Welcome to Collingwood Village.

I made good on my second new years’ resolution today by signing the dotted line on a one-year lease agreement with CONCERT Properties. High up on the 18th floor, my views look out to the collection of buildings in the downtown core with the backdrop of our coastal mountains all around. From Point Grey to the west to the sweeping views of SFU on Burnaby Mountain to the east, and to the dominions immediately below me, I have the envious view of the birds eye.

This unit wasn’t actually on my radar when I visited the rental office. I came to inquire about some other units in other buildings in the neighbourhood when I was informed about this corner unit at The Melbourne. I snapped up this currently unoccupied airspace in a heartbeat.

Top Groupon Customer Appreciation Party!

An interesting email arrived in my inbox from Groupon last week inviting me to a VIP Top Customer Appreciation Party. Apparently, I had bought enough Groupons in the past year to qualify as a magnificent customer, so I brought along Timela and Paul as my guests to what turned out to be a fabulous party on the rooftop pavilion at the Vancouver Art Gallery.

We were indulged in complementary beer, wine and appetizers while mingling with other top Groupon customers. Blank canvases on easels were set up for anyone with creative flair to dabble paint on and were later awarded as prizes for the draw. The current art gallery exhibits were all for us to explore as well; I particularly loved the WE: VANCOUVER | 12 MANIFESTOS FOR THE CITY exhibit where Vancouver was dissected, documented and displayed for her beauty as a whole. Things like Critical Mass, Vancouver Specials, and our attitudes towards freeway expansion were all laid out in a fun and captivating way.

It was also interesting to see what kind of demographics were into Grouponing. To my surprise, those who came to the party anyway were not just young college students but also Gen-Xers and baby boomers as well. And they were all so fun to be with!

Thanks for the invite, Groupon. My friends and I all had a blast! I guess it pays to be a Grouponer.

Greenest City Camp!

The City of Vancouver and mayor Robertson’s Green Team put on a wonderful “unconference” to engage the public in talking about green initiatives we can all do to make Vancouver the greenest city in the world by 2020.

I volunteered at Green City Camp as one of a few roving photographers for this event which was held at the SFU Centre for Dialogue. It was great to put down the camera once in a while and listen in on some of the lively debates and shared ideals people from every corner of the city contributed.

Vancouver is awesome.

PJ's.

Joanne made it her mission to take me out for some man-hunting and I complied. With the new year, I had made three resolutions for myself, in no particular order: Find a new place to live, exercise more and find a partner.

We were set to go to a place on Davie called 1181 but when we arrived that night, it seemed pretty dead from the outside looking in. Joanne quickly changed plans and dragged me into the bar next door; a place called Pumpjacks.

I’d never thought I would ever set foot inside Pumpjacks, given that this place was frequented by bears in leather; the big and burly hairy types to which I am so not attracted to. Though there were a few who fit that description when I walked inside, it wasn’t as bad as I had thought. I still felt the imagined glare on me from the regulars there, thinking how out of place I was. But then I met a guy to whom Joanne and I were sharing the table with and we started talking. His name was Paul and he grew up in Nanaimo as one of only a few Portuguese families there. He does a lot of volunteering work in Vancouver.

Joanne had to run off to work her night shift and so she left me there to carry on by myself. Paul and I moved on next door to 1181 for a change of scene. Echo joined us later. Into the wee hours of the morning, we forged ahead to another venue called Five Sixty, but when we got there, they were closing.

What can you do at three in the morning? I was knackered.

Me and You and Avenue Q.

The off Broadway musical, Avenue Q, finally made its way north of the border and performed at The Centre in Vancouver this evening. I was amongst a sold-out theatre of fans of puppetry doin’ the nasty and was laughing all the way through the course of the performance. The soundtrack is a must-have addition to anyone’s collection!

Chinese New Year.

Chinese New Year. I could never remember what day is falls on the Gregorian calendar. Fortunately, I have friends who do and invite me to take part in celebrating the new year again. Wesley, the same dude who hosted the Hallowe’en party at his place, had put on another house party to mark this occasion. Between the two parties, Echo and I noticed a trend here: a homogeneity of race. All but one of the dozens of people who came were of asian descent. Granted, this was a Chinese New Year party, but still... Wesley, if you’re reading this, do you have a response to our hilarious observation? ;)

Jan Gehl: Cities for People.

Imelda and I went to a very interesting speaker event at the Playhouse Theatre this evening. Jan Gehl, a Danish architect well known in circles, gave a speech to an audience of city planners and architects about the importance of building cities for people. The key message I came away with from his lecture was on the three levels of perspectives: a view from the satellite, a view from a plane, and a view from the ground. Of the three, he had stressed that when designing cities, the view from the ground should be paramount, one that many architects fail to see from. Scale is important: the distance in which one has to walk from the street to the building, or the scale between buildings. He had used Brasilia as an example of how NOT to do things: a city designed by planners and architects who only saw things from a satellite view with a complete disregard of the human eye perspective on the ground. Buildings are spread too far apart from one another in a way that it discourages human traffic in the area. There’s no life within, contrary to brochures and blueprints of happy people going about their way.

I hope to participate in many more lectures such as this.