Party Time!

Howdy all,

It's been a couple of weeks of party mode for me here in Vancouver. Productivity has been at its lowest point since I arrived! The weather has been mostly cold and wet though, so it's been the perfect time to do it.

On Feb 11th my favourite DJ, the Dutch maestro, Sander Van Doorn, was in town along with other world-famous DJs Benny Benassi and Arty. The event started pretty early but was coming at the end of my first Saturday off since starting at Hermes so it was actually a nice treat. It was on at the Vancouver Convention Centre. Someone told me that big DJ nights like this have to start and end early because of city bylaws. Anyway, it was an absolutely amazing night! Sander Van Doorn was superb as always, Benny Benassi was a little disappointing for me but Arty was really good too. I won't bore you with too many of the details here but here are a couple of pics and videos to give you an idea (skip to next section if you have no interest in electronic music!):

No Arty = No Party!

Benny doing his thing

Sander doing what he does best - destroying dancefloors

Going offfffff!!!!!

SvD rocking the Convention Centre

I have already booked tickets for Armin Van Buuren and Steve Angello, coming to the Convention Centre on April 7th. I absolutely cannot wait for that! Two of the world's biggest DJs that I haven't actually seen live yet.

Saturday Feb 18th was Gina and I's joint birthday party bash @ Sip lounge & then Republic on Granville St. Sip was fairly chilled out. Got a snack and a few drinks in whilst meeting a lot of Gina's friends. Unfortunately I don't have any photos myself (actually, I'm thankful there's no 'evidence') but ended up having one of the best nights I've had so far since I've been here. Then again, how bad a night can a guy have when it's just him and a group of gorgeous girls?

On Feb 20th we all went for a meal at the Victoria chinese restaurant after work. It was nice to get the whole Hermes team out for a meal and we got good service on account of Boney pretty much being their number one customer. Even better was that it was all paid for! I ended up going out for drinks with Gina and Irina afterwards. I had been planning to go to the gym the following morning, so I had told Gina I was going home straight after the meal. This turned into me agreeing to go for a quick non-alcholic drink up the road, then 'OK, I'll have 1 beer', then 'OK, one more'. Fast forward to 5am and we're spilling out of Edgewater Casino trying to focus enough to spot a taxi. A serious lack of discipline shown and I paid for it the next day!

The last couple of days have been pretty fun, starting with the Arsenal v Spurs match! I wasn't going to bother given how poorly we'd been playing recently and after going 2-0 down inside 30 mins I was regretting not getting the extra sleep! However, what a turnaround! Hopefully we can make a decent push for 4th place and then take care of the mess in the summer! If it's any consolation for Spurs fans, the Canucks also blew a 2 goal lead that day, losing in Dallas in overtime. On the bright side, they are currently top of the NHL and the city is starting to buzz at the prospect of another playoff run.

As many of you will know, yesterday was my 26th birthday. I was pretty overwhelmed by the wishes coming in by email and on facebook etc. Thanks guys!! Made me miss everyone from home! The guys at work got me a really nice cake from Thierry's (on Alberni St). Thankfully I'd made the effort to get down to the gym in the morning as I also got some Thierry macaroons courtesy of Paul. All-in-all a nice, chilled out birthday!

The major news of the past couple of weeks is that I've decided to apply for another year on my visa.  I'm having a great time over here so far, so why not? People have been telling me only good things about Vancouver in the summer and I really don't want to miss out on it now! My original plan was to travel West coast to East coast from June onwards. Now it looks like I'll be taking a short trip to Montreal at the beginning of June for the Canadian Grand Prix (so excited for this!) and then coming back to enjoy summer in/around Vancity. It'll give me the opportunity to perhaps make some trips to the Island and to a few places close to Vancouver and allow me to save more money for the grand trip next summer.

My family seems to support the idea, which is nice to hear. Obviously it all depends on being granted another year on the visa. Fingers crossed! My plans could completely change again if this doesn't come off! So I'm currently trying to organise the paperwork and photos to re-apply for the IEC. Along with that I'm also trying to get my head around the tax return to try and claim a few dollars back from the Canadian tax man! Fun times!!

Until next time!
Simon x

February already!

Hello all,

I'm back with another update! Currently enjoying the back end of two days off in a row. Nice and relaxing and finally my suit can go to the dry cleaners again!

January was overall a pretty chilly month and we had a few days of snow. I counted myself lucky that I'm living in the area I'm in, which is comparitively very mild to the regions further north and east. I heard Calgary was down into the -20s! The main thing that has stuck me this winter is that the UK could learn a lot of decent lessons from the Canadians on how to handle the winter and in particular the snow!

Even Downtown Van got a dusting - doesn't happen too often supposedly.

At the end of the last update I said it looked like we were getting a new flatmate. That turned out to be true (although it was only a short stay as he moved out again yesterday). His name was Dennis, a cool middle-aged Canadian guy who was in the middle of selling his house to our landlord Jun. A huge hockey fan (surprise, surprise) and a Canucks season-ticket holder. It sounds like he may have the world's largest collection of hockey memorabilia! It's a shame he didn't stay longer really as he was a cool guy, good sense of humour and also had a car! Hot 18-30 Canadian girl next, please, landlord.

On the 23rd I decided to go check out Science World, the big metallic, spiky globe building that adorns the covers of many of the Vancouver guidebooks, as I hadn't done much 'touristy' stuff for a while. They had a dinosaur exhibition going which appealled to me also!

 It turned out to be quite geared towards children, with lots of learning areas and interactive games etc - so perfect for this big kid. The dinosaurs exhibition was easily the highlight. Most of them were animatronic and a couple of them genuinely quite scary! Cool!

Here's a few of my new friends:

Here's a video of one of them in action:

The other main highlight was the Eureka! area where there were tons of cool sciency things to play around with. Oh to be 8 years old again!

Nice view across False Creek to BC Place and Rogers Arena. Not the best day weather-wise though!

After checking out Science World I headed further Downtown to check out another place I'd read about in the guidebook, Gorilla Food cafe on Richards St. Gorilla Food is an organic raw vegan restaurant which I decided I should go and check out whilst I was doing my month of vegetarianism.

I was pleasantly suprised at how good the food was. I wasn't expecting too much flavour-wise but I was proved completely wrong! I ordered a 'Green Curry Nice Bowl' - a salad of green curry marinated veges and seeds. It was SO, SO good. Amazing flavour. I washed that down with a 'Hempnotik' shake made from almonds, bananas, hempnut, hemp protein and dates. Overall, really, really nice. It's a little bit pricey but it was worth checking out, certainly. I felt like a proper zen Vancouver hippy.

Who'd have thought raw vegan would taste so good? Not me!

So my month of vegetarianism came to an end. I was delighted to get back on the meat in the end - tastes too good! The main purpose of doing it was to see if I felt any difference and I must say not really. I think it's because I eat a pretty clean diet anyway, with plenty of fruits and veg, so my body wasn't getting any major boost except not having to digest meat. I carried on my workout regime as usual over the 4 weeks and I do think I would have struggled massively had I not done lacto-ovo and gone strict vegan. Oh well, it was an interesting thing to try.

I celebrated being able to eat meat again with an awesome dinner at Chambar with Gina, Carol, Sookae and Joan after work. A number of the restaurants and cafes around Vancouver were taking part in DineOut Vancouver - a two week event to promote the best food Vancouver has to offer. Chambar is an up-market Belgian restaurant located near BC Place with a nice decor, great food and even better beers. Being able to try it out on the cheaper DineOut set menu was a real bonus. I went for the recommended mussels and washed them down with a couple of their own ales. Delicious!

The end of January also brought the news that a few of the boys from back home will be coming over to Vancouver in May. So excited about that! Can't wait to see them and show them around this great city.

February was started off well enough. The weather has picked up and the place is looking bright again.

On Thursday I went to my 2nd Canucks game against the Western Conference leaders, Detroit Red Wings. I brought a fellow Canuck fanatic, Gina, along with me to what should have been a pretty awesome, intense game between the 2 best in the West. I bought the tickets from Dennis and I must say his seats are awesome! Row 1 right behind the goal that the Canucks shoot at twice. So sweet!

Unfortunately the Canucks didn't really turn up! They fell behind 3 times, somehow managing to equalise 3 times on the back of a stagnant offensive performance. The game went to overtime and then to a shootout, which Detroit promptly won. Still, losing in overtime means you still pick up a point in the NHL so it could have been worse. Hopefully the Canucks can pick it up again soon and make a push for the number 1 seed in the West. Can't wait for playoff time, baby!

The retired jerseys including the big number 16 - Trevor Linden.

The past couple of days have just been pottering around and watching sports. The football over the weekend was pretty enteraining with Arsenal actually managing to win a game and with Chelsea blowing a 3 goal lead against Man U. Dan and I sat down to watch a pretty entertaining Superbowl last night as well. Nice to be able to watch it at a decent time for once!

Anyway, got plenty of bits and bobs to sort out today so I'll leave you to it. Can't believe I've been here for 5 months already, by the way! Hope you're well!

Take care,
Simon x