Happy 4th year to me !! :)

Hello Folks !!

Today, September 11th 2011, I’m celebrating the day I arrived in Quebec City four years ago (time flies so fast !!).  It is the perfect occasion to talk about the travel across Canada we did the 2 last weeks of August. One word to qualify it : A M A Z I N G !!! I was so exited and I believe everyone close to me was tired to hear me talking about it (hihihi ! Sorry guys!!). But before I give you more details about this thrilling adventure (one last time!), let’s review the last weeks in term of activities, discoveries and journeys.

As I am living close to the city of Burnaby (actually at the boundary with Vancouver), I started to get more interested in the natural beauty of this city. The Burnaby Lake Regional nature park is well known for birdwatching (Trust me I am not really good at it !! hihihi), and the 11 km trail around the lake certainly benefits to the heart. As a matter of fact, I go jogging around the awesome Burnaby Lake each week since a while now, and I really like to breath the fresh air in the park around the lake, at least one time a week.

Besides the Burnaby lake, I have been to Burnaby mountain (where the Simon Fraser University is located). It’s a really easy hike  and the view is really beautiful from there. Even if it is a little bit complicated to find the “trail” up to the mountain through the urban jungle, the area really worth the visit as you can see on the pictures.

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I took part in many festival and celebration across the city: the Car free day, the Francophone Festival (as a volunteer), la Fête de la musique, The Jazz festival, the Scandinavian Festival (almost !!). Finally, I went with Wazy to Squamish for a week-end. We did not hiked the Chief (I had already done it) but just enjoyed the (really small) city !! And finally, we hiked the majestic Grouse Mountain: this is it we are officially Vancouverite !!

As promised, I’m finishing my post by talking about our 2 weeks bus trip across Canada. Basically, we visited at least one town in each province for the West to the East. As a matter of fact, we have learned that Canada is a really vast country and we needed for sure more than 2 weeks to visit every single attraction we wanted to see.

We traveled  from Vancouver to Moncton ( Not enough time to make it to Halifax): 7 days in the bus (Stops in Jasper, Edmonton, Winnipeg, Toronto, Niagara Falls), 3 days in Montreal, 1 day in Quebec , 1 day in the train from Montreal to Moncton (due to the hurricane Irene), 8 hours to fly back to Vancouver. Along the way, we have witnessed the diversity of scenery that make this country so unique and beautiful.

The following video is a summary of the trip.

Enjoy the End of the summer and stay tune for more posts

Tetia

Lots of laughs !!

The Vancouver comedyFest was 4 weeks ago. I attended this event as a journalist of  The Source. I was very suprised about the quality of the performances as well as the audience. I have seen Neil Hamburger and Tom Green during the show. In fact, I thought this kind of event would have brought people with a certain age, around 40 to 50 years old, but many young people were there too. This confirmed what the artistic director of the Comedy Fest Will Davis, told me during the interview for my article about the ComedyFest.

On one hand, Neil Hamburger’s humour was gross and vulgar. His style is based on question/answer jokes most of the time about celebrities and I didn’t understand why he was carrying three glasses of water on his hand during the show without using them !! but above all I didn’t like the sound he was making while clearing his throat, he didn’t do it once but each 2 min !!! I was very open-minded but during his part I was hoping impatiently the end  !!

On the other hand, I loved Tom Green’s performance. Through his own life experiences, he talked about many subjects: our society, our youth, our technology-based life and he was so funny ! For sure he got a gift !! watch his opinion about facebook here. I surely had a good time watching this show !!! and I look forward to attend more events like this one and discover other humour styles.

Silence ! I am listening to stones’ songs !!

I finally went to Van Dusen Garden yesterday with Alexandra. For the first time I saw how a garden can be valorised by sculptures. There was such a beautiful harmony between plants and stones. The Zimsculpt exhibition was featured by Zimbabwean sculptors.

Visiting the garden with this exhibition was like we were reading a poetry written in two differents languages, both of them talking to each other and trying to express to the visitor the beauty of the nature and human ingeniosity. I would have like to write many things about this exhibition but I learned with this visit that sometimes words are not necessary.

Enjoy the pictures !

UBC’s Rose Garden

After seven months in Vancouver it was time (during the last sunny week-end, sniff !) for a real visit of UBC, in order to learn more about this university which makes vancouver so proud. I have been there a couple of times and every times one single word comes to my mouth:  awesome !

I was really impressed by the buildings, the atmosphere, the landscaping. Also, from what I have seen, many monuments remind to the visitor the importance of the First Nations’ history along the years like totems and the anthropology museum. I think that to study there, enjoy this atmosphere (and the beach !!!)  is a huge opportunity for the students, which also costs a lot !
I took time to visit the rose garden. There, I saw differents types, colors and shapes of roses, like I have never seen.

You don’t need to know many things about gardening (like me !! ) before you fall in love with UBC’s rose garden. I really appreciated this visit because this place reminded me the importance of being fascinated by huge things like sea waves and also by small things like a bee taking a flower’s pollen. I realised that I was witnessing an important moment of the plants life cycle, the natural pollination (my botanical classes came suddenly in my mind !). For sure, this moment was priceless !

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I don’t want to stop here my new passion for gardens (lol !), so I plan to visit very soon the Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Classical Chinese Garden, known as the Garden of Ease (humm!!), and also the Queen Elizabeth Park and the VanDusen Botanical Garden with its stone sculptures, specially the Zimsculpt.

 

Wreck Beach Vancouver !! Yeh Baby !!

I had a wonderful day yesterday at Wreck beach !! I had never seen a place like this ! It was like the beach was separated from the rest of the city and had his own spirit, his own rules !! Of course it’s a special place: you have to climb down around 400 steps to get there.

We spent all the day, lying on the sand, enjoying the sunshine, listening music !  As I said, very special place with very special peoples: at Wreck Beach you can count by your fingers people who are not naked (we were in this group lol !) !!! There, the time flies differently, your mind doesn’t think anymore, you forget everything and you just enjoy THE moment !!  And of course if you are in good company it’s magic !

Today, we will try English Bay !!! Yeh Baby !!!

The Surey Fusion Festival 2010

After a nice day at the beach on Saturday, Sunday was devoted to the celebration of multiculturalism through music, food, objects. More than 25 pavilions allowed to discover the richness of cultural communities of Surey. The festival was very well organised : people moved without stress, they took advantage of the attractions without running from one to another. I’ve been really impressed by this festival! Moreover, I met very interesting people in joy and good humor.

 

I will attend the Vancouver Turquish Festival next week on July 24 next, which will be the subject of my next article in the source.

The World Naked Bike Ride

It’s clear that as a blogger, it is often required to participate in activities, visiting places as unusual as others.
It was with a great openness of mind that I attended last June 12 in Vancouver, the World Naked Bike Ride. The concept of this event was simple: being naked to protest against the influence of motorized vehicles on the urban lifestyle and thus the dependence on oil … One moment … naked ??!  Yes, participants have been asked to undress completely or partially according to personal wishes and to ride their bikes across the streets of downtown Vancouver.

Feelings:
Offended? No, not at all ! These persons have freedom of speech and expression that could be envied, and everyone doing what he wants with his body !

Atonished ? Yes ! I was suprised by the number of people who participated and obviously by the number of the spectators !

I asked myself about the impact of this kind of  event to the benefit of the urban cycling. Well, for me this event didn’t give me more reason to have a bike, I was already aware about it. I think this kind of events only exists to make people talk about them.

Hello world !

Since I moved to Vancouver, I did so many things !
I met great people, I learned about my strengths, my weaknesses, my fears, my hopes through many situations…
So far I really like this city and I am still thinking that I made the right decision !

For now, I have many projects: improve my english, (re) learn mandarin, learn to play guitar, draw my feelings…

This year (and the others) will be mine, I start living ! Let’s do it !