It’s been grey, bleary and cold this past week in Vancouver, so when the sun peeked out for a brief moment today, we took our newly fixed up bikes out for a spin on the Stanley Park Seawall. With over 8.8 km (5.5 miles) of oceanfront trails, it was the perfect place to take them for a mid-afternoon ride.

It was Ryan’s first time riding his bike since getting it back from the shop so it took him a few minutes to get used to the way it handled. The Seawall is a great place to ride these bikes because it’s fairly flat and with the one-speed, any terrain with even a slight incline can be challenging.

I love walking/running the Seawall in the summer.

We are pretty happy with the way the bikes have turned out. There isn’t really much else I want to put on mine except some kind of basket at the back. I’ve been thinking about a twin rear hanging basket (kind of looks like metal saddle bags) to hold things while I’m riding – like groceries, etc.

Ryan had to transfer his Brooks bag from the back to the front of his bike because his tires are too big and the top of the back tire was rubbing against the bottom of the bag. The only way to keep it at the back would be to fasten it tightly to the seat with some zap straps, although I think keeping it at the front still looks great.

I can’t wait for the weather to become warmer so we can start riding our bikes on a weekly basis!

Apologies for taking so long to post, but we’ve been busy experiencing all that the city is offering right now for the Olympics. Today is the last day and after a great Canada vs. USA gold medal hockey game (I almost passed out from excitement a few times) and braving the streets of downtown to give hugs and high fives to random strangers, it’s time to finally take a breath.

Here are some shots of Robson street after we won the hockey game.

Wall to wall people – I’ve never seen anything like it.

The police presence was extremely heavy, with multiple cops on every street corner.

Here are some additional favourite photos of mine from the past week or so. All of the photos in this post were taken on my iPhone and tweaked in Photoshop mobile.

World map where people can pin their home country. In a few days, the entire map was so covered with flags you could barely see the countries.

The Yahoo! Sports Centre was the coolest place ever. They basically took over the MiniCooper dealership and turned it into a fan zone for people to take photos, watch Olympic coverage and get connected with basically anything Olympic related – loved it!

This is a bird’s eye view of the intersection of Robson and Granville from earlier this week. The Paralympics will be here in a few weeks and I’m super excited for that as well.

A few weekends ago, we took a tour of the Fraser River on an old paddle boat departing from the Quay in New Westminster. It was a foggy, drizzly day and there was only two other people on the boat aside from us – a father/son birthday event.

I didn’t really know what to expect when we pulled away from the dock, but I knew that the next 1.5 hours would be pretty cool and the overcast/foggy day helped with setting the mood.

We decided to go on this boat tour because Ryan wanted to do some filming for the Jim Rimmer documentary he’s working on (Jim spent the majority of his life in New Westminster).

If you’re ever in the mood for a fun weekend activity – definitely check out this river tour. The guy who hosts and does the commentary is hilarious and full of knowledge about the area. Great way to see parts of the city that you would never otherwise be able to see.

Paddlewheeler Riverboat Cruises
Phone: 604.525.4465
http://www.vancouverpaddlewheeler.com/index.html

The city has been turned on its head and shaken vigorously. It’s the first day of the Olympics and you can definitely sense the buzz in the air. The opening ceremonies are tonight and everywhere you look, people are dressed in red and white, with the odd sprinkling of other country colors. I feel very fortunate to be living in the host city right now and experiencing the excitement as it’s happening.

It’s a bit surreal to turn on the TV and have shows you watch on a regular basis (ie: The Today Show) be broadcasting right from your backyard (Matt Lauer I love you!).

Yesterday, I also got to see part of the Olympic Torch Relay as it passed by my house. I don’t know who was running it, but it was very exciting cheering with the rest of the crowd.

Today is also Ryan’s birthday, so we’re going to try and get a table somewhere downtown and watch the madness. A lot of the streets have been blocked off and my normal commute to work has gone from 8 minutes to between 45 – 60 minutes.

I also spent a couple hours yesterday Twitter and Facebook stalking some Olympic athletes. It’s cool to get a behind-the-scenes perspective on what’s happening in their minds and what they do to mentally and physically prepare for one of the biggest days of their lives. They’re also doing a coin exchange courtesy of the Royal Canadian Mint and giving out loonies (our version of $1) with the Vancouver 2010 Olympic logo on it.

Go Canada!

There’s a local company called 21c Promotions that puts on antique fairs/flea markets and retro design events once a month at rotating locations. Last month’s event was an antique fair at the Croatian Cultural Centre on Commercial Drive.

With 175 different vendors offering everything from shabby chic to 50’s kitsch, collectibles and memorabilia to vintage kitchenalia, this popular European-style collectors market is a must-see. There are 185 tables jam-packed full of bargains on deluxe 20th Century junk, making this event an absolutely-do-not-miss treasure-hunting adventure.

If you need anything appraised, there is also an appraiser on hand – just like the Antiques Road Show!

The stuff you can get here is pretty overwhelming. I ended up getting a really nice gold leaf Pyrex casserole dish and a gigantic Victorian style magnifying class with a foot-long handle.

There are tons of tables and multiple rooms. This is just one of the tables and one of the large rooms packed wall to wall with sellers and buyers.

Upcoming event dates are as follows:

March 14: 21st Century Flea Market
April 17 & 18: Kerrisdale Antiques Fair
May 16: 21st Century Flea Market
June 13: Retro Design & Antiques Fair
July 18: 21st Century Flea Market
September 4 & 5: Kerrisdale Antiques Fair
September 19: 21st Century Flea Market
October 24: Retro Design & Antiques Fair
November 14: 21st Century Flea Market
December 5: Retro Design & Antiques Fair

Check out the website for times and locations: http://www.21cpromotions.com

Shop Cocoon opened its doors in November of 2005 and since then has generated quite a buzz in the Vancouver fashion community. If you ever find yourself wandering the storefronts along Cambie Street in Vancouver and are looking for a truly unique shopping experience, make sure to stop by Shop Cocoon.

The concept is simple: designers rent floorspace from store owner, Brenda Li, allowing local designers a venue to sell their goods and reach a wide audience of shoppers. Inside, you’ll find everything from jewelry and clothing to paper goods and even wedding gowns.

The store makes the most of its limited space by displaying goods creatively and offering a selection of well picked items that are sure to please a wide range of styles and fashion tastes. Shop Cocoon is also getting a lot of new foot traffic, now that the new Canada Line transit system is done for the upcoming Olympics. Most of the businesses in this area prior to completion were going through hard times due to decreased pedestrian flow. Now that traffic is back to normal, it will be exciting to see Shop Cocoon be discovered by new shoppers looking to score that unique one-of-a-kind piece.

Shop Cocoon
http://www.shopcocoon.com
3345 Cambie Street
Vancouver, BC V5Z 2W6
Tel: 778.232.8532

Monday 12-6,
Tuesday-Sunday 11-6

General Inquiries: info@shopcocoon.com
Media Inquiries: media@shopcocoon.com

Have you ever come across a moment in life where you’ve asked yourself, “What am I getting myself into?”  One of those moments for me was last fall when I hauled back home over 1000lbs of 78rpm records.

I was immediately hooked on the mystery of  flipping through records by artists I never knew when I came across 100 78rpm records on Craigslist earlier last year. I was curious to find a few more and began looking.

One afternoon Google Reader alerted me with a seller from Gibsons, BC, who was unloading a massive collection of over 2000+ 78rpm records. I was terrified and curious to see his collection.

Of course, at this point I asked myself a few questions:

a) What does 2000 78rpm record physically look like?

b) Where am I going to put them

c) How the heck am I going to transport them back home

Instead of answering these questions, I hopped on the first ferry to Gibsons.

The records were located on a surreal beach front property on the edge of Gibsons.  The view from the property was spectacular.

The records belonged to the seller’s father who passed away. He was an absolute pack rat and acquired his collection by trading with other music aficionados. All the records were stored away in milk crates and covered in dust.

It took 40 minutes to load all of them into my truck. With every box of records I put in my truck, I wondered at how they would fit in my garage.  The entire collection lowered my truck by at least an inch.

So what sort of records did we haul away? The ones that peaked my interest were the multilingual records in French, Russian and Chinese. Most of these appeared to date back to the 1940’s with some as far back as the early 1900’s. I’m excited to listen to these recordings, some of which are nearly a century old. We’ll be sharing them with our readers on Tune Tuesdays.

Below are a few snaps of Gibsons and a windy boardwalk we checked out during our visit.

A few weeks ago I mentioned a bike in my post about vintage theater seats. Well, here is that bike. After tracing the serial number, I discovered that it is a 1941 CCM Rambler and is similar to the one currently on display in the Canadian Science & Technology Museum in Ottawa. It needs some work, but I’m looking forward to getting it rolling this summer.

The bike is in pretty good shape for being nearly 70+ years old. I was contemplating powder-coating the bike black, but after much thought I’ve decided to stick with the original paint scheme. It has too much character and charm to paint over it.

I love the CCM gear hub.

Another reason why I’ve decided not to paint it is because of the original hand pinstriping and 1945 Vancouver Bicycle registration sticker.

I’ll be blogging my progress with it over the next few months so keep checking back for updates. The first thing this bike is going to get is a new seat and set of tires.

Last  Sunday I was asked to be interviewed by CBC Radio’s North By Northwest show hosted by Sheryl McKay to talk about Jim Rimmer. Needless to say, I was extremely honored and was happy to stop by.

Sheryl interviews Denise Carson Wilde, owner of Paper-Ya and myself. You can listen to our shared stories of Jim from the mp3 podcast here. It runs 52:28 with Jim’s segment running around the 13 minute mark.

I remember my first encounter with stuffed animals when I was a kid – it was in grade 3, when the windowsill of my classroom all of a sudden held a stuffed alligator shortly after Spring break. I remember going up to it and running my finger up and down its back and being fascinated with how realistic it looked.

When I heard that the Museum of Vancouver’s newest exhibit was Ravishing Beasts, an eclectic collection of about 110 species, I had to check it out.

Displaying the Museum of Vancouver’s extensive collection of taxidermy for the first time in decades, Ravishing Beasts investigates the provocative and strangely alluring world of taxidermy.

Whether a hoarding of exotic curiosities, a scientific archive, a hunting trophy, or a stuffed pet, taxidermy always exposes longings to capture animals and tell stories about their significance within human lives.

The exhibition confronts viewers with the visual power of taxidermy. It invites us to examine taxidermy’s cultural aesthetic, scientific history, and revival in art and design, and to question the legacy, current value, and future relevance of the practice.

There was a disclaimer at the front of the exhibit warning that some of the pieces might offend – like this strange creation called a jackalope.

Seeing a lot of these animals up close – it gives great perspective to how large (or small) some of these creatures are. You get to see sides of them that you can’t see on a tv screen or through the bars of a zoo enclosure – it’s amazing really.

I liked all of the exhibits but the tiger rug complete with tiger head was a bit unnerving – seems a bit cruel when displayed that way. The butterflies on the other hand, were gorgeous.

I want a curio cabinet like this! If I had an apartment/house with a large entryway I would put it right at the front and display all the treasures from my travels.

There were also all sorts of creatures in glass jars with various liquids in them – I’m guessing formaldehyde? It was hard to tell what most of them were.

This is like a scene from a horror film.

This big guy was at the end of the exhibit and was he ever huge – I never realized how massive they were until I was standing right next to one.

If you get the chance, definitely check this exhibit out. It’s running until the end of February. From the MOV website: *No animals were harmed for this exhibition. Most of the taxidermy that will be on exhibit is from the Museum’s own collection and was acquired primarily between 1894 and 1950 from Vancouver residents.

Museum of Vancouver
http://www.museumofvancouver.ca
1100 Chestnut Street (Vanier Park)

Tues – Sun: 10 am – 5 pm
Thurs: 10 am – 8 pm
Mon: Closed
(604) 736-4431