Vancouver, 21st Century City

As you can read in the post above this one, Amber and I travelled sans children (big thanks to Alanna and Kyle) to Vancouver to see U2 perform on October 28. I've been to Vancouver a handful of times, most recently this summer when we spent a few hours at the Aquarium. I even lived in Maple Ridge for a season when I was 2. I hardly expected to be impacted by the city in the 20 hours that we spent there.

Upon landing at YVR Airport, we went up an elevator and boarded the SkyTrain. For just $3.75 each, we were comfortably shuttled to downtown Vancouver in just over 20 minutes. Compare this to Edmonton where a shuttle costs $15/person and a taxi would run $48. In Calgary, a shuttle costs the same and a cab would cost about $35 (because the airport is within city limits). We used the SkyTrain to return to the airport from downtown too.

Then there was the vibrant downtown. There were people everywhere and cool shops too.

The water really makes the city though and waiting in line outside BC Place on the edge of English Bay, it really felt like this city was on the right track.

Too bad housing prices are prohibitively expensive (even more than Calgary!).