Being back in Vancouver has mostly consisted of sleeping with with Tony, (it is a luxury to be sleeping on a soft bed again), then wandering the streets of Vancouver in search of culturefest.
Thursday Lung came over and to celebrate his birthday, we decided to venture downtown to check out what the Olympics might be offering for free. Sadly, our answer was not a heck of a lot, as we started at LiveCity Yaletown, nothing more than a giant advertising center for Dell, Panasonic, and Coke. (We waited in line for tickets to get in line for a 3D film of “Olympics hightlights” which turned out to be a fifteen minute advertisement for 3D TVs.) Ever hopeful, we then wandered up to Robson Square, picking up Papa Cream Puffs on the way, and took to grinning at the zip-lining people up above as they zoomed overhead, sometimes screaming. There we found a map and a list of pavilions, but it seemed like it was becoming too late to get to any. We knew the torch, however, was available to view all night, so we walked down to the waterfront to see what all the fuss was about. We ran into Travis on the way, Lung’s magician friend who performed at my birthday party a year back, and he did a ‘birthday’ card trick for Lung as he was packing up, and took in some of the giant line-ups of people waiting to get into various events. The torch itself was less then enthralling. It’s a pretty thing, it turns out, all glass, but behind so much security fencing it was nigh impossible to see and so, discouraged, we decided to end our night with the best food we know, wings at the Phnom Penh restaurant in Chinatown, so delicious that each of us required our very own plate.
Yesterday Nicole came by for a visit, and then Tony and Ray and I went for dinner, then out to Surrey for Dan Mangan‘s show, where Lung joined us again. The crush of people was intense and so gratifying! There’s something about the success of my friends that makes me glow inside with a happiness that makes me feel my feet are hovering three centimeters off the ground. Sam Roberts was playing next, but we opted to skip out and head downtown for fireworks instead, which are happening every night at 9:30 at Robson Square and 11:40 at LiveCity Yaletown. We missed the first batch, but arrived in Yaletown just in time for the glittercrashboom. They were a lovely miracle to behold in the gigantic crowd, much like the cab we caught after they were done that slipped through the people like a fish to take us home. Then Shane got a hold of me, late but thankfully not too late, so we went to see him for a few hours before finally, finally heading home to bed.
Today our plans are fairly nebulous. We’re going to go see Trimpin’s Sheng High kinetic music sculpture, then wander around finding what we can find until it’s time to head back out to Surrey to catch some more free music. Said The Whale and Hey Ocean are playing at 7:30 and 8:30, (with a bizarre sounding show right before them, DRUM!, “featuring musicians, dancers, drummers, and singers from four principal cultures – Aboriginal, Black, Celtic and Acadian” Black? WTF? What does that even mean? A skin colour does not a culture make.) We think we can make it downtown in time for more fireworks after the music, and then there’s rumours of dropping in on Sanctuary at 23 West with Lung. If anyone wants to meet up for anything, send me a message. I’ll be sporadically checking the internets all day.