Spot On

Hope all local Vancouverites have the chance to check out this weekend's Spot Prawn Festival! If you think the lineup at GoFish is bad on weekends, today was just insane! Here, a link to festival info.

Photos: the two little dark pinkish spots to the right of that chef's thumbnail are the trademark 'spots' of the Spot Prawn (click on photo to enlarge for detail).

Chefs, from L-R: John Bishop of Bishop's on 4th, Vikram Vij of Vij's on Granville, and Robert Clark of C.

O.W.L. Visit and Centennial Beachlife

This weekend is the Annual Orphaned Wildlife Rehabilitation Society (OWL)'s Open House. For one weekend, the public gets an up-close view of the many raptors, owls, eagles, hawks and vultures taken in from the wild, sheltered and brought back to life. The owls looked quite disturbed in their daytime sleep, having humans gawking at them all day. Apparently at night, similar species come to visit their own and even breed in the area! It was quite amazing to get so close to a Red-winged Hawk and Bald Eagle. The Snowy Owls were beautiful as well as the long-eared and short-eared Owls. There was also a fundraiser Garage Sale and Kiwanis on hand to cook up some BBQ lunch in a trailer on the grounds.

The weather was so gorgeous, we continued with our day to a nearby nursery, selling plants for one month only at wholesale. We picked up a couple of plants and headed South to Tsawwassen, making a lunch stop and enjoying our first Timmy's iced cappucino of the season. We then headed over to Centennial Beach, at the end of Boundary Bay Regional Park. Lots of shell life and beautiful driftwood hugging the bay, with views out to all surrounding mountain ranges, and just over the landscape to the right, the USA.

Tasty Tomato

I've been enjoying Kitsilano Typepad's newest and grooviest restaurant opening alerts for some time now. They may or may not have yet seen the newest great add to come to our 'hood, Tomato Fresh Food Café, opening this summer, taking over Mark's Fiasco on Bayswater near Broadway!

Can't wait for THIS wonderful place to make its presence known in Kits.

Stroller Jogging

Kitspace is back from a restful visit to the Pacific Rim of the world…

Now it's been a while since I've been at the beach during midday, but today my eyes greeted me with quite the sight: about 15 women with strollers jogging along Kits Seawall near the pool! All at once they came jogging on by in a large group, all in sunglasses and workout gear. Go moms! Something for CZarina perhaps?

Worth the Plug

A great little piece of theatre is out at the moment, Hippies and Bolsheviks. The play takes place in 60's Kitsilano, with West 4th being the focal point of the hood. I didn't know until seeing the play that the street was infamously referred to as Rainbow Road back in the day. The play is on for a few weeks, first on Granville Island at Performance Works, then moving East to Burnaby's Shadbolt Centre for the Arts. The play starts off post-Led Zeppelin show in a hippy Kits apartment, and it takes off from there!

As hockey season starts to head into its last few weeks, we're all busy wondering if the Canucks will continue to hold onto a high enough spot on the totem pole to (continue to) make it into playoffs! Bertuzzi traded to the Red Wings? Smyth now moved East to the Islanders??!! Watching an Oilers game won't be the same again methinks…

Ariane C

Passengers

As I cycled early this morning along Spanish Banks, I came upon the crashed airplane movie set that I'd only heard about in recent days. The crew were actually busy dismantling it, and as I had a camera with me, I took the opportunity to get up close and personal with a plane crash.

What's being filmed? An upcoming drama called "Passengers" starring Anne Hathaway of "The Devil Wears Prada", and "Princess Diaries", amongst others. She's also starting to film Get Smart and will star as Agent 99!

So here, my faraway readers (at least those residing outside Vancouver) are a few snaps of the scene. It'll be interesting to see them shoot the film's upcoming train crash scenes (rumoured to start filming soon in one of the North Van CN yards). According to a production staff woman I spoke with there, filming at CN railyards is a logistical nightmare.

Amazingly enough, the rain still hasn't arrived. It's made for an early start out today and at 3 in the afternoon, it's already starting to feel like closer to dinner time. Tonight's the big (Anaheim) Ducks vs. (Vancouver) Canucks game. Can't wait.

Ah, Back in the Sea

With mild temperatures and dry weather (for now), I headed to Granville Island this morning to get back into the Telkwa Sport model kayak I so much missed these past couple of months. Many cormorants back from their migration and an eagle hovering above me made the couple of hours all the more enjoyable. As heavy rain is on forecast for tomorrow, I'm thinking of heading indoors to the Outdoor Adventure Show at BC Place.

What's so nice about this city is that one moment you can be out on the bike headed to a paddle, the next moment on a bus headed downtown. I'll never tire of all the things going on here in any one particular day! After The Police spent a week up in North Van rehearsing for the recent Grammy Awards Show in LA, they've now decided to tour after all these decades! The tour is set to start in Vancouver, end of May. TIckets are already on sale 'by bid' and Ticketmaster officially opens to the public tomorrow morning. I'm thinking the show will sell out within an hour and they'll end up adding a date. A visit to Ticketmaster's website confirms what I thought I might find: ticket prices anywhere from 60 upwards to over 250 bucks CDN. Craig's is already starting to pop up with adverts - people selling tickets for 350 a piece! When I think of a one year kayaking pass costing that much, it's hard to consider going to the show. There was as great article about the group in last week's Georgia Straight if anyone caught it : )

Happy weekending, and Happy Chinese New Year - Gung Hei Fat Choy! That would be this Sunday…

Ariane C.

Rained Out

With the rainy weather we've had lately, we didn't expect to be RAINED out up at Cypress Mountain last Sunday! Heading out in the early hours, we headed up that road again in anticipation of new SNOW. We kept climbing but the tree line remained green the entire way up. This didn't look like our last trip up! Once we made that turn into the cross country parking area, we realized that the rain was well, staying RAIN. And really coming down! Many devotees of the sport were unpacking their gear out of their cars and heading up to the ticket office despite this nasty weather.

We decided to head over to the downhill skiing area just slightly further up the road, but alas, the situation was carbon copy of ours. Many skiiers and boarders were also packing out of their cars, though we HAD seen several cars heading back down while we were headed up. We'd hoped to ski on Valentine's Day, a nice quiet weekday but the rain is due to stay in the area through the coming week. Anytime the temperatures are about 5 and higher and there's rain down HERE, it's a good bet then that the snow won't be coming down in the local mountains either. We'd forgotten just how cold it had been last month, in order to produce all that snow! (Yes, Easterners, we're complaining of the -8 at night cold, which doesn't do justice to the word, I know).

Now that I've gotten into a running groove 3x a week, wouldn't you know it, my left heel has acted up again after so many years sitting dormant in its safe (heel spur) state. I went to the podiatrist this week and was prescribed anti-inflammatory meds and a 'take it easy' warning - I did head out today for a fast walk just to keep the rhythm up, but my left foot is not happy.

And to top it off, I received a friendly letter in the mail today from my physiotherapy office, talking about getting back in shape by running; their injury topic of the month? Plantar fasciitis! How ironic is that!

Am headed out tonight to witness a performance of Audio Cubes over at Video In. Looks unique, this interactive set up of modular plastic cubes being set to music.

Just heard on the 6 o'clock evening news: Vancouver ranks last in cities in America AND Canada as far as police response time. Lucky us eh! Not enough police officers is the reason being given. Average wait time = 34 minutes. Pizza can be delivered faster.

just a lovely week

Busy as I was this week with various theatre volunteering, comped shows and comings and goings, I managed to enjoy the sunshine that seems to prevail to this very moment, in our fair city. The Bald Eagle seems to enjoy sitting atop the large totem pole by the Maritime Museum lately. I've caught a glimpse of him twice during my recent runs along the Seawall. It's quite the BC picture, viewing a tall hand-carved landmark totem pole with the eagle on top. Perhaps a nest is not too far off in the future for this lovely winged creature. Several friends in the area have noticed the nest close to the Coast Guard Station is back this year.

Bio Boxes at Video In seems to be a raging hit right now as part of PuSh Fest. The entire run of show is sold out. I am hoping for a few 'box' performances tomorrow afternoon, if there's a cancellation anywhere in there. I also got into a matinee of Up Island at the Stanley, a humourous look at Van Island small town life. Finally got myself in there after all these months of living in Vancouver!

As part of Dine Out Vancouver, Ad and I hit a few restaurants lately for their tasting menus, priced at 25 and 35 dollars, depending on what the restaurant wants to hit you with on your bill. Trafalgar's Bistro was lovely, our fish superb, but for 14 dollars a glass of wine, I've finally hit the shock and awe stage of wine by the glass prices here in Canada. This, for a half glass of Burrowing Owl Pinot Noir. Now, I haven't hit BC Liquor lately to check on the bottle price, but as tasty as it was, surely 14 bucks is something out of this world to pay.

Other than that, more theatre on the menu this weekend, as Aalst is on tonight at the Scotiabank Dance Centre. Let's hope for a gorgeous continuation of this weather. Although most will be indoors on Sunday for the Super Bowl, we'll be testing our endurance on the (somewhat flat) cross-country slopes of Cypress. I was in Sigge's today for a short while to look at gear. I overheard a woman trying on ski boots talking about being torn apart by the agonizing "shall I paddle" or "shall I ski" today question. Oh if only to enjoy life in this manner of style! But alas, yours truly is busy working on several projects' fruition at the moment, and if a few of those materialize, it should make for a busy but productive move into Spring.

Theatre's Been Great This Week!

To add to the ATSA Art Attack Kill Your SUV post and photos, I must say that I was really blown away by yesterday's matinee performance of Skydive! An amazing performance with two men suspended by a pole/harness combination that kept them in the air for the duration of the performance. Amazing to discover that one of the actors is wheel-chair bound as well. His apparatus took a bit more research, but this performance, along with a brilliant storyline, is quite worth heading out to Yaletown's Roundhouse Community Centre for! Also wonderful was the Famous Puppet Death Scenes at VECC. Well done, Old Trout Puppet Workshop!

Next up, volunteering this coming Tuesday for the Canuck Children's Hospice (that will include watching the Canucks battle it out against the Columbus Blue Jackets), and Thursday working at Video In for the PuSh Festival's performance of Bio Boxes. Friday night taking in a show of the Belgian theatre group Victoria performing Aalst. And then on Sunday, Ad and I will take to the slopes of Cypress again for cross country skiing, part two.

Signing off,
Ariane C

ps - that new shop Sand, at Cornwall and Yew is a well-thought out shop, but bring a heavily-loaded wallet with (they sell Gsus clothes too)!

Kill Your SUV

or better yet…burn it!

This past Friday, I volunteered at PuSH Festival for ATSA, a Montreal-based environmental group who'd exploded an SUV about five years ago in order to make the environmental statement du jour: SUV's guzzle too much gas, ruin the environment, are unsafe to drive, and the war in Iraq helps keep the oil machine well-tuned.

I had the chance to meet the husband and wife team of artists, Pierre Allard and Annie Roy, while they were busy installing the Vancouver Art Gallery piece in time for the evening's Fuse festivities.

1/5 Pavement, 1/3 Sleater-Kinney

What a wonderful performance by Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks last night at Richards on Richards. In tow was the phenomenal ex-drummer of Sleater-Kinney, Janet Weiss. Looking pretty much the same since we saw Sleater-Kinney last at Amsterdam's Paradiso (the smaller and more intimate of the two halls, Kleine Zaal). The band performed a handful of new tunes, as they're busy in the studio cooking something up that should be released soon, according to the woman at the counter selling their four CD's.

Can't wait to see the upcoming Sebadoh performance there on March 3rd, featuring the original Barlow-Loewenstein-Gaffney lineup. I'm imagining it will be even more packed in Richards than last night's show. Many faithful fans up front just soaking it in!

On another note, I'll be attending a rather interesting piece of theatre next Saturday night, called Famous Puppet Death Scenes, at the Van East Cultch Centre. Am also partaking as a volunteer in Attack #15, which will feature a blown-up sports utility vehicle. The Montreal-based L'Action Terroriste Socialement Acceptable's way of heightening public awareness of these gas-guzzling, power-hungry vehicles, in their words. Check out Push Festival for all theatre performances. I'm equally looking forward to the Belgian produced "Aalst" and the Vancouver premiere of "Skydive", coming up later in the month…

The slush fest is thankfully over, as Vancouver is back to 'just our normal rainy weather'. Yesterday while walking on West 4th close to the Naam I literally saw the following: a man wearing a short sleeve t-shirt, shorts, light vest and leather sandals with NO socks. This in snow/sleet freezing cold weather! Polar bear dressed as a human perhaps? What gives??! I'm in a winter coat with hat and gloves here, while this man can tolerate 0 C damp snow!

From Europe With Love

A big hello and happy holidays to my loyal readers, and those just passing thru.

Reporting live from The Netherlands, we've been touring Europe for the past couple of weeks, starting off in Vienna for a week, continuing on to Budapest by train, and winding down our last week with family in NL. It's been a busy and thoroughly enjoyable trip through Central Europe. Much warmer than we'd anticipated. The Christmas markets in both Vienna and Budapest were quite welcoming and full of great stuff, not to mention the nice mulled wine and the Wiener alternative, Punsch.

Here at the moment, Second Christmas evening is in full swing, we ordered Chinese take-out for dinner and can hear the fireworks starting up for New Year's Eve. Here in NL, the fireworks come out in full force on the 31st, but the kids get their hands on fireworks as early as mid-December, and proceed to fire them off day and night until year's end.

Where do they get the MONEY? Those packets of (illegal from Belgium) imported pieces really add up. And how they can get them so early? By law, the fireworks can only be sold during the week leading up to New Year's.

There's so much to write about both our Viennese and Hungarian experiences, but highlights would have to include an old bath house in a park in Budapest, sitting all afternoon in old rooms dating to the 1800's with little of the massage rooms and machines changed since then. . . and delicious restaurants in Budapest. Learning the one very handy word while on our train from Vienna to Budapest: nem dohanyzo! = Non-smoking in Hungarian. Finding our palatial room at the Le Meridien in Budapest, after having spent five nights in a little room and even tinier shower area in Vienna. Watching an opera in the Budapest National Opera House, a work of art! Finding out our flight on Christmas Eve to Amsterdam was cancelled and then being re-routed to Prague, and then onward to Amsterdam from there, flying in a little propellor plane on Tyrolean Air! Seeing Ad's family again all together for Christmas dinner.

Off to enjoy a coffee and tomorrow it's on to Arnhem for a day of shopping with my sister-in-law, meeting an old ex-colleague in the evening and a good friend and her family on Thursday. We'll probably be back before we know it. Just in time to ring in the new year in Vancouver.

Signing off for now,

Ariane C

Stage Jitters

Earlier this week, I attended a performance of Meth, an interactive play put on by people who've either struggled with crystal meth addiction or who have been touched by family or close friends who have. The play itself ran 22 minutes and admission was pay-what-you-can. Once the initial play was over, the director came onstage to give us instruction on how to interact the second time around.

The play started over again from the first scene and as audience members, we were encouraged to yell 'STOP' when a particular character could be changed and bring a sense of safety into the play's scene. Whether male or female, anyone in the audience could find something that they personally would change to better that character's circumstance.

The first scene commenced and the audience was silent. The director stopped towards the end and reminded us that anytime something didn't seem right, to please feel free to intervene. In other words, we had missed our cue already into the early part of the play!

Once the scene got underway again, someone did yell 'stop', came onto the stage, wore a sash containing a hidden microphone and proceeded to act through a better way. After the scene ended, the director appeared and gave commentary and the audience applauded. One by one, brave audience members found a way to change the characters behavior in the script and came up to try their hand. About 1/3 through the play, I felt a scene hit me square in the face, and yelled 'STOP'. Then up on stage, where I stared into the full house and started to think to myself "What have I done???!!"

Sure enough, I got my sash with mic set up over my shoulder, and went away at it. Crazy! In the scene I chose, I was interfering with a young male who was on a high and about to storm out of the house where he had been invited by a good friend and her family for dinner. I think I was up there for five minutes but it felt like a good half hour! Audience applauded, director asked a few questions, made his observations and thanked me. Back in the audience, I felt a rush going through me after having been up there, and I felt happy but nervous as hell having done it.

Meth runs through December 10 at the Japanese Hall on Alexander Street, the absolute heart of the drug-addicted neighbourhood of Vancouver known as East Hastings.

Free Snow, Free Chairlift

Today Grouse Mountain is offering free skiing or boarding with a $2 donation to a local North Shore charity. I couldn't resist the sunny weather and chance to play again in the snow. Two busses and a Seabus later, I was at the base and gondola ride up to the lifts.

As I went to the window to donate the toonie, I was asked whether I'd be skiing or boarding today. I answered that I just wanted to walk around and perhaps rent snowshoes later. She said that I'd either have to rent at her register or not be able to take the free gondola ride up. "Only free for skiers or boarders". I told her that I'd just taken two busses and a Seabus over to be up here. Well, I walked to another woman controlling the line and fortunately, she was able to take care of me and got me through the ticket window with my donation and no further 'committment'. I wasn't really ready to head back to town just yet!

I didn't end up sking (this would probably leave many scratching their heads!), but took in the nature and walked one of the snowshoe trails, sometimes in deep snow! Just didn't feel up to putting on skis and going through the rental crowd today.

Did however see a couple of reindeer, paid a visit to Santa and admired a couple of wolves on the way towards the bus home!

Mighty Little Christmas Cactus

Ad and I could be locked in a cave all year along with our christmas cactus and know precisely when the merry season was on its way…

a cactus with a warm, fuzzy feel for the holidays! Hope everyone's having a good season so far. We'll be travelling soon enough, to make our Central European tour of 06. Vienna, Budapest and rounding it all off with a visit to our family in The Netherlands. As Europe is much warmer than Vancouver at the moment, let's hope it stays that way for a while. We could use a break from the unusually cold temps!

Cheers,
Ariane C

Of Water and Winning

So, here's our winning BC Lions who've just brought home the Grey Cup, posing downtown Vancouver midday for their fans and passers-by. Now don't go thinking I'm a big football fan. I never liked the sport back in the USA and certainly haven't grown any warm feelings to it now. It's just that I'm a sucker for historical events, and being downtown already on an errand, I worked the noon-time celebration in. And luckily it stayed dry for the time that counted.

Now if only the Canucks would set themselves up on a similar path. But hey, they HAVE won two games straight, a veritable winning streak they're on, yes! We'll see what they've got tonight as they go against the Red Wings. Hopefully not a repeat of last week's home game against same team.

Our (drinkable) water crisis continues, and a brief bit of information for the out-of-town visitors to this blog. Turbidity levels remain high enough to keep chlorine unable to knock out the nasty bits in our water. Water wars at the markets have ensued and luckily the stores have caught up with the overwhelming demand. Yours truly has been doing her bit to keep the household stocked, and luckily for us, our local Safeway is but two and a half blocks away, meaning the downhill walk with two 4-litre jugs is just about doable. Apparently, the problem continues, and the blame is being put on the government for not having acted quicker in installing a new water filtration plant that should have been constructed ions ago. This water problem arrives almost every year round this time, only now the turbidity levels are at an all-time high. Hopefully next week we'll have clear water running out of those taps. Really hard to get used to NOT asking for a glass of water at bars and restaurants. Carrying a bottle of the good stuff is no big deal as I do normally on any given day. Makes you really take a precious commodity like H20 for granted. Not anymore. We've made sure that once the all-clear sign is given, we'll be hanging onto those bottles and keeping stocks handy. As unprepared as Vancouver and the Lower Mainland was for THIS crisis, one can only imagine what a major earthquake would bring in terms of chaos. No, I don't want to entertain that thought right now.

Anyone seen the film Borat yet? What a wicked film, on many fronts. We're still on the fence about this one, preferring to give out our hard-earned cash for do-good films like that of the Dixie Chicks, or even the upcoming Bobby, written and directed by my old classmate Emilio Estevez (technically he did graduate one year before me, and my class had his brother Ramon in it). Speaking of films, Volver and the Last King of Scotland, both shown this year at the Vancouver Int'l Film Fest, are knock-out winners! Not to be missed, although the critics would have you adding Little Children and The Queen to that list.

Now on with the walk I need to take while the weather is dry and the sun is out doing its stuff!

Ariane C

The Storms of Vancouver

Today the great big storm that was predicted all week long hit town. With quick errands in the neighborhood during dry spells, I finally had my work and business done when I headed upstairs to the balcony to encounter the last shreds of daylight.

Something insanely beautiful about Vancouver's mountains and sea, whether in the sun or dark clouds of the passing seasons.

Ariane C

Fireworks on Halloween

Last night was quite something on Commercial Drive, our first encounter with the Parade of Lost Souls. Costumed folk came from all points of town and beyond to partake in this yearly tradition, all in good Halloween spirit. The streets were closed by 6 at night to make room for the procession of hundreds of Vancouverites young and old. Starting point was nearby Grandview Park. Our small group of four at times went separated (luckily we had cell phones on us!) - there were several shrines created in the park, drums going and various music being performed in spots. There was beautiful lighting projected on some of the buildings nearby. As we walked en masse through the streets of East Vancouver, we were greeted by some very outrageous costumes and wildly-decorated homes.

Now here's something that's still hard for me to get used to. First, I start life living with fireworks going off on July 4th. Then I move to The Netherlands where on New Year's Eve they're lit. Now in Canada, they're fired off on Halloween!

Notice Ad's pumpkin on the left! It was inspired by someone in a recent issue of the Vancouver Sun!

October and I'm Still Paddling!

So we're into the third week of October, the rain has passed and today brought a gorgeous sunny afternoon with 14C temperature. It was time to get back into the kayak and paddle the urban waters of Vancouver. I saw two harbour seals, one of which I started to play with in the water. He/she came out on the side of the boat and then immediately behind me. As I tried to make a circle with the boat to entice the creature to stay around, sadly enough, seal was gone somewhere else. The winds were whipping up a bit and it was high seas for a while out there!

Am I the only one who finds the new Canucks line-up hard to get used to? Ad and I got settled into all the team players last season, and now they've gone and traded lots of players. Bertuzzi is down in Florida. January 7th will be the only chance we Vancouverites will have to see him play against the 'new' Canucks. How that will pan out with Nasland here and Todd there, is anybody's guess. So far, I find it a crying shame that Anson Carter wasn't bought up. Now everyone's pinning there hopes on Luongo. And let's not dare think of any injuries. For the price paid to acquire him, it should hopefully bring us to post-season play. One can only hope…

The annual Parade of Lost Souls is coming up, and as last year's Parade was cancelled, this is the first time that Ad and I will be able to witness this very unique Vancouver event.

Off to have a late afternoon well-deserved coffee!
Ariane C