Celebration of Light... aka Fireworks!

Since 1990, Vancouver has been home to the Celebration of Light. This is an international pyro-musical fireworks competition that has attracted the world’s leading fireworks designers and is seen as a highly prestigious event. The fireworks festival creates an exciting display where spectators enjoy the latest explosive techniques and the most innovative fireworks materials are used as different country teams compete to be crowned the winner.

After a busy work day, Nancy and I wandered up to English Bay to sit on the seawall with the ocean waves lapping. At 10pm the Canadian Team's fireworks started to the theme and soundtrack of the Wizard of OZ and I have to say I was very impressed for the 30 mins. This was no ordinary fireworks display due to the scale, number of fireworks, noise and sound track plus the huge number of onlooking boats and yachts in the Bay. It turns out that over 10% of the Vancouver city population came out to watch the fireworks. My photos don't quite do it justice, but I can assure you for free entertainment is was fantastic.

Weekend in Kelowna

Wow - it has been a busy ten days! Oh how I long for the days of no to-do lists, endless sofa sitting and limitless free time.

Since my last post, I have spent 6 days in Kelowna, which is approximately a four hour drive from downtown Vancouver, completed four more rounds of golf, watched wildfires, pop across to Edmonton, squeezed in a bit of work and finally finished writing a business plan!!

Most importantly, the trip to Kelowna was a fantastic experience with wall to wall sunshine at temperatures in the mid-thirties. Following, a week of working at a Dealer event with MB and the golf, Nancy joined me at the hotel for a weekend of relaxation and fun. We visited three local wineries and vineyards, including Mission Hill, which I discovered was where our wedding wine was from. Following a wander round the town centre and along the beaches, we enjoyed a trip out on a speed boat on the lake. This proved to be immense fun, especially with a couple of dips in the water to cool off from the afternoon heat.

While out on the lake, we noticed a plume of smoke from one corner of the lake which gradually developed over the afternoon. As you can see by the photos this turned out to be the start of the now infamous Kelowna wildfires, which resulted in over 17,000 residents having to be evacuated from their homes. From the waterside this was an impressive sight, but I have a great deal more respect for firefighters as I could only imagine the battle on their hands. Even now, as I write, the fires are not fully under control and there are still people staying away from their houses. For us we made it back to Vancouver safe and sound, which only a two hour delay on the return journey due to closed roads.

Second Round of Golf

This Sunday saw my second round of 18 holes of golf at a Mercedes-Benz employee tournament. The venue was the WestWood Plateau Golf and Country Club in Coquitlam, which was about a 40 minute drive from downtown Vancouver. The golf course was literally on the side of a mountain and so the course was particular narrow with a large number of trees lining the course and significantly sloped away on certain fairways. This resulted in me losing a number of golf balls in the local forest, but the upside were the amazing views including a vista of Mt. Baker. My round was an improvement compared to my first ever round of golf by 11 shots, however, there was still a mixed bag of good, bad and ugly shots.

Continual improvement is required with my game, especially with four more rounds of golf due over the next two weeks. So my coach has provided me with further instructional video guides of the fundamentals and these are from the golfing greats - Mr Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods. I especially like the "Eye of the Tiger" clip with Tiger Woods using a camera on his cap to show his stance and swing.

SkyDive Booked!

Freefall Tandem 1st Jump:

It has been on my mind for a long while to arrange a tandem skydive jump and there just happens to be a place local to us, here in Downtown Vancouver. I have walked past the store front a number of times and today I went ahead a booked it for Saturday 22nd August.

The plan is for a "Freefall Tandem". So following the briefing, we take to the skies in an area over a place called Abbotsford, where myself and a Skydive Instructor jump out of a plane and I get to experience the magnificence of human flight harnessed together through: freefall, canopy descent and soft landing.

By the virtue of telling people via the blog it creates the pressure to deliver, as I can't then chicken out at the last minute and disappoint everyone!

The Golfing Fundamentals

With the pressure on from my new boss to learn golf and five rounds of golf due to be played over the next three weeks, I am having to spend my free time hitting golf balls. In the past few days alone, I have hit over 200 balls at the driving range and I have got to the stage when I have an understanding of the basic fundamentals. Although one of the outcomes of my blossoming golf game is painful blisters on my hands, heightened by borrowing Bob's ancient clubs yesterday.

I am far from perfecting a golf game as I can hit a small percentage of balls just right (which feels great) but the rest are all over the place. So I have a growing respect for the golf professionals on the TV who make it look so simply and able to hit the ball just where they want it to go. The enclosed video clip has been recommended to me by my colleague, who is acting as my coach, and so at least I can hold the club correctly and have a grasp of those golfing fundamentals.

Canada's Birthday!

It turns out that Canada has a birthday each year on 1st July and we get a public holiday to celebrate it. A day off from work is always welcome in my eyes. The occasion marks the joining of the British colonies of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and the Province of Canada into a federation on July 1, 1867. The British Government at first kept limited rights of political control over the new country, which were shed in stages over the years until the last vestiges were ended in 1982. Canada Day thus differs from Independence Day celebrations in other countries in that it does not commemorate a clear-cut date of complete independence.

More importantly, what did we get up to with a bank holiday..... well we decided doing a local tourist attraction was in order and we visited the Vancouver Aquarium, in Stanley Park. This was a good couple of hours looking at marine wildlife, tropical fish, frogs, dolphins and the major attraction of beluga whales. Turns out that there was a recent Beluga Whale calf born three weeks and was pride of place in the display.

A quick afternoon nap was followed by watching the Canada Day parade along West Pender Street, one block over from our building. This was a bunch of Canadians simply having a good time with a variety of floats, trucks, super cars, dancing/flag waving people and of course Santa Claus! The finale to our day was a firework display over the Burrard Inlet in Vancouver Harbour at 10.30pm and we had the perfect view from just outside our apartment. All in all a fun day and gorgeous weather to match - my first Canada day in Canada.