An insider's view of our apartment

Thought you might like to see some pictures of our apartment - or "condo", as it is officially - apparently it's only an apartment if all the units in the building are owned by the same person, or group. Condos are individually owned by lots of different people. Or so I think.

We're on the 10th floor of a 20 floor building, with a Starbucks underneath us, and our building has a gym as well, and carparks underneath. We're right in downtown Vancouver, and it probably looks more boxed in in the photos than we actually are. From the lounge and deck we have views over the tops of most of the surrounding buildings, so it's not bad.

Please ignore the big blue mattress in the lounge - we had someone coming to visit that day!

Seattle

I was originally going to a concert in Seattle, the Billy Joel & Elton John concert - but a week before it was announced that it would be postponed as Elton was sick. We headed down to Seattle anyway, as we hadn't been there before. We drove down Saturday morning, and back Sunday late afternoon. Including time at the border, it's about 4 hours. The border crossing is pretty tedious - there was a lot of waiting around.

A lot of people go down to the US to shop for the weekend - things are quite a bit cheaper there and there is more selection. There is an outlet mall halfway between the border and Seattle, which we stopped at for a spot of shopping, and noticed that half the license plates were from BC, and half were from Washington! The funny thing is that there are dollar limits on what you can buy if you're only away for a short time - essentially if you're only away for 24 hours, you can legally only buy $40 worth of stuff. Which is of course, ridiculous. So most people wear their new stuff, and take off all the tags, so as not to be charged any duty.

Truth be told most of our time was spent shopping, but we did also go to the Pike Place Market - I couldn't wait to see the Pike Place Fish Market, which I'd learnt about at Flight Centre in NZ. The guys that work there are amazing - it's all about choosing your attitude, and they all love working there. The fun thing is that they put on this show, where they throw the fish around - if you look closely in the photo, at the top in the middle you can see the flying fish! It was fantastic to go here after learning about them a couple of years ago.

We also made our pilgrimage to the first ever Starbucks - it started in Seattle back in the 70's. They've kept the original logo at this branch, and the original signage, which has morphed a bit over time. We also discovered that NZ has more Starbucks than Australia.

Coffee culture is limited over here to Starbucks, and the Canadian equivalent, Blenz. It's not like at home, where you can get decent coffee most places. Even at places that do a decent brunch will come and pour your coffee out of a pot. There is another chain in Canada, called Tim Horton's, but they don't serve soy milk. They have a long way to go in the coffee area. Blenz is nice, but even they have big vats of coffee sitting there, which are very popular, and are just a "coffee". God knows how long it sits there for......

I also don't think they get the whole soy thing. Many's the time when I've ordered soy and ended up with a big dollop of whipped cream on top of my coffee. When I say something, they just scoop it out and you're left with the remnants........ good!

Exploring Vancouver

While John was here we also used the time to explore the city a bit more and get out and see a bit more. The colours are beautiful in the Autumn/Fall - this is a photo of a Sugar Maple, taken from our balcony. They don't change colour evenly, before they lose their leaves, causing the traffic light effect - so pretty.

Luckily we had a beautiful day to explore - they're becoming few and far between now that the weather is cooling - it rains most days now, and apparently will do so for the next few months. I now own gumboots, as well as snow boots! So it was very nice to get some blue sky.

We came across this HUGE totem pole at Vanier Park, just over the bridge from downtown. I'm not sure if they're normally this big, but it was so tall - that's me standing at the bottom.

We also took in a hockey game - that's ice hockey for all you back in NZ. Hockey is to Canadians like rugby is to Kiwis - except even more so. The Vancouver NHL team are the Canucks - and they play around 3 times a week, so seeing as they're on so much, people live and breathe it. Whereas I guess with the All Blacks, they may only play every second weekend or something.

Tickets to the Canucks are around $70 per ticket for the basic tickets - sitting up in the gods - so we went to the Vancouver Giants, which is the next level down. Most of the players are around 16-19 years old, and still play around 3 times a week. We really enjoyed the game, and will go again at some point. There are quite a few fights - and the referees won't break them up until they hit the ice, so they can go on for a minute or two!

Halloween

Considering we've been here just over 3 months now, it's obviously been a while since I've posted. Oops. So many times I've meant to sit down and blog, but haven't - apologies to those that have kept asking!

It's been a busy couple of months - we had a visit from a friend, John, from NZ for 3 weeks, which meant we were out a lot more than normal, and we all got to experience Halloween as well - I'd heard it was big over here, but WOW.

I've never been one for fancy dress, not even as a little kid, but I have to say I'm a bit of a convert. It was a lot of fun - and 99% of people out that night were dressed up - you were odd if you weren't! And it wasn't just the night of Halloween - the lobby of Nic's apartment building was even done up!

The variety of stuff available to purchase was huge, so many different decorations, costumes - even for your pets. Collars, pet jackets, you name it - you can get it. They're big on pets here - you can get strollers for your tiny dogs, dogs can go into shops.... in our apartment building there are a couple of big dogs - german shepherd size - they must take up half the lounge!

Lots of little kids were out trick or treating during the afternoon - so cute in their little costumes, lots of ladybugs, fairies, ghosts, etc. Some of the adult costumes were very inventive - we saw a whoopee cushion, crayola crayons, jesus, where's wally, amongst others. Some people had obviously spent a lot of time and money on their costumes!

It was a great experience, and a lot of fun!