EAT! Vancouver Festival + Game 5

On Friday night, we went to the EAT! Vancouver Food + Cooking Festival. It was our first time there so we didn't really know what to expect, but it was excellent! The festival was held indoors at the new Vancouver Convention Centre, so we took the Skytrain downtown around 6pm.

Game 5 of the Stanley Cup Finals had started at 5pm, so downtown was full of anxious Canucks fans (tens of thousands of them converge on downtown Vancouver for each Finals game). There was a lot riding on this game, since the Vancouver Canucks and the Boston Bruins had each won two games by that point, and the first team to win four games will win the coveted Cup. There happened to be a "fan zone" right outside the convention centre - i.e. a big outdoor screen where people can congregate to watch the game, which was being played 2km down the road at Rogers Arena - so we checked the score as we walked past and saw that it was still nil all. Tense indeed!



Once inside the Convention Centre, we paid the $16 entry fee and met up with some of our friends: Angharad, Connie, Myla, Rosanne, Aydin, and Nicole. Then we set off to explore the aisles of booths, and decide what to fill our tummies with!

There were dozens of booths, ranging from food/beverage vendors to kitchen utensil salespeople to travel agents. There was also a demonstration stage, a 19+ liquor zone, and an area where people were seated at fancy tables and being served by chefs in white hats. We tried free samples of cheese, yoghurt and softdrink, and bought some Appenzeller cheese and Lorina softdrinks. We also got free sample bags containing tomato juice, hot sauce, chocolate-coated berries, potato chips, chicken stock, and chewing gum!







Along one wall were a number of stalls run by local restaurants, offering mini versions of a few items from their menus. Instead of cash, the restaurant booths accepted coupons, bought for 50c each at the door... so an appetizer-sized portion of food generally cost between 6 and 9 coupons ($3.00-4.50), and tiny desserts cost 3 to 4 coupons ($1.50-2.00). It was a great way to try a few different things without filling up on just one!




Mini pork belly burger (8 coupons/ $4)...


L-R: Ben, Nicole, Rosanne, Aydin, Connie, Myla, Angharad...


A drink with dry ice in it, and peanut butter and chocolate cake (4 coupons/ $2)...


Chocolate fudge and lemon meringue (3 coupons/ $1.50)...


Of course, there was also a big screen at the festival, with Game 5 keeping people riveted. We knew we'd know instantly when something happened, and sure enough... before we sat down to dinner, a massive cheer went up and the whole room burst into clapping and cheering (including those of us who hadn't been watching, too!). The Canucks had scored!! After dinner, the room again burst into applause and whoops of excitement as the game ended safely with the Canucks in the lead, 1-0. It was an electric moment!

After we left the festival, we caught a ride home with Myla. It was a least an hour since the game had ended, and the fans (many of whom would have continued partying downtown until the early hours) were just getting wound up. People were cheering as they walked down the street, strangers were high-fiving each other, drivers were honking their horns as they drove through intersections, and the vibe in general was euphoric. The Cup could be ours as soon as tomorrow (Monday) night. The excitement is contagious!!

The first clip in this montage shows the fan zone during the game, and the rest show the streets post-game...

Dragon boating

On four Friday nights in May and early June, Angharad and I completed an Intro to Dragon Boating course! It was a lot of fun - and hard work! We had purchased a Groupon for it a couple months earlier, and booked in for the first course of the season.

For those of you who haven't heard of dragon boating before, click here to read about it on Wikipedia. It's a team paddling sport with the paddlers seated in pairs along a traditional long boat. The boats we were in held 20-24 paddlers, but some dragon boats can hold up to 100 paddlers! Dragon boating is a racing sport, but the beauty and aim of it is for all the paddlers to be paddling in perfect unison. To facilitate this, there is usually a drummer in the front of the boat, setting the pace... but for our course, this was generally achieved by the instructors screaming "One! Two! Three! Four!" at us!

The first session, May 6th, saw about 100 Groupon paddlers turn up at the Creekside Community Recreation Centre, which meant we were divided between five boats. It was a cold and rainy evening... and as beginner paddlers do quite a bit of splashing, we were pretty chilled by the end of it! However, we learnt a lot, gave numerous muscles a workout, and enjoyed the beautiful setting: False Creek, between the Cambie St Bridge and Science World, with a backdrop of Vancouver's skyline and our beautiful snowcapped mountains to the north.

The second session, May 13th, was a lovely sunny day. After this session, my shoulder and back muscles were sore, which was a good sign that my technique was improving: you are meant to paddle by tilting and/or twisting your torso, rather than just by pulling with your arm muscles. This week two teams of paddlers were separated from the rest of us and given much more intensive training, as they had elected to participate in the upcoming Rio Tinto Alcan Dragonboat Festival (North America's biggest and best dragon boat festival, held in Vancouver - this weekend, in fact!).

The third session, May 27th (the previous Friday was skipped due to it being a long weekend), Angharad wasn't able to come, so Ben stepped in at the last minute. One instructor had previously told us about a seal that is often seen in the area - and this day we saw him/her, floating belly-up near our boat for half a minute! Here are a few photos taken on my phone afterwards... another overcast day.

The fourth and final session, June 3rd, was a beautiful clear day, and Ben came along to take photos of us from the water's edge. By this week, only three boats' worth of paddlers showed up, compared to the original five! There also happened to be a mini expo for Bike to Work Week going on beside the Rec Centre, so Ben got a few photos of that too... as well as picking up a few free samples from Lush for me!

Dragon boaters warming up...

Getting into the boats...

And we're off!

Police chase!


Some of the others sharing the water with us...

Racing the other boats (our boat won - even though our opponents were the two festival teams!)...

Afterwards, Angharad, Ben and I walked to Mario's Gelati to celebrate the end of our course with some gelato. Learning to dragon boat was fun... but I am looking forward to having a few less-energetic Friday nights now!

Whitecaps game

On Saturday, May 28th, Ben and I had tickets to a Whitecaps game, courtesy of Ben's boss! The Whitecaps are Vancouver's professional soccer team. This was the third professional sporting match we've been given tickets to by Ben's work - football and hockey in 2009, and now soccer!

The game started at 2:30pm at Empire Field in Vancouver's PNE grounds. The Whitecaps were playing the New York Red Bulls, and it was quite an exciting match! They ended up tying 1-1 though. (We read two days later that the Whitecaps fired their coach right after this game, as it hasn't been a good season for them.)

However, it was a great atmosphere and the fans were very enthusiastic. Most were dressed in the Whitecaps' colours of blue and white, held their scarves aloft when the Whitecaps did something good on the field, shouted slogans back and forth with the fans in the opposite stands, and rattled the aluminium stands with simultaneous foot-stomping in response to a drum-beating mascot! There were 21 000 people there, so it was a lot of fun to experience!

New York players...


Vancouver players...


Mascot...


The crowd (spot the ball!)...


New York's goalie...



A bit of rule-breaking...


A big dive...


Something about to happen...


Vancouver's goalie...


And the fans!

Stanley Cup fever

As a Vancouver-based blogger, it would be extremely remiss of me not to post something about the fact that, starting today, the Vancouver Canucks (the city's beloved NHL ice hockey team) will be playing against the Boston Bruins in the Stanley Cup Finals (a best-of-seven format)!

From Wikipedia: "The Stanley Cup is awarded annually to the National Hockey League (NHL) playoffs champion after the conclusion of the Stanley Cup Finals. It has been referred to as The Cup, Lord Stanley's Cup, The Holy Grail, or facetiously (chiefly by sportswriters) as Lord Stanley's Mug. The Stanley Cup is surrounded by numerous legends and traditions, the oldest of which is the celebratory drinking of champagne out of the cup by the winning team. Unlike the trophies awarded by the other three major professional sports leagues of North America [the MLB, NBA, and NFL], a new Stanley Cup is not made each year; Cup winners keep it until a new champion is crowned. It is unusual among trophies, in that it has the names of all of the winning players, coaches, management, and club staff engraved on its chalice."

In their 40 years of being an NHL team, the Canucks have never won the Stanley Cup. They made it to the Finals in 1982 and 1994, but didn't win. In 1994, their loss to the New York Rangers resulted in out-of-control rioting in downtown Vancouver. Since the Cup's inception in 1893, it has in fact been won only once by a past Vancouver team... in 1915.

So, as you may be able to imagine, the excitement levels in this hockey-mad city are currently off the charts! The Stanley Cup is the NHL's most prestigious trophy; the Canucks have never won it; this is only the third time they've made it to the Finals in 40 years... and there are painful memories from 18 years ago that need to be laid to rest!! Not to mention that this is a Canada vs USA fight... and you may recall what it was like when the two countries duked it out for the Men's Hockey Gold Medal in the Winter Olympics last year!

Link to an article in The Globe and Mail: Canucks fever outstripping pre-Olympic excitement.

Following are a few articles from Monday's transit newspapers (snapped by the camera on my new phone):

Canucks couture (click here to see fingernail designs!)...


The Mayor of Vancouver vs the Mayor of Boston (link to article)...


And my personal favourite... the extremely smart marketing decision of the Canadian chain restaurant, Boston Pizza, to temporarily change their name to Vancouver Pizza until the Finals are over (link to article)!!


It's going to be a crazy few weeks here!