even though I grew up in a very small town in New Brunswick, I was able to develop a fondness for fried rice at quite a young age.  Any time I would go out to a Chinese restaurant (pretty well the only ethnic food available in northern New Brunswick outside of North American), I ordered what was called “chicken friend rice” from the menu every time, and it was so delicious: nice light brown in color, and perfectly textured and flavored.

When I moved to Vancouver in 2003, one of the first things I noticed was that the Chinese food here is quite different compared to the Chinese food in Eastern Canada. It seemed that all the fried rice was white or yellow in color and the taste was quite bland compared to what I was used to. Besides that, some of the other Chinese food items I was used to were missing from the west coast Chinese restaurant menus, such as Chop Suey and even another one of my favorite food items: the egg roll (haven’t seen one in Vancouver yet, and on a few occasions, the Chinese server at a restaurant pointed out a spring roll from the menu when I asked if they made egg rolls).

Anyway, the purpose of this post is to tell you about a delicious plate of fried rice that I discovered at a restaurant on Davie Street. It’s actually at a Thai restaurant on the north side of Davie Street, just east of Bute called Thida Thai.

Thai Fried Rice - one of the lunch combos for less than $9.00.

The Thai fried Rice, like all of their lunch combos, comes with a spring roll and a small side salad. The fried rice can be ordered with chicken, beef, pork, or tofu, but I always choose chicken. The chicken is good quality, too, and just the way I like it: generous portions of high quality white meat (very rare I will find gristle, but it has happened a couple of times), and just the right texture. Also within the rice, you’ll find around 4 sweet tomato wedges and onion slices. It’s a very nice tasting lunch that I go back for again and again, and it definitely satisfies my “chicken fried rice” cravings in Vancouver.

Another of their items I like to indulge in once in a while is the Thai Yellow Curry lunch combo:

Yellow Curry lunch combo - includes spring roll, rice, salad, and yellow curry with potatoes and chicken (or beef or pork)

All in all, it’s a pretty good little Thai restaurant with extremely reasonable prices, and a super friendly staff. It’s quite quiet and cozy inside with some pretty nice Thai decor.

Thida Thai interior - actually, it looks better than this now. I'll get a more recent picture soon.

Elephant statue/ornament

If you would like more information about Thida Thai and its menu items, try visiting the Thida Thai website at http://www.thidathairestaurant.com/.

The Christmas activities in Vancouver are now in full swing, especially with the arrival of the annual Rogers Santa Claus parade this Sunday. Since I have been in Vancouver for several years now, I’m confident I can recommend some pretty decent seasonal attractions that you should check out sometime this month. Following is a list that I was able to come up with that should be especially useful to newcomers to the Metro Vancouver area.

The Rogers Christmas Parade

This Sunday (December 5, 2010) at 1:00 pm, come to Downtown Vancouver to check out the annual Rogers Santa Claus Parade. If you’ve seen it a few times already, it’s nothing special since they pretty well use the same floats and acts every year, but if you haven’t seen it yet, you should definitely check it out. For the parade route map and to find out more information about it, go to the official website at http://rogerssantaclausparade.com/home

Lights of Hope at St. Paul’s Hospital

I’ve been checking this out since 2003, and I never get tired of it, though it has lost a lot of its awe-factor for me. You can see it on Burrard Street near Helmcken Street. If it’s night time, you definitely won’t miss it because you won’t see more lights in one place anywhere else. It seems they manage to make it a little bit different every year. For more information about it, go to http://www.helpstpauls.com/lights-of-hope/lights-of-hope-display.

Festival of Lights at VanDusen Botanical Gardens

In my opinion, this is the best Christmas lights attraction in the entire Metro Vancouver area. This light show is located at the VanDusen Botanical Gardens, which is located at 5251 Oak Street in Vancouver. Some of the highlights of the Festival of Lights include (taken from the official site):

• Santa’s Living Room: Dec. 10 – 24 with Santa appearances 5:30, 6:30, 7:30, 8:30 p.m.
• Svend and Jens, our Scandinavian Christmas Elves appear nightly in the Centre Court.
• Dancing Lights on Livingstone Lake: starting at 4:30 p.m. Two different shows – one show on the half hour and a different one at the top of the hour. Two different shows repeating in sequence throughout the evening.
• Gingerbread Wood
• Golden Chain Walk
• Community Choir Concerts on the Deck at 6:00 pm and 7:30 pm – view choir schedule
• Make-a-Wish Candle Shrine
• Candy Cane Lane
• Sparkling Spruce in the Centre Court
• Candy Cane Express model train

For more information, go to the official site at http://vancouver.ca/PARKS/parks/vandusen/website/events/fol.htm.

Bright Nights at Stanley Park

Here is another not-to-be-missed attraction which even features a Christmas train ride with a different theme every year. Before or after your train ride, you can take your time to walk around the plaza to check out all the spectacular Christmas light displays.  For getting on the train, you can either buy your tickets through Ticketmaster or purchase them on-site. Check out the official site for more information at http://vancouver.ca/parks/events/brightnights/

Festival of Trees at Four Seasons and Christmas Street

I was just at the Four Seasons hotel to check this out today. It’s always worth checking out, especially if you just happen to be in the area to do some Christmas shopping as I was today (the Pacific Centre Mall is connected). Situated in the lobby of the Four Seasons, and also up the escalator on the next floor are many trees that have all been decorated with a theme.

The Festival of Trees at Four Seasons

While you are in the area to check out the Festival of Trees, you may as well head through the mall into the Bay to see another nice set of Christmas displays. Located on the 5th floor of the Bay is a very nicely decorated area that they call Christmas Street. I’m not sure why they call it Christmas Street, since there is no street, but I think the name is pretty cool. What you’ll see is a lot of Christmas items for sale, but what makes it special is how they have all their items on display with colorful themes in different areas.

No, your eyes are not playing tricks on you. This is a McDonald's Christmas tree.

Gingerbread Lane at the Hyatt Regency

If you like gingerbread creations, you definitely can’t go wrong stopping by the Hyatt Regency Hotel on Burrard Street between Georgia and Pender.

From the official site:

This year, the centrepiece is again Executive Sous Chef Hans Lutz’s gigantic gingerbread house measuring 11 feet tall and 16 feet wide. Ingredients include 500 pounds of gingerbread dough, 400 pounds of confection sugar and 1,400 egg whites, plus a few secret ingredients and a little help from Hyatt’s engineering department. Four foot tall cut outs of gingerbread families are also available for picture taking. Nearly 40 individually crafted gingerbread creations from culinary professionals and amateurs, corporations and secondary schools round out the sweet smelling lavish display.

For more information, go to http://vancouver.hyatt.com/hyatt/hotels/, and click on Gingerbread Lane Celebrates 20th Anniversary in the right column.

The Vancouver Christmas Market

Step back in time … Experience A Traditional German Christmas Festival For All!

New to Vancouver this year is traditional German Christmas market located at the Plaza at Queen Elizabeth Theatre.

Welcome to the Vancouver Christmas Market, an authentic outdoor German Christmas market village featuring unique holiday shopping, seasonal music and entertainment, and delicious traditional food and drink.

I haven’t been able to check this one out yet, but I plan on heading there this week. The German Christmas Market is open until December 24, 2010.

For more information, check out the official website at http://www.vancouverchristmasmarket.com/

Thanks to a stroke of luck, I was able to catch a glimpse of this year’s World Naked Bike Ride in Vancouver.

I actually had no idea at all that this was going to be happening on Saturday, June 12, and I was just on my way back from getting that complete waste of money AirCare checkup, when all of a sudden, the naked bike riders started riding by right through the intersection I was stopped at.

2010 World Naked Bike Ride heading down Granville at Davie

The World Naked Bike Ride is an event that started in Vancouver back in 2002 as an anti-war protest. Since then, it has blossomed into a worldwide event held in 70 cities in 25 countries around the world. It’s current purpose is supposedly a protest against oil dependency and car culture.

The ad for this year's World Naked Bike Ride, beginning at Sunset Beach at the corner of Beach Avenue and Bute Street

Personally, I think many of these people are the type who just want to be naked in public for any reason, and any message or purpose behind it is secondary. Doing stunts like this also won’t make a bit of difference in the world. There is a girl in my picture in the front with the words “Stop Oil Spill” painted in red on her leg. That’s all pretty nice, but what kind of effect is this really going to have? If the U.S. government can’t do anything about it, what kind of a difference can a naked girl on a bike make? Still, I think it’s all quite interesting and funny to see, and yet another cool event that makes Vancouver a special place.

It’s been a windy year in the Metro Vancouver area so far. I recently posted an article on here about a big windstorm we had back at the beginning of April called ” The first windstorm of 2010,” and since then, it seems we have had quite a few more, though not quite as bad as that one.

A few days ago, it was windy again, with gusts approaching 80 km/h, and a few more trees came down, but this time I got to see something different than the usual branches and limbs strewn across sidewalks. I was walking along the seawall near English Bay, checking out the large waves breaking against the rocks quite nicely, and I noticed what appeared to be a couple of kites flying around above the water. As I got closer to the bank, I could see that each kite was actually attached to a person on what looked like a surf board.

Click for high resolution image

Click for high resolution image

What they were doing was not surfing, but an activity or sport called Kiteboarding. When it’s done on water, it might also be called Kitesurfing. Wikipedia defines Kiteboarding as “a sport in which participants ride a form of surfboard or wakeboard harnessed to a large kite which is controlled by strings most commonly attached to a bar.”

Click for high resolution image

Click for high resolution image

If you feel like you want to try kiteboarding yourself, expect to invest quite a lot of money in the equipment. When I checked out the prices for the required equipment at a local store’s website, I found out that kite prices start at around $1000, and boards are usually more than $500. Of course, you would need to have some training, too.

If you’d like more information about purchasing equipment, the Airtime Boardsports site is a good place to start. Also, you can find out about lessons at the Vancouver Kiteboarding School website.

In the early afternoon today, I got a message from a friend of mine, telling me that the TV series Fringe was being filmed on location on Granville Street near Smithe. So I decided to head on over there to check it out.

When I got there at around 2:00 pm, I got to see quite an interesting set in the middle of Granville Street. The set was made up of a number of cars that had the appearance of being wrecked in some kind of an explosion. They probably just got them from a junk yard or something, but their set designers and effects specialists fixed them up really well to make it all look realistic enough for a prime time sci-fi drama.

Here are some of the pictures I was able to take while at the scene:

I've been seeing these signs quite a lot lately, including in Stanley Park where they were filming just 2 weeks ago

A wide shot of the explosion scene

Lots of scrap metal scattered around

They really went into a lot of detail

They are apparently going to have fire coming out of the hood, judging by those propane tanks set up in front

I wish I could have seen how they turned this on its side

Pretending to be a victim of the explosion

This was made to look like an entrance to a New York subway

I’m not sure which episode this set was for, but I’ll know soon enough. There are just a few episodes left this season, and this episode will be coming up soon. It should be cool to see how this scene looks in the finished product.

Fringe is an hour-long sci-fi drama that airs every Thursday at 9:00 pm on Fox. For more information about the series and the storylines, check out the Fox website.

It was just a few years ago, back at the end of 2006, that Vancouver had one of its worst windstorms in recorded history. I remember not really noticing the wind too much, since I was indoors for most of the day and all night, but the next day, I was really amazed at the amount of devastation shown on the news. Stanley Park was hit especially hard, with more than a thousand old growth trees either knocked over, roots and all, or broken. Some of those trees had actually been standing strong in Stanley Park for hundreds of years, but were no more. It took months to clean up the mess after that, and some areas of the park were closed to the public for quite some time.

Well, just a few days ago, on Good Friday, Vancouver got hit by another massive windstorm–the strongest since the 2006 storm, but not nearly as damaging. I really felt it this time, too, since I was out walking around downtown, and there were times when the wind stopped me in my tracks and tossed me around a bit.

The winds gusted to more than 100 km/h, forcing the cancellation of BC Ferries sailings, and temporarily closing Lion’s Gate Bridge, Stanley Park, and the causeway. According to various news sites, more than 30,000 people lost power around the Lower Mainland, and more than 100,000 on Vancouver Island.

The next day, I was surprised to see quite a few large branches that had been ripped off trees in my area. I took a few pictures of them to help show how bad the damage was in some places.

This tree branch knocked over a section of fence

Same tree from another angle

Another one right across the street. Luckily, the hedge was the only thing that got crushed.

For more information about this windstorm, and some great photos, I recommend checking out the following links:

• Global TV for info and pictures about the 2010 windstorm
• Venture Vancouver has some good info about the 2006 storm
• Some Flickr photos from the 2006 storm

First of all, I would like to say that I am a consistent tipper, tipping around 15% every time I go out to a restaurant, and I go out to eat at least once a day. So I’m not cheap, but I have some very negative opinions about tipping, as you’re about to find out.

Not that long ago, I went out to get a massage at a local spa. It’s not something I often do, because it is kind of expensive, but it was a special occasion, so I decided to go for it. I chose a package that included a foot massage and full body massage for $80.

Well, the massage was great, and one of the best I had ever had. However, when I went to pay for it, I came across something that pretty well put all the tension right back inside me. The cost including GST was $84, and I clicked OK when I saw that price on the debit machine, but on the next screen, it said TIP, asking me how much I wanted to tip in either dollars or percent. What? I couldn’t believe it. I asked the cashier if they were really serious about expecting tips there.

“Aren’t you already making enough money by charging me $80 for a 90 minute massage package?” I asked her.

She answered, “Well, it’s just like at a restaurant. People usually pay around 15 or 20%”

I was so annoyed, but I went ahead and paid an additional 15%, which brought my total to $96. I also vowed to myself that I wouldn’t get a massage again for a long, long time.

For many years, I have been wondering about the tipping system in this country. I know it’s been around for a long time, and there are other countries that have a tipping system (not nearly as bad as here and the United States, though), but that just makes me wonder even more: why has such a stupid, disorganized, and confusing way of paying people money been around for so long?

Tipping is basically the customer paying part of the employees salary

When you think about it, nothing about tipping makes any sense to the customer. Even though the restaurant or other business is in place to serve or provide a service to the customer, the customer is the big loser when it comes to tipping. The winners are:

• The employee can get extra money for nothing except doing her job the way she is supposed to do it
• The employer can pay less money to the employee because the customer is paying part of the salary

If that sounds like something that makes sense to you, and like a good setup for customer-to-business money exchange, then I have to wonder what kind of brain you have. A system that makes it standard for a customer to pay part of the employees salary, while the employer exploits that fact, is a seriously messed up system in need of a fix.

Have you ever worked at a restaurant?

When the big debate about tipping comes up, you will always hear some people ask, “Have you ever worked at a restaurant?” in an attempt to dodge the real issue. When someone asks that question, that person has usually worked at a restaurant before or knows somebody who has, and they think that it is hard work, so they deserve to get tips. Well, you know what? Cleaning toilets all day is hard work, too, and much dirtier than working at a restaurant. Do they get tips? Nope. How about cashiers at supermarkets? McDonald’s and Tim Hortons employees? I could come up with a lot of different jobs that are difficult. Why do some people deserve tips and not others? Should everybody get tips?

Actually, I’ve gotten pretty tired of hearing from people who work at restaurants about how much they need their tips. Topping their list of reasons are:

• They don’t make enough money without tips, and it’s expensive to live in this city
• They work really hard, so they deserve to get tips.

So you’re carrying food and drinks to people’s tables, taking orders, and socializing with the customers. Yeah, it sounds like it can be hard at times, but isn’t that what you’re getting paid to do in the first place? If it were easy, it wouldn’t be called work.

My girlfriend used to work at the first-class Marriott Hotel restaurant in Nagoya, Japan. Well, in case you haven’t heard, there is no tipping system in Japan, so she didn’t get any tips, and she was required to walk around the whole restaurant non-stop (they don’t get assigned tables there) for $10/hour. This is the normal way of working in Japan, and the level of service is exceptional, despite the fact that nobody gets tips.

Who is going to complain about getting tips?

If you are a person who is working at a restaurant or in an industry in which you are a receiver of some tips, then your opinion about the tipping system probably doesn’t have much value, especially if you’re an advocate of it. Of course, you are not going to say anything bad about getting extra money. I work as a Web Developer, and I don’t get any tips for my kind of work, of course, but if I did get something extra from a customer, I sure wouldn’t be complaining about it. I wouldn’t be saying, “Hey, I got an extra 20% for that job; I’m so pissed off!” Because of that bias, it should be obvious that, when it comes to debates about tipping, the opinions of an independent, disinterested person should carry quite a lot more weight than those of a person who relies on tips as part of their income.

TIPS are for service?

I have found a number of explanations for what TIPS is actually supposed to stand for. Some of them are:

• To Insure Proper Service
• To Insure Prompt Service
• To Improve Professional Service

Well, whatever the original meaning, I always thought tips were supposed to be a reward for really good service, and I think that’s what most people think today. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work out that way in practice. In Vancouver, it seems that service doesn’t have to be very good in order for the employees to get the same amount of tips over and over. Even I feel like I always have to tip at a restaurant as some sort of social or moral rule, even when the service is just so-so.

But wait a minute: I thought the high prices that we pay at restaurants were supposed to cover the cost of service. Isn’t that why I pay $5.95 for a bowl of edamame (boiled green soybeans) when I could have gotten a whole bag of it at a supermarket for around $3? Isn’t that why a steak dinner costs $30, and a pint of beer can sometimes cost more than $7? What are we paying these prices for if it isn’t for the service?

The tipping system makes prices misleading

Tipping is another way in which a business can mislead customers into thinking something is cheaper than it actually is. Come on, let’s face it: even though tipping is “supposed” to be given as a reward for good service, most people are going to tip anyway, regardless of service (unless it’s super bad, but then some people will still tip a little). Service is usually acceptable enough almost anywhere to get the 15%,  so the restaurant is, more often than not, going to get it. That means that the restaurant is misleading customers about their prices, kind of in the same way that cell phone companies mislead customers by not including the $6.95 system access fee in the package price. It’s a form of deception, pure and simple.

Tipping makes things much more complicated

For most things in this world, simpler is usually better, and tipping makes things a lot more complicated than they need to be. For one thing, how are you supposed to know who and who not to tip? Some websites try to give you some insight into how to handle a variety of tipping situations, such as how to tip your maid, gardener, UPS delivery person, apartment building handyman, hairstylist, garbage collector, and pretty well everyone else. One website, Tipping Etiquette Guide, has such a large list of people whom you are supposedly supposed to tip and so many details about how to do it, you might wonder if you should take a college course to learn about it.

Another way it makes things more complicated is when you are required to do mathematics to figure out out how much tip you owe on your bill at the end of the night. This is often after hours of drinking when you just want to go home and go to bed. Then it gets many times more complicated when your server decides to put everybody on the same bill (seems to be the default in this city), and then you have to work out on paper who had what, how much tax they owe, and then how much tip to pay. I get a kick out of a server who puts everything on one bill and then includes the mandatory tip for large size groups, but then you have to break it all down and work it out yourself anyway.

If only things could be more simple

Almost every day, when I see the way our tipping customs have gotten out of control and should never have been there to begin with, I like to imagine how things would be in this country without it. Can you imagine going to a restaurant, enjoying your night, and then just paying your bill at the end of the night for the things you purchased? What a concept! Imagine going to a spa, enjoying your massage, and then paying the bill without being confused by a prompt to pay an extra 15-20%. How about going to Starbucks and not having a tips container stuck in your face trying to make you feel that paying more than 2 dollars for a coffee wasn’t enough, and that you should give the employees some extra money, too. There are enough panhandlers in this city already without having to see coffee shops using the same tactics.

Much simpler and better would be not having to worry about if, how, when, and how much you should pay someone extra money from your own pocket, even though he is already getting paid for doing that job. Simpler would be adding the 15% tip that people seem to need so badly to the cost of the product, instead of having the customers work it out themselves and pretend that it was because you worked so hard. Wouldn’t that be a lot better?

Conclusion

Now you know some of my thoughts about the tipping system; hopefully, I was able to make a good case against it. I’m pretty sure most of you will agree with this article, as you have sometimes thought about these things yourself, but some of you will also be a little annoyed by it (for reasons already mentioned).

In conclusion, I would just like to say that, even though I don’t like the tipping system that is embedded in our culture and have no doubt that it needs to go, I still have the highest respect for anyone who works in the restaurant field and does a good job at it. They probably do need to be paid more money, but it shouldn’t be from the customer’s pocket–the employer should pay for his employee. As for my experience at the spa, which motivated me to write this article in the first place, that’s something that I can’t have any respect for. A place that is already charging a fortune for a service should not be pressuring people into giving tips at the cash register. That’s just plain wrong.

It seems like just yesterday that I was heading out to try to catch a glimpse of singer Michael Buble carrying the Olympic torch down the street near my apartment. That was the moment I finally started to get really excited about the Olympics. Then the next day, when I was out at a pub with a bunch of my friends to watch the Opening Ceremonies, and when that snowboarder jumped through the Olympic rings and announced the beginning of the Winter Games, it finally hit me that this biggest event in Vancouver’s history, that we had been waiting and preparing for since 2003, had finally arrived.

The Olympic cauldron on the Waterfront was lit by hockey legend Wayne Gretzky to conclude the Opening Ceremonies

Well, it was definitely an interesting 17 days, and though part of me is a bit sad, I’m also a bit relieved that the Vancouver 2010 Olympics are now over.

We were lucky to get some excellent weather in Vancouver during the Olympics. I was really worried that it might be foggy and rainy every day, as what often happens during the winter months here, but the weather, for the most part, was fantastic. So our Olympic visitors were able to experience the sunny Vancouver that we all love, and the temperatures were so warm, people were labeling the Olympics as the “Spring Olympics” (consequently causing tons of problems with the snow for the events on Cypress Mountain).

I tried my best to head out and see most of the Olympic pavilions, houses, and attractions around the city. To my dismay, however, the lineups were usually way too long. Two of the longest were for the Royal Canadian Mint pavilion, where people could touch the Olympic medals, and the one for the Zip Line, that required a 7+ hour wait at times.

Overlooking Science World (Sochi House during the Olympics)

Overlooking Quebec and Saskatchewan Houses from near Sochi House

In front of Sochi House. Shown here is the beginning of the typical multi-hour lineup to get into anything worth checking out.

I wish I could have checked out more of the pavilions from the inside, but most lineups would have forced me to wait at least an hour to get inside. Quebec and Ontario Houses weren’t too bad, but places like Saskatchewan House, Sochi House, Atlantic Canada House, and Irish House were usually too crazy to get inside.

Inside Ontario House. We were lucky to see a live cooking show, featuring Anna Olson from the Food Network. She was cooking an English Trifle dessert, and we got to try it and a glass of ice wine for free.

Canada Hockey House next to Ontario House -- only for the rich or most devoted hockey fans, with costs starting at $100 (including food) to enter.

It was nice to see Vancouver as the center of the world for a couple of weeks. For those who didn’t know about Vancouver before coming here, I’m certain they will never be forgetting it. I could really feel a new appreciation for this city as I imagined how it must appear to people from other countries who had never been here before. The athletes staying at the Olympic Village were about the luckiest since they got to live in condos overlooking False Creek and downtown during their stay here.

The Olympic Village, where many of the athletes stayed while in Vancouver

One of the worst things about the Olympics was trying to get into my favorite restaurants. During almost any game of interest, especially hockey, they were so packed, and many restaurants were charging a mandatory gratuity for any size group. When I went to Steamworks, for example, I was just with my girlfriend, but they charged us an 18% gratuity on top of our bill. They wouldn’t even serve me their beer tasters, which I usually enjoy ordering there. They said that they weren’t going to be serving them during the Olympics. It wasn’t even busy when I was there in the middle of the afternoon, so I wasn’t too impressed with that.

I thought the Games themselves were very enjoyable. My favorite events this year (as usual) were the hockey, all the figure skating, and curling events. The biggest event of all was the final hockey game between USA and Canada, which is always guaranteed to attract the attention of the masses. But who could afford to go see these events in person? Not very many people, especially the common resident of Vancouver. I was able to attend just one event, which was a qualification round for curling with 8 countries playing simultaneously. At $65 per ticket, it was pretty well the only thing within reach for me.

At the curling rink for the 2010 Winter Games. Canada played against Japan.

The biggest celebration of all, by far, was on the final day of the Olympics before the Closing Ceremonies. That was when Canada played against the USA for the gold medal in hockey. It was the first time in my life that I couldn’t get into a single pub no matter how far I walked or how hard I tried. People were lined up in front of pubs and restaurants before they even opened. It was after Canada won the gold medal, though, that the city really erupted with crowds of cheering fans. I don’t think Downtown Vancouver will ever be that busy again. When I was walking around with some friends afterward, there were times when I literally almost got crushed, especially at the Granville/Robson intersection.

Robson Street after Canada won the gold medal in hockey

All in all, I can say the first-hand Olympic experience was quite an awesome one, and it really was a 17-day party, as so many have described it. As a 7-year resident of this city, I was glad to see Vancouver transformed into the center of world attention for a short time, and I thought all the high quality attractions and wild parties of celebration that went along with it were fabulous. Now that the party is over, though, I’m happy about that, too. It went on just long enough, gave us what we had been craving for, and left us with good memories of being in the middle of the greatest Olympics of all time (so far).

I should mention that the 2010 Paralympics will be taking place in Vancouver from March 12-21. This event only has a fraction of the popularity that the Olympics has, but there should be some exciting things to do during that time. I already have tickets to the Opening Ceremonies, which were just $65 each compared to the $1000 price tag for the Olympics Opening Ceremonies, and the lineups for the Zip Line and the Royal Canadian Mint should be many times shorter. This will be a good opportunity for the residents of Vancouver to make up for all the things we missed during the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games.

Last week, I posted an article detailing my trip to the Dockside Restaurant, mainly to try the beer there that is made at their in-house brewery. I had mentioned that  I was a bit too full at that time to try what is probably their best beer there: the Jamaican Lager. Well, I decided to head back over there again recently just to enjoy a pint of this beer.

I met a friend of mine there, and we were lucky to get a seat right by the window. It was my friend’s first time there, and he was really impressed with the view of False Creek, the boats, and the always beautiful condo buildings of Downtown Vancouver.

No zoom required. This is the exact view from where I was sitting.

We both just ordered the Jamaican Lager, and when they arrived, they looked so good: ice cold glasses, thick froth on top, and a reddish color. I almost wasn’t able to take a picture of them because they looked so good and we wanted to drink them immediately.

The Jamaican Lager x 2. Now those are some nice looking pints of beer.

You can really see the red tint from this angle.

We really enjoyed the taste of this beer. It was so light and fruity tasting, yet the fruitiness wasn’t overwhelming. I think it tastes a little bit like a Red Stripe Jamaican beer, but I found this beer was better than that. Out of all the beer that I tried at this brewpub, this one takes first prize for being the most delicious, and it’s actually one of the best beers I’ve ever had anywhere.

While there, I also got some news about the restaurant and pub availability during the Olympics. Unfortunately, the whole building will be closed to the public during the Olympics because Coca Cola will be taking it over. So if you want to try out this special beer, you better head over now or else wait until after the Olympics.

I’m often complaining about things that I see people doing around the city. Whether it be someone throwing his cigarette butt on the sidewalk, or some annoying person trying to open the door for you at a 711 so he can bum some money off you on the way out, there seems to be always something out there that starts to get on my nerves after a while. One of those things is the improper use of pedestrian signals at intersection crosswalks.

Now is it really that big a deal to stop and wait until the next light before trying to cross the street? Judging by the behavior of many of the pedestrians in Vancouver, it certainly seems to be. I know I lost track, a long time ago, of people who have started walking across crosswalks at busy intersections while the hand was already flashing, and making stressed out drivers wait longer than they should to make their left or right turn onto that street. Not that long ago, I saw a 30-something year old girl start waking across the street right in front of a car that was making a left turn, forcing him to stop quickly. When the driver tooted his horn (rightly so), instead of hurrying or realizing that she was being stupid, she turned toward the driver and gave him the middle finger.

The signals

The walk signal

This signal means you have the right of way to walk across the crosswalk. All vehicles should yield to you as you are walking, but you should still try to be considerate and not walk like a turtle. Also, don’t forget to exercise caution. If the light has just changed, a car might be trying to speed through a yellow light, and passing by just as you start to take your first step. You just need to pay attention.

The "move your ass if you're not yet across and don't start walking" signal

This is the signal that causes by far the most trouble. The main reason is that a lot of people actually don’t know what they are supposed to do here. Well, this is the way it is supposed to be done. If you have not yet entered the intersection, and the hand starts flashing, you should not enter the intersection, especially if it is busy. Keep in mind that there are drivers on the street who are trying to drive across the same area. Why make life more difficult for drivers by walking across the street when you’re not supposed to?

The "don't walk" signal

And, of course, everyone knows what this means. If you’re still making your way across the street when this is on, and you haven’t started running yet, then you probably deserve to go rolling over someone’s hood.

One more thing I’d like to make note of is a common mistake people make while waiting for the walk signal to come on. I’m talking about the time when there is a short gap in the traffic, and a couple of people perhaps think it’s safe to cross at this moment. Some other people who are waiting, though, and not really paying attention may follow those people into the intersection, and a small flow of people may begin, even though the red hand is still up. I’ve seen this happen so many times, and it’s really dangerous. Often the cars have to stop abruptly to avoid running over these people who had assumed it was safe to walk just because other people were walking. So it’s not always best to follow what other people are doing. Pay attention!

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