Wednesday 28 February 2007

Tour de Chance


I only seem to get out to Vancouver a time or two a year, but I like the place. I could bike there year round... the climate is so hospitable. Sure they get winter, but if I can find a way to bike in Calgary year round, I think Vancouver is doable.

I cabbed it over to a hotel downtown. It makes me happy that this city has realized that taxis don't need to be giant V8 American P.O.S. cars. A Toyota Corolla is perfectly acceptable as a taxi, and leaves more money for the cabbie at the end of the day due to reduced fuel costs. I stayed at a simple Best Western downtown, and am now a Best Western afficionado. Riding up the elevator to get to my room, I noticed a bill posted that said the hotel offers free bikes to guests to tour around the city. They earned my support as a forward thinking bunch right there and then!

The girl at the front desk recommended a Thai place in Yaletown, I decided I might as well give it a try. I went for some lettuce wraps (great), and the fish special. It'd been a couple of years since I bothered with a Thai restaurant fish special since I'm not a huge fan of the work involved with eating an entire fish and picking through all the bones, but it was so delicious it was worth it. A whole coconut was my beverage of choice, and fried bananas were dessert.

Walking around downtown Vancouver is interesting relative to Calgary. I guess when you pay dearly for your 750 sq. feet of home, you want to make it as nice as possible. Seems like everyone is a hobbyist interior decorator here judging by the number of stores selling upscale furnishings, and the general decor of the places visible from the street.

On the way home, I saw a great mural on an overpass entitled "Tour de Chance". Sounds like life to me... it stuck with me for a while on the walk home.

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