2010 Olympics! 2010 Olympics! 2010 Olympics!

Today is officially one week to 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver! For the next three weeks, I will mostly be doing blogs on my personal experience with the Olympics and Vancouver. Here it is a prelude.

Vancouver is one of my favourite cities in the world. Here is an amazing time laspe video of Vancouver created by David and Dan Newcomb featuring music by Linda Ganzini.




Many have described Vancouver as a big metropolitan with a small town feel due to its lack of highways and a forest of very tall buildings. Located in the most western province in Canada, Vancouver is the third largest city Canada behind Toronto and Montreal. Here are some quick facts:

Population: 2.6 million
Language: mostly English
Currency: Canadian Dollar (CAD)
Best time to travel: all year around depending on what you want to do
Weather:

• Nov to Feb – high of 8C (46F) to low of 0C (32F)
• Mar to May – high of 16C (61F) to low of 3C (37F)
• Jun to Oct – high of 22C (71F) to low of 10C (50F)

Most famous for:

• Majestic natural beauty. It is surrounded by water (Pacific Ocean) and mountains
• You can ski in the mountains, windsurf in the ocean and play a round of golf all in the same day
• Consistently voted one of the most liveable cities in the world
• Strong Asian presence and influence. Hence, some of the best Asian restaurants outside of Asia are here. Sushi is as fresh as it gets. Click here to follow my Vancouver restaurant reviews on Yelp.com.
  
• Rain, a lot of rain from November through March. But when the sun comes out, the city just shines.
• Host of Expo 86 and 2010 Winter Olympics
• One of the gateways to Asia Pacific. Shanghai is 9 hours away.

Surrounding Destinations:

• Whistler (2hr drive) - one of best snow resort towns in the world
• Victoria (2hr drive + ferry) – the capital of British Columbia province
• Tofino (2hr drive + ferry) – surfer paradise and rain forest
• Seattle, USA (3.5 hr drive)

I live in the heart of Vancouver and the Olympics, literally 10 feet away from BC Place which is where the opening ceremony is going to be held on February 12th at 6PM. Here are a few pictures of the area I overlook. It use to be an parking lot. Now it is tent city! The area is also heavily blocked off and surveillanced with CCTVs and a lot of police patrol. Now I only have one way in and out of my street. It is a bit, actually a lot of pain in my rear. But the Olympics hype is totally overriding that feeling.

To my back, is the Olympic Village. It is a beautiful area by Falls Creek and Science World (the big lit sphere). It is a fantastic area to go for a run. The athletics have already hung their country's flag proudly on the balconies. Very cool site!