Vancouver, Canada

We stayed in Vancouver for a week. We caught the train up from Seattle. Another scenic journey. Vancouver is definitely a place to visit. In the spring and summer we both agreed that we could easily live there. Its very easy to get around as they have excellent public transport. We stayed in the Samesun Hostel in the downtown area. We we were the oldest people there but the "young people" we shared the room with were really interesting and doing great things. One guy had just returned from riding his pushy around NZ, Australia and Asia and was riding up to visit his friends in Victoria (Canada) about 100 ks up the road. A lot of them were young Aussies travelling the ski fields, snowboarding, skiing and partying (obviously) and working in Canada to finance their travels.

Both Seattle and Vancouver have some great public art. We wandered around the city and visited a banking building that had a great public display about the Aga Khan Development Network and the work they are doing around the world. It was excellent. The young woman who showed me around had done her degree in architecture and religion, which I thought was really a great combo. She was very passionate about the restoration work that the Network were doing. One of the interesting things they were doing was collecting plastic bags and melting them down, mixing them with sand and turning them into paving blocks.

We did so much in Vancouver and had such a great time there. The only real down side in the cities that we have seen has been the number of homeless people. In Vancouver there seemed to be a lot of meth addicts who were more aggressive as far as begging was concerned and younger than the people on the streets in other places. Meth is a real problem and along the roadsides in the USA there are posters advertising rehabs and assistance. Being homeless in Seattle and Vancouver in the winter must be the pits. I felt really sad for them and gave them money from time to time but there is a person on nearly every corner in the downtown areas and my money just cant spread that far.