s07e17 - This isn't 'real' cold

It's been a little while since my last blog and while nothing massively life changing has happened in that little time, there has been an adventure or two.
Most notably the fact that I went to Vancouver for 4 days to visit someone elses rellies. (Hey, you think visiting your own rellies is tough, try visiting someone elses!)
It was a good little break actually, one that I hadn't planned on doing when I left Oz about 5 weeks ago.

It's been almost 8 years since I last visited Vancouver and what would you know, it has changed a bit in that time. Most noticeably is that the city is gearing itself up for the 2010 Winter Olympics, a pretty big deal up in these neck of the woods and so the city of Vancouver is getting a major face lift, which I'm sure all the locals will be pretty happy with.
One thing they wont be overly pleased about is the several inches of snow they had while I was there. Now it might sound odd that a Canadian city isn't geared up for snow, but Vancouver really isn't. You see while Vancouver's surrounds are often white round this time of season, Vancouver itself doesn't usually get too much snow and so when it does, it doesn't cope well at all. So, when a few inches of snow drops in a day and the temperatures plummet the local villagers freak out. Luckily for me, while I was in freezing Vancouver (-10C) it was -48C back in Calgary ... fuck that, -48 is not what I signed up for!
While in Vancouver (well, at least near it anyway) myself, Naomi and Sebastian stayed in a massive house in Anmore which, I guess is about 45 minutes drive from Vancouver, which as I learned is only one of 11 different cities that makes up the Greater Vancouver Area (some other random facts include 30% of Vancouver is made up of East Indians while 20% is Asian*)

Anyway, Anmore is a little settlement up in the mountains, and when I say "up in the mountains" I really mean it. It takes 15 minutes to drive to civilisation and the backyard consists of trees, trees and more freakin' trees (aka a forest)
The community is rather select (land up there starts at around the $600,000 mark) but they still do the Christmassy thing and put up their lights, not that too many people see them as they are so far out of the way.
I was thinking one night that it might be cool to head up and photograph some of the more impressive house lights, that is until I was told that no one walks around there after dark because of the bears and coyotes that frequent the area .... WTF?
It goes without saying, I don't have any photos of the Christmas lights.

I got a couple of touristy things in while there (before the snow hit and the place became impossible to traverse) including Granville Island, the van Dusen Light Show and Grouse Mountain, which is a ski run 3,500ft up that over looks Vancouver and is as cold as a Nun's .....

*All statistics where provided by Peter Elias Statistics