Capilano River Park and Richmond Olympic Ice Sports Centre

On their first weekend here I took Bridget and Daniel for a walk over the Cleveland Dam wall and down the Capilano River to the bridge crossing near the Hatchery. They breed salmon and trout for release into the local streams. We also happened to see a bald eagle in the branches of a tree overlooking the river. Much of the snow has disappeared since I was here a few weeks ago. The trails through the forest and along the river reveal magnificent tall trees reaching straight for the sky and moss covered branches, ferns, roots and rocks creating hobbit hideouts, goblin's grottos or fairies' wonderlands.

On the Sunday we went downtown for brunch with a group of Aussies who are all in BC for the year. There were four from Victoria, one from the ACT, and one from NSW. After lunch we drove around Stanley Park and stopped off at the totem poles, and Prospect Point, before heading out to Richmond to have a look at the newly opened Olympic Ice Sports Centre. As part of the 2009 Cultural Olympiad there are cultural events all over the lower mainland during February and March. All weekend the venue was open for WinterFest and a display of huge ice sculptures. Daniel is standing next to one of the smaller sculptures. This has an Inuit Inukshuk on top. The inuksuk may have been used for navigation, as a point of reference, a marker for hunting grounds, or as a food cache. It is also one of the symbols for the 2010 Winter Olympics.

Grouse Mountain

School was given 50 free passes to go to Grouse Mountain to see the Torchlight Parade to celebrate 365 days to go until the 2010 Winter Olympics open in Vancouver. I could have taken some because there were a few left over after school but decided not to because we already had a yearly pass and we didn't have the gear to be able to ski on the night.

I arrived home at about 3:30 pm to find that they had all slept through the morning. Bridget and Daniel had been for a walk around the block, and they had started to unpack their bags. I suggested that they might like to head up the mountain to have a look at the parade. I had purchased a yearly family pass for the mountain. It is $34.95 for an adult and $19.95 for a youth ticket to go up in the Skyride. It would cost $110, but a yearly family pass was only $190. We can use it as many times as we like for 12 months from the date of issue.

After gathering some warm clothes and coats we headed off. We got there at about 5:00 pm and there was heaps of space in the carpark. I had expected it to be a bit more crowded. I already had my pass, but they needed to get their photos taken and tickets issued.

We got into the cable car with approximately 100 other people and took the 4 minute ride to the top of the mountain. The torchlight procession was due to start at 6:00 so we walked to a spot where we had a good view of the trail down the mountain. Just before it started they turned the lights off and closed all the ski runs. We could then see the flares at the top of the mountain as the skiers began to snake their way down. There were about fifty skiers holding a flare on the end of each ski pole. They met up with another group and all continued towards the base of the runs.

We then took a sleigh ride pulled by a SnowCat. The driver turned out to be an Australian from Geelong. He said that there are Aussies everywhere. They are working on all the skiing mountains.

After the sleigh ride we went to the Theatre in the Sky. They show two movies continuously. One about the two orphaned grizzly bears which now live on Grouse Mountain, called Animal Tracks, and the other was Born to Fly - an eagle's eye view of British Columbia.

Family arrive from Australia

Paula, Bridget and Daniel were due to arrive from Australia in the early afternoon. I arranged to get the afternoon off, removed one of the seats from the van so that I would be able to load all their bags, and lefft for the airport. I arrived at about 1:40 pm. Their plane was due to arrive at 1:45 pm, but the plane had arrived about 25 minutes earlier.

I knew that they had to go through Customs and Immigration because they had to get Canadian visas and papers for permission to work and study. When I had come through 7 weeks earlier it had taken me about an hour, so I expected a wait.

After two and a half hours I decided that I should try and find out whether they had actually made their connection in LA. They had about three hours to clear US Customs in LA and catch their Air Canada flight to Vancouver. They had no way of contacting me even if they had landed. Air Canada were unable to tell me if they were actually on the plane, or not. I went back down to the arrivals hall and waited for another 30 minutes before trying to find someone from Customs and Border Patrol. I was advised that they were busy today and that a wait of 2 1/2 - 3 hours would not be out of the question. Back to the arrivals hall and to find some more travel brochures to pass the time away.

After waiting four hours I again went to another Air Canada desk and explained the situation. I was again advised that they couldn't give me any information but this lady suggested that it was an unusually long time and took me to the airport information desk. Here I was advised that i could contact the RCMP (Royal Canadian Mounted Police) because they were the only people who could actually access the information as to who was on a particular flight. As I was about to leave and head to the RCMP the lady behind the desk spotted a senior airport official who suggested that I try Air Canada information desk at the other end of the terminal. Ten minutes later I was at the information desk. The attendant said that she had been through the area about half an hour earlier and that it was not particularly busy. She did some checking on her computer and suggested that she might take a walk through the secondary Customs and Immigration area. This at least suggested that they had at least made the connecting flight and should be in Vancouver.

How could I have missed them? Where would they have gone if I had missed them? Had they been detained but the Customs and Immigration for some reason?

I walked back to the arrivals hall with this lady, described Paula and the kids, and showed her a family photograph which was a few years old. I must get a more recent one to carry around. She asked me to wait and disappeared through the security doors. About ten minutes later she returned to say that she had found them. Paula had her paperwork and the kids were currently being processed and would be out shortly.

About twenty minutes later they appeared with three trolleys loaded with bags and coats. they went on to explain that they had been in the queue for Immigration and Visas for about three hours. They had met people from the Phillipines, Brazil and various other places. They had all shared their life histories and everyone knew of the horror of the bushfires in Australia.

By the time I left the airport I had been there for five hours. I can understand how people could get frustrated and uptight - especially not being able to get any information from anyone. There has been a Coroner's Inquest into the death of a Polish man, who died after being Tasered by the RCMP, when he was upset and frustrated during an incident last year.

We headed for the carpark and I was glad that I had removed one of the seats because it would have been a bit of a squeeze otherwise. On the way home, about 30 km from the airport, they proceeded to tell me that they had been chosen for extra security checks all along the way - on leaving Melbourne and in LA. They had no time to get anything to eat in LA, and had no Canadian money to purchase any food on the Air Canada flight from LA to Vancouver. They did have a nice flight attendant who had given them some snacks. So they were tired and hungry and just wanted to get to a shower and bed. I think they all fell asleep in the car.

We unloaded the bags and they proceeded to explore the house and decide who was having which bedroom.

They were all still asleep when I left for work the next morning.

Stanley Park

Went for a drive to Stanley Park for the afternoon. I drove across the Lion's Gate Bridge and headed through the park for Prospect Point. Parking anywhere in the park is ticketed. I headed out towards the view point towards North Vancouver and the bridge. There has been quite a lot of restoration work done since a windstorm severely damaged the park in December 2006. Around 10%. or 10,000 trees were downed during the storm and the Prospect Point escarpment and sea wall were also damaged.
I walked along one of the tracks towards Third Beach. You can see the damage from the winds. Some parts look like they have been logged. In some parts it has actually created quite a scenic view towards North and West Vancouver. I saw lots of birds including a Pileated Woodpecker.
I went further around the park to where there was a small bridge over a pond that had lots of ducks. I walked around here for a while and noticed a couple holding their hands out with breadcrumbs on them for the tiny little birds to come and feed. I spotted a couple of chipmunks, and took a walk deeper into the woods of the park. It was amazing to see how shallow the roots of the huge trees here were. This area was quite wet underfoot and it looked like these massive trees had been standing on such a small base just waiting to be pushed over.

On the way back to the car, I again walked past the ponds, and noticed a raccoon perched in branches overhanging the water, grooming itself. It is nice to spot wildlife in it's own surrounds and not have to find it in a cage. I drove around the park and past the totem poles and stopped to watch a huge freighter steam out of the port, under the Lion's Gate Bridge and of to parts unknown.

2nd LAN Party

That's Learning At Night. This is an initiative of the NVSD44 Teach Team. They are trying to get teachers interested in new technology. Besides the interesting topics they are providing dineer for 70 - 80 teachers from the district. This time it was Chinese food to coincide with the Chinese New Year. The food was good.

It was held at the local high school and the main focus seems to be introducing a variety of Web 2.0 technologies to teachers for their own professional use, and then to find ways to use these technologies in the classrooms.

Some of the applications mentioned in the introduction were Delicious, Skype, Edmodo, Evernote and Twitter. We then went to one of 4 sessions. The sessions included: Blogging buddies, Back-channel and others. Link to info.

Chinese New Year - Year of the Ox

Sunday was light, wet snow up on the mountain, but as you went down the mountain it just changed to light rain.

I caught the bus down to Lonsdale Quay and bought a day pass. There was a wait for the Sea Bus. On Sunday they only run every 30 minutes, rather than 15 minutes during the week. Once over in Downtown Vancouver I caught the Sky Train a couple of stations and started to walk to Chinatown. I could see streets blocked off and crowds lining the parade route. The parade was already happening, so I walked along the parade route towards the Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Chinese garden. Today it was entry via donation. This is a quite pretty and serene garden in the middle of Downtown Vancouver. I walked around and had a look at the displays and then went back outside to watch the end of the parade.

After the parade people began to disperse and the Chinese Lions that were in the parade went in different directions to bring luck to the shops/shopkeepers in the area. A lettuce hung over the doorway to the shop was the invitation for the lion to stop and take the offering, and in so doing bring luck for the coming year. There was music, drums and fireworks all around.

After this I walked in to the Vancouver Art Museum to see a display of lanterns that was part of the Cultural Olympiad, which is on from now until the Olympics in 2010. There were thousands of lanterns hung outside in the forecourt, and about a dozen large lanterns on a display on the steps. I decided that I couldn't stay another couple of hours until it was dark, although I am sure it would have been an amazing sight.

Heading back through the shops I realised that Superbowl was already on. The transport connections were pretty good so I was in the front door at home at half time. I was interested to see how Ben Graham and his team would fare. He was the first Australian to ever compete in a Superbowl. Unfortuneately his team, the Arizona Cardinals, was beaten in the final few seconds of the game. It was quite an exiting finish.

Capilano Suspension Bridge

I got home on Friday night to find an invitation fro "Friends and Neighbours" to come and apply for their Annual VIP pass to the Capilano Suspension Bridge. It was nice weather on Saturday so I decided to go and take advantage of the invitation. It is a couple of kms down the hill so I drove. Parking - $5.

Normal adult entry is $27.95 and this pass gives entry as many times as you want. The VIP pass is for two people. It also gives 15% discount for guests. I do also have 4 other day passes.There has been quite a bit of development since I was last there in 2001. There are two new walks - The Cliffhanger walk, and The Treetop walk.

I was also surprised to hear that the venue had been closed for 3 months in 2006 - 07 because a very large tree came down and rested across the bridge. There was a huge wind storm that also took out a lot of trees all around the southern mainland, including Stanley Park. It had to be cut away in small pieces to avoid the danger of suddenly coming off the bridge and causing the bridge to flick up and snap, or flinging the tree into the air.

The suspension bridge is Vancouver's oldest tourist attraction, originally built in 1889, it stretches 450 feet (137m) across and 230 feet (70m) above Capilano River. The Treetop Walk is the newest addition and is also via suspension cable spung between tall trees about 10 - 30 meters above the ground. There are platforms attached to the trees with cables sprung in-between.