What an active few days I’ve had. Whew. We went kayaking on English Bay for sunset which was unbelievable, gorgeous, amazing, etc! We were met by quite a few seals – I called one Fred. There’s one called Albert, but we didn’t go too far into False Creek, where he lives. Apparently he jumps onto your kayak for a bit of a ride. Instead we had 2 dickheads on the way back, grab hold of our rudders. He let go eventually – well, he had to. He was that fat we couldn’t move.

Then yesterday we went on an extremely long bike-ride, all through the outskirts of Stanley Park, with people shouting ‘on your left!’, or ‘on your right!’ as the came speeding past. I think I want to try one of those road/racing bikes, they look fun. We left from Stanley park, rode all the way through English Bay across Burrard Bridge on the newly created bike path, which has had a crazy amount of controversy from the locals, through Kitsilano Beach and then all the way back! Exhausting and exhillarating. The heat yesterday was 30c! THIRTY DEGREES CELSIUS. My god.

Anyway, I didn’t take my camera to those events for various reasons. But I took it up Grouse Mountain, didn’t I. Doh.

Grouse Mountain

So what’s Grouse Mountain? It’s only the most painful and unbelievably long trail I’ve ever been on, in my life. It’s a distance of 2.8km with an elevation from start to finish of 2,800 feet The summit sits at 3,700 feet – and I sat there too. The tallest building in the world, the Burj Dubai is still under construction and upon completion will stand at 2,684 feet. I walked higher than that. I did so carrying my stupid camera equipment, 1L water and a lot of energy food. It was heavy, I almost died.

The course record is held by Michael Simpson at a time of 26:19 – I did it in roughly 90-120 minutes. Hardly a record breaker, but I did carry half a tonne of camera equipment with me! There were warnings of death – I ignored them. There were 7 year old kids overtaking me – I ignored them too.

This is the coolest set of railway tracks, ever. It seems so industrial.

One of many cruise ships I’ve seen harbour here. One of the smaller ones, too. The other day there was a ship so large that it towered the huge IMAX Building behind it.

After we got on the Seabus and hit North Vancouver, we saw the coolest couple dancing to the coolest music.

Then we grabbed the bus to the base of Grouse Mountain.

This is about 1/2 the way up the mountain, you can see the steep inclination of the whole thing. It got a whole lot steeper, and a whole lot sketchier. It was a hands and feet job!

This is roughly 3/4ths the way up, I was pretty impressed at this point, at how tiny everything seemed. Y’know, I walked this high.

And we reached the top! Which was anticlimactic. The only awesome thing was the view – and it was absolutely breathtaking.

This lake looked crystal clear, and gorgeous – but it seemed pretty isolated, so no chance of getting near it.

Grizzlies! They looked a little hot, and y’know – were surrounded by electric fences. So I figured they weren’t too pleased. One was having a roly-poly moment though.

No, no, no. It was high. No looking down.

Argh! GORGEOUS. The pictures really don’t do it justice. I had a battle with mosquito’s and an under performing lens/camera/self

No idea what this idiot was doing. Taking vacation photos in an area that just a few meters down was a steep drop, the only people supposed to be here, were ones secured in paragliding gear.

That’s your lot folks! Things turn to street photography from here on in.

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So I’ve been looking for a job nigh on 4 days now – which I know isn’t a whole lot of time, but it is when I’m going to be running out of money. Anywho, yesterday I was walking through Bute street, or Robson street – one of the two and was handing in Resumé’s at all the shops with signs in the window. The last stop was some ice cream parlour and she seemed really engaged and overly interested in my Resumé – which was a bit odd, for an ice cream shop, y’know? Regardless, she set me up for an interview/training session (how hard can it be to put ice cream in a cone?) on monday.

Place To Live

The hardest part for me so far, has been trying to find a place to live. No one will accept me for such a short period of time, and anyone that does are asking for insane amounts of money, I viewed a place yesterday which was lovely, but a little too pricey and way too far away for my liking. So I’m going to have to keep looking I guess! In the mean time I’ve been taking some pictures, which I hope you’ll like.

Em and I have also booked a kayaking session at sunset, today – because, you know. It’s her holiday too!

P.S – WE HAVE BEDBUGS! THEY’RE HORRIBLE AND WE’RE SORE. ARGHHHH

The beach on English Bay. It’s nice, if a little busy. This is where we’ll be setting off on our sunset

The Vancouver Art Gallery. We were going to go in, but it was $25. Err, no – thanks.

Some new building that’s being built, that I thought was pretty sexy.

Going up the View Tower

We live just by the church!

And on the way down, we saw this man. Who forgot he had no underwear and no belt.

And back up for sunset!

Adios folks!

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This is beginning to worry me. I’m in the second week now and I’m still struggling to find a job or a place to stay. I almost got lucky but for some reason they decided not to go through. I think my main issue with rent is how short term it is, everyone is avoiding me. I’m handing out Resumes left right and center and I’m calling for jobs everywhere. I’m due to edit my Resume so I can apply to Blacks Camera Shop which I’ll be doing tomorrow.

The main places I’ve applied to, which I’m hopeful for, is the Photo Specialist at London Drugs Store, WhiteSpot Bartender & The Apple Store Specialist. Yet I’ve heard nothing so far! Woe be me.

The plan now is to really start piling on the rent situation and find some place to stay, otherwise I’ll be spending way too much money on a hostel for a week when I could be spending almost the same amount on a home for a month. Argh! Stress.

By the way, you’re noticing a lack of pictures. How observant. Yeah, I’m fed up at the moment and pictures are taking a break until I feel confident in my stay here.

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We took a trip up to Capilano Suspension Bridge yesterday and it was pretty good. Scenic, but full of tourists. I officially hate tourists. It was the sort of place that is visually really rich and interesting but just spoilt by overpriced entry tickets and too many idiots. So we left with empty pockets and what we thought were a good bunch of photographs, but the dynamic range was so intense that it was hard to grab anything decent. So much so, in fact – that I’m thinking of just ignoring the pictures and never posting them. I might try and throw one or two RAW files into a HDR Conversion.

I did spend a little more time on one of my sunset pictures, however. Editing it just in case someone would like it as a print. I think I’m pretty happy with this although the horizon is a little out of whack due to the wide-angle and the converging lines. Fear not, I feel a little photoshopping may fix that. But I can’t be bothered right now.

Today was a fairly uneventful day, I walked down English Bay and sunbathed for an hour or so, then it became overcast and quite chilly so the rest of the afternoon was spent searching for an apartment and a job. It’s quite enthralling although I’m getting one reply for every thirty I send out. Ouch. I guess perseverance is absolutely necessary =D.

I’m sat in Starbucks at the moment, I tried to sit in one on Robson St. but they decided to close at normal o’ clock – which isn’t what I expected for Vancouver, so a couple blocks down the road and I find another Starbucks open till 12am, awesome. I get 2 hours free wireless a day so I’m taking advantage of the time to… Just browse Craigslist for more jobs and edit my pictures a little more.

I’ve been stared at an awful lot, and have had some old italian guy tell me his disdain over buying a new mac and not knowing how to use it. This place is so friendly it’s unreal, I love it. Screw England!

Well, I’ve sat here for nigh on 2 hours and had a single Earl Grey. I’ve spotted a place across the road called Megabite Pizza that sells hotwings no doubt, so that’ll be my next venture before I trot off back to the hostel.

Adios

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