Day: April 1, 2012

The protest movement in Vancouver is just as pathetic as the Occupy Raleigh protest in North Carolina–at least today it was.  The above is an image of 75 or so students protesting tuition increases and chanting

Education is a right!
We will never give up the fight!

Notice the motorcycle cop on the left side of the photo.  None of the people to the left of him were participating in the rally.  They were actually blocking the traffic in downtown Vancouver for these yo-yo’s.  I bet there were no engineering, math, or other hard science majors in the crowd.  They were too busy at home studying.

It seems appropriate that it is April Fool’s Day today.

A little video:

Day 223 of 1000

It is very interesting to be in Vancouver again after a couple of visits here over twenty years ago.  First, it is a very, very beautiful city.

• Second, it is rainier and cooler (temperature-wise) city than Raleigh.  I was looking at some climate stuff on Portland to kill time in my hotel room and found a description of the rain patterns for Portland described as falling into three categories:  4 months of rain all the time, 4 months of rain 50% of the time, and 4 months of very dry weather.  That probably describes the climate here pretty well, too.  I actually like the cooler weather a lot.
• The center of the city of Vancouver is great.  One of the things I miss living out east is the quality and number of asian food options available in the Pacific Northwest.  There seem to be even MORE asian food options here in Vancouver than in Portland and Seattle and there are a LOT in both of those cities.
• There are turn lanes only on the busiest streets which is crazy.  Most of the main streets in this city of over 2 million people have only a yellow stripe down the middle of the road which stops all the traffic when anyone wants to make a left turn into an alley or other minor street.
• They have flashing green lights here about which I had no clue.  I looked it up on the internet and it appears that the flashing green lights mean something different in Vancouver than they do in other parts of Canada.

More later, hopefully with pictures.