Sunday, January 13, 2008

Yaletown tour

I spent a lot of time downtown today learning an architectural tour for the Architectural Institute. The Institute has summer staff that do them, but sometimes in the winter they need extra people to do them.

I wandered around with the information from the tour to find that one of the buildings that used to be on the route just doesn't seem to exist anymore, and one seems to have the wrong address written down in the book. Not only that, but the RAV line construction has kind of screwed up the route anyways, and there are a few major buildings that are being renovated so the stuff you're actually supposed to look at is either being torn down or hidden behind canvas or plywood.

Good to know. It would have sucked to find that out the day of.

When I finish my work term I'm going to have to go down there to take some pictures, because Yaletown isn't an area I usually spend a lot of time in.

There's one dumb street down there where one side of the road has one name, and the other side of the street has another name, and the numbers on both sides are all even. I was looking for something down there and a guy stopped to ask if I needed help finding something.

People from out of town always tell me that Vancouverites are really aloof and unfriendly, and I'm wondering if it has something to do with the fact that the majority of tourists tend to gather around the exact same area where there are multiple panhandlers on every corner, and that more often than not, a polite "Can I have a moment of your time?" or "Excuse me, but can you help me out?" is a plea for money.