Return to Vancouver January 2013
One of the cleanest cities I've ever been to, Eh?
I went to Vancouver for the first time in August in 2012, but it was only for a few hours and I didn't get to see all of the sights of the city, and it was sunny and beautiful for the couple of hours I was in the city. It was part of my trip last year visiting Seattle, Washington.
This time I wanted to see how Vancouver "really" felt like. Coming from sunny and warm Southern California, where it's pretty much the sunny and warm all year. Vancouver B.C's climate was a bit of shock to the system from what I'm used to in Sunny So Cal.
I was super unprepared for the wet and rainy weather for the couple of days I was in Vancouver. I wore my Vans to Vancouver, and noticed how soaked they got, and how uncomfortable my we felt being wet from the pouring rain of Vancouver.
I couldn't take the suffering of my feet being wet anymore, so I bought a nice pair of shoes from a shopping mall in downtown Vancouver. And from what I've noticed of Canadian shopping malls compared to the one's in the United States. There's a lot less clothing options than what you can get in the U.S, with another thing being that Canadian products have a higher tax on them than American products due to taxes being used to fund Canadian Health Care and what other projects they got going on.
Now here are some major differences between Canada and the United States.
Canada is alot more similar than different to the US. But here are some notable differences.
Tim Hortons
Some of the best coffee I've tasted in my life came from Tim Hortons. We are missing out on Tim Hortons south of the border. The coffee is excellent, and the Donut dough was soft and moist. The donut chains in So Cal is lacking in quality compared to Tim Hortons. And especially in the cool and wet weather in Vancouver, a warm Tim Horton's coffee sure helped.
Words Spelled Differently
Canada still uses British spellings of words like Colour, Centre, Neighbourhood, Cheque that is not used in the US. It took me a while to get used to the different spellings of the words used in Canadian English
Ketchup Chips
Ask an American about Ketchup Chips, and they will look dumbfounded to not believe they exist. Ketchup "flavoured" Chips are unique to Canada, and quite tasty. Another thing that is noticable is that French are on all the packets in Canadian products, compared to where I live in Southern California.
Less "Urban" Culture
Even in Seattle, which is similar to Vancouver in many ways. There is a Urban culture influenced by minorities. This type of culture was basically non existant in Vancouver. The attitude and customs felt more like a European/Asian hybrid, with the locals having a more reserved and generally nicer attitude than what I'm used to in Los Angeles. Vancouver also had a more cosmopolitan vibe in comparison to most American cities and urban areas it's size. And felt alot more cleaner and safer in the inner city areas compared to any major American city.
Overall
I enjoyed my time in Vancouver, British Columbia. It's probally one of the cleanest and safest cities I've been to in my lifetime. The only downfall was the wet and rainy weather:)