vancouver

 I can't say I took much to Vancouver. It reminds me of Adelaide, or Brisbane perhaps. A small city, which doesn't really know itself and in promoting what it thinks people might like to know strays a long way down the path of the disposable modern city. In fact, there is probably a very interesting history to the place, or in fact, several competing histories, but it would take an excavator to find them. What I can tell you is that it has a lot of Starbucks - maybe 12 or 15 in the tiny downtown section (Yaletown, Chinatown, Fogtown) we stayed in, and that Starbucks in Vancouver are worse than Starbucks in Sydney. The coffee tastes even more like chicory. Still, I like a bit of public art, and this head fits the bill. Is it Ozymandias? Or some local legend? Whatever, very good. I have a feeling that there is a bunch of art happening in Vancouver that might be more of its heart than we saw this time through.

Pretty much the obligatory view from hotel room shot. There's a very definitely new high-rise stage of development going on.

Every last Friday in the month the city cyclists colonise the roads and ride en masse through the city, provoking outrage in car drivers stuck for 20 minutes as the parade passes. There's only one thing more self-righteous than a peak hour driver, and that's a peak hour cyclist with a few hundred of his mates in tow. You can't see the argument in this picture, it's taking place somewhat to the right.

Just testing what the phone in the camera can do - not too bad really.