Two Thumbs Up for one Indian Arm

About a year ago on this blog I wrote about the North Vancouver community and its proximity to Indian Arm, an amazing coastal mountain fjord of jaw-dropping awesomeness, accessible only by water.

I can't believe it's taken until this summer for me to get another chance to go into Indian Arm, but it has finally happened again and I gotta share a bit.

Before I attempt to find enough adjectives to do justice in describing this incredible natural space, here are some pics to help illustrate why you must. visit. this. place.

I hope you're getting a sense of why I love this place so much.  Indian Arm is nothing but water and mountains and forest - calm, serene, peaceful… if this is what heaven is like, it just might be worth it after all to wake up early for church on Sunday mornings.
 
We went on an Indian Arm cruise to celebrate my Mom's birthday … had a BIG party with family and friends and it couldn't have been a better place for everyone to get together and catch up.

There's a cruise operator in Vancouver known as Harbour Cruises, and that's how we found our way to Indian Arm.  I suppose one could also kayak or canoe into the area, but that's not conducive to eating lunch, drinking beer and sightseeing while someone else does the driving.

The cruise is actually a luncheon cruise because it departs at 11am and returns at 3pm.  It's about $70 per person and that includes guided interpretation and quite a good lunch.  You have to let them know ahead of time if you'd like a vegetarian, salmon or chicken entrée, but everything else for lunch you can choose when you're actually on board the cruise.

I have to say, with such amazing natural surroundings, I was totally expecting to find a flaw or two in the on board experience to counter balance the amazing setting we cruised through.  But you know what? Pretty much everything was totally cool - all of the food and beverage service, and each of the people doing the serving was friendly, efficient, just right.

There was, however, one element I wasn't thrilled with and that was the onboard professional photography program.  Basically a photographer "cruises" around the decks of the vessel and encourages groups to strike a pose for the camera and at the end of the cruise you can view a copy of the photos to decide if you'd like to buy one or not.

I realize this little venture is a strong revenue generator, but the truth is I found it annoying and almost unnecessary.  Why annoying?  Because the photographer had the bad luck of trying to get our attention for a photo whenever someone in our group was in the middle of saying something that everyone else wanted to hear.  So that just kinda made it a bit intrusive.  Why almost unnecessary?  Because who doesn't have a digital point & shoot or a camera phone to capture their own stills or vids these days?  The pro photographer had better be talented enough to capture some very unique moments otherwise I think the days of the onboard photographer are numbered.

There is very interesting live commentary provided by the bartender throughout the cruise.  I guess he was multi-tasking … a gin and tonic here, an exposition on natural history there.  A vodka and seven here, a remark about a former whore house there.  As I say, very interesting facts delivered live throughout the cruise to inform you of a bit of the history of the surroundings you are cruising through.  For example, there's a power station located on the shore of Indian Arm where Bela Lugosi once worked before fleeing to the bright lights of Hollywood.

Overall, the Indian Arm cruise experience was great.  Everyone in our group had a fantastic time, enjoyed all the food (dessert was deee-lish!), and was utterly amazed by the experience of cruising through one of the most beautiful natural spaces in British Columbia.

Here's a vid of Indian Arm - it's a wee bit of a "sell job", but I wanted to put it here just so you can see some of the amazing imagery of Indian Arm (and despite my statement above, I didn't actually have my own video to put here instead ;-).

You gotta do this cruise when you're in Vancouver - it's on my Must-Do List for Vancouver.

I Want Your Text

Big news in Canada today for cell phone users.  Two of the country's major carriers are about to implement a new charge for receiving a text message.  Currently, the charge is 15 cents for each text message you send.  But soon you'll also get dinged the same amount for receiving a text message.  Based on the astronomical rise in the popularity of text messaging over the past 5 years, this will become a 1 billion dollar ... yes, a 1 BILLION dollar pie for phone companies to get a bite of. 

As a result of this story, The Province, one of Vancouver's daily newspapers, had a bit of an eye-catching headline today.  For some reason it struck as kinda hilarious so thought I'd just post it for anyone not in Vancouver right now.  You can see what Vancouverites are seeing today in our newspaper boxes as we walk the streets on a sunny and very warm summer day.

GM @ GM

That would be: GM (as in, George Michael) @ (as in, at) GM (as in, GM Place).

It appears as though I'm right on track to relive the 80's as much as possible in the course of one short week.  That fact is thanks to me and the gang checking out a couple of live concerts by superstars from that big hair era.  Make that, Big Hair-a. 

Not only did I manage to catch Cyndi Lauper and the B-52's last week, I also saw George Michael at GM Place last Friday night. We took advantage of an Actual. Ticketmaster. Sale. which had tickets for George Michael available for 25 bucks! When was the last time you got to see a major recording artist performing live for less money that it takes to fill up your gas tank? Of course, thanks to Ticketmaster's "convenience" fee, the final price was $40.

By the way, Ticketmaster, I've yet to hear a plausible definition of just what exactly is a "convenience" fee. Is it for the convenience of allowing about 2 minutes on your website to decide if the seats which your software finds for me are appropriate for my requirements, not to mention worth an exorbitant sum before your site hits timeout and I'm forced to perform a ticket search all over again?  Or is it for reducing the number of physical ticket outlets so that ticket buyers are forced into virtual hell? Or is it for…

Anyway, I imagine '25' was the magic number for the ticket price because the tour is titled "25 Live" to celebrate GM's 25 years in the recording biz. I've actually seen (and met) George Michael before, but that was a long time ago and I gotta be honest… I definitely didn't expect he'd have the kind of pull he used to have, but sure enough GM Place was packed to the rafters (which, conveniently, is precisely where our tickets placed us).

Thanks to the beer (which is $7.50 a serving), I kinda lost track of exactly how long the show was but it felt like it was way over 2 hours (plus a 20 minute intermission). The show was high energy and a lot of fun actually.

What was really impressive was the fact that the crowd was so into the show. Let's face it, Vancouver audiences can be pretty reserved (read: lame) in their response to live performances although lately I've seen some rather lively audiences at the Adele and Mika shows. For George Michael, everyone at GM Place was on their feet from the floor seats - all the way up to the nosebleeds.

The set list was just hit after hit after stinking pop hit. When you hear all his songs in a row like we did at the concert, you can realize just how prolific his career has been thus far. He played ancient Wham! tunes like Careless Whisper, A Different Corner, Everything She Wants and I'm Your Man. He also played pretty much everything off of the Faith album except I noted I Want Your Sex was nowhere to be heard. There was also lots of 90's tunes like Too Funky, Fastlove and Praying for Time (that's the one he did on American Idol this past season).

I think one of GM's best tunes is Freedom. After two encores, that song was the final song of the night. It was a definite crowd pleaser. Here's a video of it which is shot pretty much from the same vantage point we had for the show. At the end of the clip, you'll see production credits - those were actually displayed live on stage as the show came to a close. Never seen that before. Anyway, here's the clip - enjoy...

Btw, GM Place is also home to the Vancouver Canucks who we hope will be able to pull out all the stops this coming hockey season. If you need tickets for hockey games or concerts in Vancouver, check out Tickets Tonight at 200 Burrard Street, right beside the Canada Place cruise ship terminal and convention centre.

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She Still Bops

Kinda feels like summer has arrived for good in Vancouver.  Not only is there a good amount of sun lately, but the live music scene has picked up in a way that happens only at this time of year ... with outdoor shows and festivals.

You might already know that at the end of July, the first Pemberton Festival kicks off with some pretty cool acts like NIN, Coldplay, Interpol, Jay Z, Vampire Weekend, Metric, Chromeo and LOTS more (it's a 3-day blitz). 

It's all going down just a couple hours north of the city - and if you've never seen the Pemberton Valley, this would be the *perfect* time to check it out because it's pretty amazing up there -  big mountains, big sky, big fun.

Another summer outdoor festival is the True Colours tour.  It hit Vancouver last Wednesday at Deer Lake Park in Burnaby (an eastern suburb of Vancouver for anyone just getting to know this area).  The True Colors tour is one of the newest music projects spearheaded by Cyndi Lauper and is named after her hit song from way back in 1986.  The annual tour was inaugurated last summer in the U.S. and this year Vancouver was included on the itinerary.

The show features a considerably varied line up of talent representing a fairly diverse selection of artists.  The line up in Vancouver included Nona Hendryx, Joan Armatrading, Rosie O'Donnell, Carson Kressley, Margaret Cho, The B-52's, Sarah McLachlan and, of course, Cyndi Lauper was the headliner.

The whole purpose of the tour is to raise awareness of human rights, specifically for the gay community.  A portion of the ticket sales goes to non-profit partners and additional fundraising is enabled through merchandise sales and online auctions.

About the actual venue… somehow I've never been to Deer Lake Park before, but am I ever glad I went!  It's a great outdoor venue for a concert because the parkland you have to sit on to see the show (for some insane reason, chairs are not permitted) is on a gentle slope toward the lake itself.  The stage was setup at the bottom of the slope so the sightlines are all good because nobody's big, fat head gets in your way.

Deer Lake Park is also basically adjacent to the Burnaby Village Museum and the Burnaby Art Gallery so there's definitely more than one reason to go check it out.

Although I had a really brutal case of sinusitis that day, I wasn't about to give up a ticket that cost me $70.  Turns out sitting on a blanket outside watching a concert was the same as sitting in the park across the street from my house with my iPod for company.  I got through it alright except for going through an entire box of Kleenex during the show.

Here's a clip of Vancouver's Sarah McLachlan and Cyndi Lauper performing Time After Time: