The Vancouver Blog commences

I have started this blog as a kind of journal for our stay in Vancouver, Canada. It's a way of reminding us of what we have seen and done and to share the experiences with our friends and family.

I have some catching up to do today to bring this up to date (today being Wednesday 9 June).

Vancouver is a beautiful city, albeit a wet one so far. The bright sunny days do exist but have only had 3 or so in 14 days. However the drizzly days are not bad for venturing out anyway.

And everyone does get out-very big here on exercise and outdoors adventuring.

The first 2 weeks were spent in very nice, contemporary, serviced accommodation Downtown provided by Digital Domain. I spent the time apartment hunting while Woody got right into work at DD.

DD is located in Kitsalano south of Downtown, but its only a 10 minute bus/bike and walk from door to door-easy.

Navigating around Vancouver is simple-the mountains are North! And what spectacular mountains they are. On a clear day they look awesome and the caps are still showing snow.

We have been pretty tired after the previous months of packing, moving and travelling, so we are waiting until we feel energetic enought to tackle a mountain visit.

Last Saturday we moved into our furnished apartment in Downtown Vancouver. This will be home for the next 6 months.

It is a new building right on the waterfront -Opposite the Granville island markets.

It is 61m2, so small for us, but stylish and a lovely location. It is right on George Wainborn Park, a lovely lansdcaped park popular with the cities dog lovers, personal trainers and exercisers.

We are located near the seawall - this goes right around the city and up to Stanley Park- hectares of natural parkland with massive trees. We just bought two bikes to cycle to work and around the seawall. Vancouver is extremely bike friendly and mostly flat.

English Bay is just up the way from our apartment -the views out to the mountains and the ocean skies are pretty spectacular. The local ferries run every 5 minutes between our park and the other side. Its a good alternative to taking the traffic bridges.

Woody has been working on some cool concepts for Thor. Under pressure being the "new kid on the block", but they are pleased with his work so far and very appreciative of the extra work he has put in. That is a rewarding change for him.

Observations about the city so far-

• Canadians are extremely friendly
• public transit system is superior and buses are electric
• very envrionmentally concious-puts Sydney to shame really
• bus drivers so so helpful and friendly
• parks and gardens everywhere, even in the commercial centres
• glad we bought our really warm winter jackets and boots
• have seen raccoons,beavers,squirrels, canadian geese so far-can't wait to see a grizzly bear