Before covid-19 hit the brakes hard globally on health and our social lives, the last social meal I had with several people was the last day in February. At lunch, I hung out over sizzling stone bowls of bimbap with egg, at a popular Korean restaurant with 3 other employees from another department. In fact,…
Tag: Vancouver
Nature as Solace During Uncertain Times
Over the past few decades, I’ve been lucky to live within a 5 min. walk or if further away, a bike ride to very large parks and escape to Nature’s calming presence. Even in urban parks, I can very quickly immerse in the leafy stillness, sunshine, twittering birdsongs, rustling swaths of wild grass and bush,…
Daily Life Lessons During Covid-19 Pandemic
For some folks, a global plague highlights a lot what they took for granted since this past March. Or confirmed what one knew or decided long ago: Mask-Wearing for Hours is Hot I mean kind of sweaty. My double-sided, non-medical cloth mask is hot to wear for several hours at room temperature. When reading a…
Cherry Blossom Bouquets, Sharing Obsession
Cherry blossom bouquets Bounce-sway in warm breeze, Spring pink petals fall. Writing a blog post with photos about cherry blossom season, is an act of memory and hope for me. Every time. A thrust forward into the near future with happy expectations of pink bursting-birth all over Vancouver. And Nature delivers every spring. You’re never…
Bald Eagle in Wilderness, Our Neighbourhood – Brackendale Eagles Provincial Park and Vancouver
Jack once told me, he saw a bald eagle fly high by the window of our highrise condo building. The soaring bird was at eye level. That’s very high –over 20 stories high. If you are patient, while biking, jogging or walking slowly around the shoreline in Vancouver, a bald eagle might be soaring ahead or perched…
Magnolia and Cherry Blossom Cascades
I’ve always look forward to the annual spring burst of cherry tree blossoms in Vancouver. A cascade of delicate pink, sometimes white blossoms, sweeps across the city, in waves, for a month. Usually during the latter part of March into April. While cherry trees are busting out, larger petals of magnolia flowering trees are breaking…
That Train in My Canadian Cycling Horizon
Every few weeks when I’m cycling, a major train pops up on the horizon with dinging bell, 1 or 2 red locomotive engines, pulling a serpentine string of cargo train loads and tanks. The train is either the Canadian National Railway or the Canadian Pacific Railway. Like any cyclist, I just hope the frickin’ train is…
Canadian Contrasts or Ignorance: 3 Cities, 3 Solitudes
It’s harder than it appears: distillating facts and personal musings on the major cities where I’ve lived, worked and cycled so far. Vancouver, Toronto and Calgary are big and jostle for world stage, as Canada’s world-class city. Several sword points to note: Vancouver in my infographic, refers to City of Vancouver. Not 20 other suburban cities around which…
Salmon Art Leaps Into Pacific West Coast Imagination
Salmon is king in Vancouver –in local cuisine and in art. After a few days wandering in the city or anywhere along the coast of British Columbia, you are bound to stumble across salmon swishing through water or jumping up in sculpture, murals or mosaics. Salmon iconography is in Salish coastal Indian art, outdoor contemporary…
Cycling and Searching for Sublime Seafood Chowder
I had my first dreamy seafood chowder, when I was in a bad mood. It was a clam chowder that placated me, over twenty years ago near the start of my longest ever bike-camping trip over 1,000 km. long in the Canadian east coast Maritime provinces. I was fuming desperately after only cycling 40 km….
More than Just Dragons- Art on Chinese-Canadian Experience
Don’t get me wrong: I love dragons. A dragon pops up often enough: whenever there is a celebration or poster flogging a Canadian Chinatown event or something involving Chinese-Canadian history or culture. I love the dragon for its aesthetic drawing power –in parades, dance, paintings, textiles, rugs, sculpture and jewellery. Dragons in Canada- Convenient Icon? However, I…
Look into Canada’s Soul: Part I. Freaking Out Over Vast Time, Distance and Climatic Toughness
The more I travel across Canada and after living, in 3 different regions (Ontario, Pacific Coast in British Columbia and Alberta in Prairie heartland), the more I think I’m creeping closer into the heart of Canada’s soul. It’s been an amazing journey. It’s a huge effort to figure out Canada at ground level: its myriad…
Rising with Community Gardens: Three Cities
Vancouver’s Sole Foods: Bringing Back Dignity and Purpose to Emptiness Last year, a large dreary parking lot in downtown Vancouver was transformed with rows of bright green vegetables under the shadow of B.C. Stadium, elevated light rail viaduct and condo towers. It didn’t take long for rich green leaves to unfurl and cover part of the…
What Shapes Me: Neighbourhoods That Are Walkable, Cycleable
It isn’t just my genes or my lifelong, whole food cooking tendencies (thanks mom), that shapes me: I have always lived in walkable, cycleable neighbourhoods. That’s a long time. Over 55 years in 9 different neighbourhoods across 7 Canadian cities. I’ve previously trumpeted this fact in this blog, as a cyclist living in Toronto, Vancouver…
Bike to Work Day, Month: Affirmation in 3 Canadian Cities
Cycling to work, shopping or to school, is still a minority transportation choice in North American cities. For me, as a long-time bike commuter for the last 22 years, Bike to Work Day or Month (depending on the city), is not only a public event to encourage bike commuting love. This Bike to Work event, also affirms…
Cycling Greenways – Umbilical Cord to My Past Neighbourhoods: Prairies, West Coast and Ontario
A long bike route near home, joins my memories like a green umbilical cord, to places where I’ve lived and biked in Canada for the past 22 years. My green route curls and unwinds in Toronto, Vancouver and now, Calgary. To know and to memorize each twist, bump, hill and breathless plateau of a bike path at my doorstep,…
Are You a Couch Foodie, Garden Foodie or Stove-Top Foodie?
Recently in a cycling forum, a question floated over the Internet: “Do you have a discerning palate?” That got me thinking about foodies, people who pride themselves as food connoisseurs, worldly arbitrators of food dishes from a dizzying array of cuisines. Just a Stove-Top Foodie: Homespun Knowledge I fancy myself as a foodie. Not a…
Drama at Construction Sites : Things I Never Knew
I never dreamed that mud piles, cranes and caterpillar machines at a large construction site, could be a stage for human drama of love, tragedy, perseverance, danger, achievement and comedy. The whole shebang. Well, make that 6 construction sites for 1 huge construction project. For 3 years of my life, I worked for a $800 million…
St. George Rainway: Painting a Bygone Salmon Stream
On a misty grey summer morning, we hotfooted by bike to see a brand-new road painting that memorializes a bygone salmon stream that ran through the Mount Pleasant Vancouver neighbourhood. That’s right –a somewhat bumpy road surface was graced overnight with a blue-green swirly art stream of salmon, frogs, trees and sea life in a…
2010 Olympic Birthmarks in Neighbourhoods: Vancouver, BC
For locals, the 2010 Winter Olympics legacy for some Vancouver buildings and artwork becomes paradoxically like a familiar face that we may longer notice its unique birthmarks over time. I haven’t spent any time researching, analyzing nor comparing long lasting transformation of buildings, art and infrastructure in Vancouver and other Olympic cities worldwide. So just take my…
How to Celebrate Bike-Pedestrian Bridges: Let Me Count Thy Ways
A shiny new bridge, is a local cause célèbre in many ways, for expected and totally unexpected reasons. Sometimes it’s just a lovely architectural backdrop to frame not only cyclists and strollers, but also graduation parties, post-wedding photos, seminal reunions of family and friends. Peace Bridge, Calgary: Frames Grad, Wedding and Family Celebrations We were cycling…
Cycle-Adventuring for Fun, Low-Cost Food at Ethnic Grocery Stores and Supermarkets
Yes, I know: in major to medium sized cities, you can drop by big, non-ethnic supermarket chains and load up on fresh ginger, pita bread or curry paste. Heck, even a deal on bitter melon is even possible these days. No Need for Food Coupons I have not used any food coupons over the past…
