Adventure Begins at Home

Wherever we’ve travelled throughout the world, when we’ve told people that we are from Vancouver, we’re often told how lucky we are to live here and how beautiful they have heard our city is. To be true, we feel particularly blessed living here and having such exception natural beauty, climate and opportunity for outdoor activities right at our doorstep. While many parts of Canada are still dealing with snow or at minimum, near freezing temperatures, we were enjoying a sunny weekend with highs of almost 20 degrees. Taking advantage of the great weather, we took the opportunity to get the bicycles out for our first ride of the season. Spending so much time driving around in a car, I find that once I get out on the bike for a ride around town I often find myself thinking how great it would be to ride a bike all the time. The exercise, the fresh air, the sunshine, what’s not to like? This thought usually lasts about 10 minutes when I remember that it would take me about 2 hours to ride to work and that we get more than our share of rain in Vancouver. With that thought firmly expelled from my head, we continued our ride along the Fraser river.

Riding in the direction of the airport, we could see the jets coming in for their final approach off to our left side. Air Canada, British Airways, WestJet, one by one they slowly descended bringing people home and new visitors to the city. Looking at the jets landing one by one, I couldn’t help thinking about my current problem of having to find a new flight to get to Ottawa next weekend for my cooking class (see my previous post). Nonetheless, Barb and I have this affinity for seeing the jets land knowing that someone else is probably going off on their own Excellent Adventure.

After about 30 minutes of riding, Barb turned back as she was running out of energy. On the other hand, I felt invigorated by the ride and wanted to keep going. I went up Main street and rode through the section of the city called the Punjabi Market. From 48th to 51st Ave., the Punjabi Market is a showcase of East Indian stores and restaurants. Something not so easily experienced in car, the exotic aromas of spices from the stores are a real treat. Many of the stores selling brightly coloured saris had them on displays on the sidewalk – a visually treat to accompany the aromatic.

I turned off Main street and a rode past Memorial Park (41st Ave. between Fraser and Knight) where I watched teams playing soccer, lacrosse and cricket in various sections of the park. I’ve got to admit that cricket is a sport rarely seen being played in Canada. Most of the players on the field were wearing jerseys with Pakistan and India emblazoned on them – obviously popular cricket playing countries.

I made my way to Victoria Drive where the stores changed from East Indian to mostly Chinese. Up and down Victoria you will find many Chinese produce stores which have their fruits and vegetables on sale in their sidewalk displays. Interspersed with the grocers are several Chinese and Vietnamese restaurants including one of our favourite restaurants: Top Choice Restaurant on the corner of Victoria and 41st Ave.

On the way home I dropped in to see my Aunt Marlene (who lives 5 minutes away from us) and returned home soon after that to complete my 2.5 hour inaugural bike ride for the season.

Baden