What's green?

Organic, biodegradable, carbon neutral and sustainable, are the words that you have to take in when you live in Vancouver. The abbreviation to all of this would be "green".
("Bio" is associated with something different here by the way!!! Just for the non german readers: Bio is what we call organic food!)
Never admit that something is not organic when you bring it to a party or if you buy a can of something you don't have to feel bad about the enery it takes to recycle it can still be carbon neutral! You can also make a bottle/can collector happy, which I learned from "Carts of Darkness", its worth 5 cents (pop)/10 cents (beer) when they return it)

Last week I was asked by a woman if my Yoga mat was biodegradable. I did not know that those existed before. We both checked the label which did not say so. "At least it's green" I said (it's color is green).

Today in a "Paperie & Design" shop when we declined to take a "plastic" bag for our purchase because we had our own "fabric" bag the lady said: "But it's biodegradable, you can take it." "Thanks, but we don't NEED it"

Olaf bought an "organic" chocolate muffin today. Very delicious, almost 100% chocolate. The little muffin was packed in a huge plastic see-through APET-container from Pactiv. Unfortunately he did not ask if it was biodegradable :-) The store he bought it at says this about sustainability: Whole Trade, reducing packaging waste, MSC and being certified organic are just part of our Market commitment to sustainability. Well I have to add if you choose not to take a bag at that store the 5 cent are going to charity, it you want!

I don't have a car, I ride my bike as often as possible, I am aware of buying sustainable seafood since I live in Vancouver, I buy hardly any meat and I actually bought a waste basket that says its biodegradable! I have an iphone application that tells me where I can buy "green" in my neighborhood! I'm so green.

Om Yoga

This week was my Yoga-week. I had a voucher for semperviva a Yoga studio in the Kitsilano area and had the chance to test all their classes and four studios for one week. I did Hatha, Vinyasa Power Flow and Kundalini and liked all of it in its way. Hatha is the less energetic version that I like to do to relax, Vinyasa Power Flow was like what I got to know as Power Yoga before and I like the movement and the sweat. I did not know anything about Kundalini before, still don't understand all of it (what were they singing?) but it was a good workout especially since I did Hatha Yoga before! I will try to go twice a week now. Just makes me feel good even though we chant om in the end! I only miss the change rooms and showers at the studios. That will get better in summer, I'm sure.

Stanley Park and Vancouver Aquarium

Whenever we go for a walk in Stanley Park I can't avoid to sneak in the Vancouver Aquarim and take a look at the beatiful beluga whales. Tiqa, Qila and Aurora are in the part of the aquarium that you can visit without paying! Tiqa is the baby beluga born in the summer of 2008, Quila her mother and Aurora is the grandmother, that is going to have another baby this summer!!! The beluga even have ther own webcam.


Captivity of animals, putting them in zoos or aquariums for humans to look at is something that I generally decline. Fortunately Canada doesn't allow beluga whales to be captured and exported any longer. Most beluga at the aquarium were born in captivity. Modern zoos and their staff more and more actually educate people on animals and the research is also useful to the wild relatives. According to the Vancouver Aquarium Marine Science Centre their mission is to conserve aquatic life through display and interpretation, education, research and direct action. Aquarium staff and Volunteers have been involved in the creation of Canada's first no-take marine protected area, beach clean-ups, wetlands restorations, wildlife rescue and rehabilitations, and population surveys of marine mammals and intertidal fishes. So its not all bad and one day I will also pay the entrance fee to see all the aquarium has to show and to have a full glance at those amazing animals!


There are also seals that you can look at. We saw a wild one in the harbour today just half a mile from the aquarium!

(canadian) idioms

This is a list of idioms that we learned in the last 3 months:

That's the way the cookie crumbles
sit on the fence
Bob's your uncle
blind alley
for a song
redneck
fat is in the fire
I'll take a rain check
go through the motions
monkey on back

Some of the idioms we learned from the newsletter "One word a day"

Carts of Darkness

Being homeless is not fun but this documentary shows that some guys know how to have fun surviving in the streets of Vancouver. I watch people bottle picking every day in our back alley with a mixture of compassion and disgust. I put out empty bottles on the side for them to pick up but I will probably never get closer then that. This film gives a deep insight in the lives of men who did not all choose to live the way they live but make the best of it.

also found here and here

Nordic Festival

This weekend the Ski Jumping Wordcup was hosted in Vancouver, well actually Whister and to be very precise at the Whistler Olympic/Paralympic Park, located 16 kilometres southwest of Whistler, 50 kilometres north of Squamish and 115 kilometres north of Vancouver. It takes two hours by car to get there from Vancouver on the Sea to Sky Highway. It is a very scenic drive on a "soon to be finished" road along the Strait of Georgia (not Georgia Straight)!


Ice Scultures at the Whistler Olympic Parc

The Nordic Fest which combined crosscountry ski events biathlon and Ski jumping was a welcome test for the 2010 olympic games. For us the still to be improved traffic situation turned out to be a desaster. We were in the middle of a traffic jam while the ski jumping final started and when we finally arrived, by foot, since we were advised to leave the car 2,5 kilometres down the hill, because of no parking, everything was over and there were lots of parking spots because many people had already left!

We still got to see the winners and the VIP's photoshooting and giving interviews but we did not see a singe jump :-( It was still nice to wander around the olympic park in the sun, have a almost veggie (!) burger and Anja and Rabea met a future workmate from VANOC.


Brandnew skijumping area at the Whistler Olympic Parc


Simon Ammann and Adreas Küttel, Switzerlands Skijumping Superstars, chatting with spectators

more pictures here

War camp at UBC

On Saturday, I took a walk around the UBC campus during the break of my course and suddenly, I stood in front of a frightening war camp that had been erected around the Buchanan Tower: Concrete walls, barbwire, watchtowers with floodlights, crude warning signs: "HALT! Warning! Restricted area - Use of deadly force!" My first thought was that this was an anti-war installation and for that, it would have been a pretty good setup.

However, it came out that it was "just" a film set and two production assistants informed me that they had to re-shoot some scenes from forthcoming X-Men Origins: Wolverine (Wolverine is a super-hero with the special power of extreme growth of hair and fold-out scissors like Edward Scissorhand). Well, I'm a fan of the X-Men series, so it was still pretty cool to watch and I'm looking forward to the release of the movie.

SwissWater Decaf

On Saturday, I visited a new cafe and curiously discovered "SwissWater Decaf" on the list. Curious? It actually is the brand of a Vancouver-based company, who is using water instead of chemicals for decaffeination.

What has that to do with Switzerland? Nothing, except that it was somebody in Switzerland in 1930, who was the first to use water for decaffeination.

Sirens

Until febuary 8th there will be the 5th annual PuSh International Performing Arts Festival. Today we went to see Siren. I was totally unprepared, just new it would be some kind of art installation. What it really was is hard to describe but I will try:
Siren is an audiovisual experience. On the performance site there are large metal tripods from one up to three metres tall. They have rotating arms powered by motors, electronic tone generators (sirens) and a speaker at each end. It starts slowly. The performers consecutively switch the "instruments" and tune the sound. When they are all running they create a chorus of analog sounds. They also start spinning, some slow some faster. The audience can wander around the tripods freely while the performers tune the oscillators to change the musical composition and try not to get hit by one of the rotating arms. The small red LEDs at the end of each arms trace circles of light as the arms rapidly rotate, which is expereinced best when there is no other light (see images below). I enjoyed this unusual experience with sound and light very much. If you have the chance, go see it!


photo: Ray Lee; You can watch videos on the website but its not nearly the same experience then when you see it real

Weihnachtsstollen

Today, we were very happy because the delicious handmade Christmas Stollen, which Christof had baked for us, arrived! Yummy in the tummy!

Thank you very much, Marion and Christof!

Manga bakery

Yesterday, we found a wonderful Japanese bakery, which is decorated with lots of love and looks like the manga-version of a French bakery: The apple pie is formed like an apple, some signs are written in French and printed in old-style fonts, and little robots are placed in the show case. And one of them even starts dancing, if you give a tip!

French Vanilla

Today, I went to Tim Hortons, the legendary Canadian coffee chain, and ordered a "French Vanilla". I was curious what I'm drinking and asked whether it contained any coffee, but ufortunately, nobody at the counter knew. However, the very friendly lady even went to the back office and the chief finally knew that their drink does contain coffee. And by the way, if you have a sweet tooth, is actually really good.

Above the fog

After several days with heavy fog in the city we were hoping to escape that by going up to Cypress Mountain on Saturday. We took the early bus together with about three dozen of "Richmond kids" (thats where the bus started) and some staff people who complained to be late for work while we could not believe how early it still was. We were rewarded by bright sunshine just a few miles from downtown. You could even see some skyscapers stick out of the fog.


From the bus I could not possibly take a picture like that myself.

Cypress Mountain is the 2010 Olympic venue for Freestyle skiing and Snowboarding. Passing the Alpine Venue we saw the slope for a Freestyle event. Too many bumps and jumps for me! We decided to start with snowshoeing. At the Nordic area they have very nice snowsho trails with maps every few metres. There were many people on the trails and on the cross-country ski runs but still it was a nature experience walking between ancient trees and on about 2 metres of snow.


Olaf on snowshoes. The snow was quite packed here but we went through the forest a lot and there we needed snowshoes.


Lunch break with other cool snowshoeers.


Last descent to the Hollyburn lodge.


Nordic ski area on Cypress Mountain. We will come back!

Gang Violence at New Year's Eve

Don't worry - we didn't get involved into gang violence but that's the name of a local music band...

New Year's Eve, we had spent with Anja (out of Brackenheim Blog) and Rabea, first cooking at our appartment. Later, we went to the "Emergency Room VS Icecream Social" party at Biltmore Cabaret. Emergeny Room is the probably hottest music label in Vancouver and they presented the band "Gang Violence", who played pretty loud noisy music.


In contrast, Icecream Social is a party DJ playing 50s and 60s music, famous four his great parties and many guests had dressed up with pettycoats and similar clothes. If you think, these two music directions don't get along, well, it was interesting, but somehow, it fits. Or, as Anja said, it was a "Potpourri, ein bunter Strauss an Melodien".

















Photos: Steve Louie Photography @ Flickr

Hongkong

Last Thursday, I took the wrong bus and suddenly, I was in Hongkong.

Vancouverianer: Tofino Time

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Tofino Time

When we were thinking about getting out of the city for a few days after the holidays we were soon thinking of Tofino as the perfect getaway. We were already amazed by its beauty and tranquility on our first visit 2 years ago.

Tofino is a small intimate town at the end end of the Trans Canada Highway on Vancouver Island. It's where the ancient rain forest meets the Pacific Ocean. Yes it rains a lot here, but when it gets too cold to rain it will snow. For the local surfers neither rain nor snow nor temperatures just above 0° C are a reason not to go surfing if there are big enough waves. We had it all in 3 days. Beautiful sunshine and sunset, rain and hours of snowing. We were glad to spend the time when it was snowing at the cosy fireplace of our hostel reading and drinking hot beverages.


2 surfers and their dog


surfer on bike


Who said surfers don't drink beer?

Everything's Gone Green

Vancouver's famous and usually great writer Douglas Coupland (Generation X has been the best description of a whole (maybe my?) generation) has not only written books, but he also wrote the script for a movie with lots of insiders about Vancouver:

Everything's Gone Green is a 2006 Canadian comedy film starring Paulo Costanzo, directed by Paul Fox and written by Douglas Coupland. This movie, Coupland's first screenplay, won the award for best Canadian feature film at 2006’s Vancouver International Film Festival (Wikipedia).

Well, I was a bit disappointed about the rather predictable story and some of the best jokes Coupland had used in JPod already, but still, you get lots to see of and laugh about Vancouver.