February 2024

It's the wet month

Chinatown Parade

Claira wanted to go to the Chinatown parade this year. It was raining and Claira had a morning programming class so we got dropped off shortly before the parade started. We managed to walk to near where the parade begins (which is good for red packets) but as soon as the parade starts, the crowd surged forward two lanes and we got left on the curb. we did work our way up to catch the show, but this location isn't great.

This year is year of the dragon so there seemed to be more dragons than usual in the parade.

You feel bad for the performers because the rain didn't let up.

We had some nice weather and both kids are in Basketball so we decided to go down to Granville island and explore the courts next to the community center. Surprisingly the court was empty so the kids shot for a while.

VanDusen Gardens

Helen kindly gave me a VanDusen family seasons pass for Christmas. Again, a mostly nice day so decided to take a walk in the morning and catch up one what has changed.

As an example of before - this large plaza was once a Korean Pavilion:

But it had structural problems and is now gone. Similarly, this tree:

Is sadly now just a stump. That said, I'm sure there are new things I didn't really notice on this first trip back.

On the ride home, I decided to stop in to see a bloom of crocus growing in the median of a road in Shaughnessy. These crocus come up every year and I just happened to have my camera hand to take photos.