Archive for July, 2011

I started this project called A Stranger A Day to overcome my shyness and talk to people. The challenge: talk to a stranger a day for a year of my life and try to convince them to let me take a picture and share a story. Since most tattoos have a story behind them, this will be my conversation starter and a common thread that links them all. Every week I will be sharing the story of the week here on Vancouver Is Awesome. Join me in this Stranger a Day adventure and let me know what you think!

Stranger #288

Location: Turk’s on the Drive

I came by to read for a bit. I sat down and downed a bottle of orange juice. My project still needed to be done for the day, so on my way out I took the opportunity to talk to some people. For some reason I was a little bit more nervous than usual, but the girls were really nice and one of them shared her story. I took the picture first, then she explained (and I paraphrase):

“It is a seed in the wind. A dandelion seed being carried by the wind, to be more precise. This is about a sort of impossible friendship. Well, it is not limited to that episode of my life but there was a lot of learning from that time. I ended up connecting wit this special person and when I finally went up to meet her, for some reason she said she just couldn’t see me then, she just couldn’t. It was a pretty sad moment, but you learn to let go and to accept that, just like a seed in the wind, there are many things you can’t control or change. You can’t control where the seed is going or where it will land, but you have to trust that wherever it lands, it is where it is meant to be and something beautiful will come out of it…”

I wish I had recorded the story, because she told it in a very beautiful way. Even her friend mentioned that it was beautiful. I know I’m missing some details but that’s what my memory remembers for now (oh the perks of oral storytelling!). I thanked her for sharing her story and her tattoo and then went on my way. Fate is a tricky thing. I’ve been thinking about the dandelion seed metaphor a lot since then.

Thanks stranger!

To check out the daily strangers click here: astrangeraday.com

Nicholson Road is part of an ongoing photo project aimed at sharing and celebrating the different communities in Metro Vancouver. Each week Vancouver Is Awesome will be featuring one of the latest, most engaging photos from the project in order to draw your attention a little bit outside of the hyper-focus that we usually have on the city of Vancouver. Metro Vancouver Is Awesome, and you should get out and explore it!

The saying goes, that for every 1 day of sun blessed upon Vancouver, Tsawwassen receives 3. I’m thinking that’s a pretty good deal for summers like this one, and it’s pretty evident when you see the healthy palm trees all over town. It’s also perfectly clear why people love sunny Tsawwassen when you find a place like Fred Gingell Park.

Originally constructed in the 1950′s, the site is part of the BC Hydro ROW, where power lines from the English Bluff Terminal head underground, down the oceanside cliff, and into a submarine cable network to connect the San Juan Islands, the Gulf Islands, and Vancouver Island to the power grid. If you pay it a visit, you’ll notice the large towers (the recent upgrade of which caused a bit of a stir) at the terminal across the street, as well as the large 3-story warning sign and ventilation shaft down at the beach.

It wasn’t until 2001 that the Delta Parks Board found the opportunity to turn the site into a beautiful little park complete with beautifully maintained lawns and gardens, a small winding path, a lookout platform with information panels describing the Tsawwassen Ferry Terminal and Roberts Bank Superport (ever wonder what those bright lights are south of the airport, as seen from Vancouver on a cloudy night?), as well as the more prominent landscape features and islands across the straight. They also created steps and staircases to let visitors descend the 50 metre-high cliff (the highest point in south Delta). This first public access point to the Tsawwassen Beach created a little bit of controversy as well, as the area along English Bluff Rd is locally known as a sort of “Marine Drive of Delta”, as it’s lined with million-dollar mansions and private roads/estates. And given the area and the views, it’s not hard to see why!

Also, if you’re wondering, the park was named after the late, local MLA Fred Gingell, a very well-respected and active member of the community, with a long history of community service. He was even the head of the 1987 BC Summer Games. With that in mind, the painful ascent up the stairs from the beach made perfect sense! (Many enjoy a workout of 10 trips to the beach and back. Now I’m not in poor shape, but I was having a tough time with the last 30 (vertical) feet of my first round-trip! Them’s some steep steps.)

Of course I can’t end this post without giving you this tip: Tsawwassen, meaning “the land facing the sea”. To spell it, think of it like “saw was sent”, with the T carried to the front. And if you’re not sure how to pronounce it, think of the first “tsa” as one character/one sound rather than three, then add on the “-WAH-ssen”. Some areas neglect the “t” entirely, and some totally ignore the “s”. In fact, it used to be pronounced closer to “tse-wathen”, as per the Tsawwassen First Nation. Now you’ll be a pro when someone asks you where you’ve been! :)

More from Nicholson Road can be found HERE.

Every day we share a single photo from our Flickr Pool shot by one of our faithful and talented readers (that’s you!)

A stroll on the beach, early in the day, is much nicer than ‘slaving away in the code mines’. I am paraphrasing Tom Wiebe, whose photograph you see below. And while I have never slaved away in the code mines myself, I will take his word. On a nice lazy day Tom spotted this footprint on Third Beach in Stanley Park – which suggests to me that no matter how early you may take that stroll along the beach, someone else has already beat you to it!

Here is Would that this were my footprint.

Gary

SCENE AND HEARD showcases the independent music scene here in Vancouver.  With 26,376+ artists, boasting 121,431+ tracks, the CBC Radio 3 web site is the absolute ultimate authority, and the home, of independent music in Canada. With that massive library along with tools for members (free to join!), we’re taking advantage of what they’ve set up by bringing you a fresh batch of music every week featuring local groups who have tracks (entire albums, even!) on the R3 site.

So if you’ve lived in Vancouver in the last 21 years, chances are you know of the Celebration of Light fireworks show that happens every summer in English Bay.

Well for the THIRD year The Shore 104.3 is holding SHOREfest, a series of concerts that take place prior to the fireworks show, and this year is bigger and better than ever.

Not only will there be acts on the main stage at English Bay, there will be two other stages, one at Vanier Park and one at Kits Beach! The Kits Beach stage will feature the artists currently in the Top 10 for the Shore Song Search Competition, and it just so happens TODAY is the last day to Vote for your favourite (which you can do here).

To celebrate the Celebration of Light and SHOREfest, VIAindie put together a playlist of ALL of the artists playing SHOREfest this year. That’s 23 free performances! The schedule is pictured below and you can click the image to hear the playlist. See you oceanside!

A few months back we teamed up with Vancouver-born brand Westbeach to produce an artist series of t-shirts representing different neighbourhoods in the city. As the curator, I signed up Andrew Pommier, Tyler Quarles, Toby Reid, Colin Moore and when one of the original artists I had invited was dropped from the lineup I subbed in and designed the Gastown tee myself (I bet you didn’t even know I was a designer!).

Unfortunately these limited edition t-shirts sold out before we could even report on their release but I’d like to present this as an archive of what you could have been wearing. Did any of you readers get your hands on one of these tees? E-mail us a photo of you wearing it and we’ll post it on the blog.

Image from the Summer 2011 Westbeach catalog

Images from the Summer 2011 Westbeach catalog

Last week Harbour Publishing released British Columbia’s Magnificent Parks – the First 100 Years, an absolutely stunning book by James D. Anderson. It’s 264 pages long and contains more than 200 photographs of our provincial parks. Not simply a nice picture book, it contains the super engaging story of the history of BC Parks, the organization that is currently celebrating it’s 100th year of protecting and managing this wonderful natural resource that many of us enjoy. I, in fact, spent this last weekend puttering around a provincial park, and I imagine a lot of you readers did too. Pick up a copy of this book to hear about their history!

…READ THE REST OF THIS ENTRY>>>

She doesn’t live at YVR yet, but our very own Cue To Cue theatre editor, Sarah Szloboda, has made the top 5 finalists for YVR Airport’s Live@YVR contest where 96 people submitted videos in the hopes of becoming a special correspondent at YVR, Canada’s second busiest airport!

Now it’s time for you to cast your vote for your favourite contestant. The winner will call Vancouver International Airport’s Sea Island home for 80 days and 80 nights and provide reporting on all of the fascinating stuff that’s happening over there the entire time.

Check out Sarah’s entry video HERE and be sure to check out ALL 4 of the other entries before casting your vote for a favourite!

Welcome to Crowdsourced Sunday, a curated batch of photos from our Twitter followers.

On Saturdays we send out some tweets from our @VIAwesome account, asking our followers to tweet us photos of what they got into during the day. This weekend was jammed pack with sun and fun events so there was plenty of great fun for people. Check out some of the pictures from Saturday below:

		@mzmelsiemel: from @mzmelsiemel:

		@zanzibar_girl: Went on a bike ride around Stanley Park, here’s the view from Third beach:

		@learnedninjaeel: Kits beach dog park “robots love too”:

…READ THE REST OF THIS ENTRY>>>