Music of the Cranes

Vancouver is in the midst of a building boom for the 2010 Winter Olympics and there are cranes everywhere, which reminds me a lot of Perth. There are a few other thing that make this feel like Perth too. Firstly there is the 'help wanted' signs in every window, it looks like you can't get good staff here at the moment here either, I don't think they have a resources boom but they do have an oil, timber and tourism boom. Mind you now the US housing market has collapsed it'll be interesting to see how long the timber boom continues as 90% of US houses are built with timber (or lumber as they say over here) from British Columbia. Secondly there are soaring property prices here. Although they are still a bit cheaper than Perth. For example a 1 bed 1 bath trendy new apartment in the city is about CAD$380,000 compared to AUD$450,000. A difference here is that no one in Vancouver is allowed to own absolute waterfront land, so the millionaires are kept away from the beaches, inlets and rivers. This is good. The more chances there are for rich people to have to look at hippies sitting in front of their property the better if you ask me. 

Of course in Perth you can't own absolute waterfront property anyway as there is probably a freeway, dual lane road or railway line on it. This is another similarity with the antipodes most remote city; the way that the car seems to get precedence over people. For example last night I went for dinner at a little diner on the waterfront, just across from where all the cruise ships dock. Unfortunately the diner was underground in a shopping centre while the cars in the car park had views of the water and mountains. I mean who decided that was a good idea? A blind architect? 

One thing that Vancouver, and Seattle, have that Perth could really do with is a fantastic fresh market. In Seattle it's the Pike Place Market and in Vancouver the Granville Island Market. Both are brilliant, full of fresh cheese, fruit, art, eating places, microbreweries, seafood straight out of the water and fresh meat and deli items from round the sates. I went there today and bought some great bread, cheese and fruit, I'm eating BC raspberries as I type this. I know we've got Fremantle Markets but that just seems a bit too much tourist trap and not enough market. Maybe as Perth gets more cosmopolitan and people get sick of the supermarkets we'll get something like these.

I also had a wander round Stanley Park today and went to the Aquarium. Both were great but the Aquarium was full of kids, in the audience not in the tanks obviously, and most of them were little horrors. The park was great, but the woman walking round behind me was on the 'phone to someone talking very loudly about her constipation. Just too much information. Do these people think that everyone else in the world is deaf or do they think we really want to know all bout their bowels?

The cutest things at the aquarium were the sea otters. So cute, like little living teddy bears. I'm pretty sure they would stink of fish though. Apparently one of the otters here is the last survivor of the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Prince William Sound. And did you also know that that boat is still sailing round the world under a different name?

I'm so glad big corporations get their proper punishment for causing the worlds worst ecological disaster so far (Exxon managed to get their punitive damages reduced from $5 billion to $516 million, and got the insurance payout for the ship!).