through the eyes of the a70

“The next station is, Richmond-Brighouse”

That’s definitely something new. The Canada Line was officially opened a week ago last Monday. I was crazy enough to join in the frenzy of people that wanted to try the new line for free on the first day (read: FREE, even though I had a fully functional bus pass that I could’ve used the next day with a fraction of the crowd!) The highly anticipated line has caused quite a stir in the residents as there has been many controversies, including cut-and-cover vs. digging a tunnel underground. I know these frustrations first hand since the line is built quite close to where I live. But now that it is complete, I would be no farther than 15 minutes away from either Richmond or Downtown – quite convenient.

By the way, I got one of those opening day passports – all stamped – quite the souvenir :-P

I’d have to say the ride is very smooth, though there are some improvements that will definitely make this much better (I still don’t know why the stations experienced “overcrowding issues” and “line delays”, or the train suddenly stopping in the middle of stations when there are no trains in front of it).

1. Turnstiles. I don’t see why they did not put this in when it was being constructed. The longer this is not implemented, the more money they will lose, not to mention the decreased safety in the stations
2. Drawing lines in the entrance to the trains. The cost of this is very minimal, and you would actually stand a chance at getting onto the train in the order you arrived! (no more rude budgers!)
3. Though not possible now, expand the stations. The stations are definitely not built to last very long. It’s already crowded now – what are the chances of the people using it decreasing?!

Anyways, enough blabbing. Hopefully Translink will see these issues soon. This is us yesterday taking an afternoon ride on the line!

China closed out this year’s fireworks show at English Bay to the theme of “Through the Looking Glass”, which they tried to express the different cultures of the world that were present at last year’s Olympic games.

It was a rather windless day in Vancouver, and thus we had a pretty smoky show. It got harder and harder to see the lower fireworks but you can definitely tell that they had some good colours and variety thrown in there (as opposed to previous years where it was mostly white and red). They produced quite a number of “wows” in the crowd – let’s just say it was better in person than in the photos.

In addition, it was announced today that China has won this year’s fireworks competition – I guess the judges saw through what they had through the smoke.

Whew! That’s all the fireworks photos this year folks!

(Click for larger images, you can scroll through all the fireworks images with left and right arrow keys)