Seattle, Washington,, Portland, Oregon USA and Vancouver, BC 2012

My Trip to the Pacific Northwest Part 1

I made my first trip to the Pacific Northwest in early August 2012 to complete being in the four corners of the United States. I've already been to the southwestern corner in San Diego, southeastern corner in Miami, and Northeastern corner in Maine a few years ago. 

The biggest surprise to me was the weather when I left Seatac Airport. It was 90 degrees the whole weekend over there. And this was a city that had a reputation for having mild summers in comparison to a cloudy/rainy weather in the majority of the year.

Me outside of the Seatac Airport

A big shock for me getting out of the plane was seeing all of these White faces and very few Latinos. Coming from Los Angeles. Im used to seeing a diversity of people from all over the world. But in the Seattle area, it seemed like the vast majority of people were of Northern European descent, with a small minority of Asians, and Blacks. It took me a day to get used to seeing very few Latino faces

It took me an hour to find my hotel near the Airport, which wasn't across the street from the Airport, but a few miles away. Walking to my hotel. I got to enjoy the scenery which is very different from the more arid Los Angeles metropolitan area, as you can see on my first picture. The area was a suburban area that had the right mix of urbanity and nature that I wished Southern California had more of. 

I asked the Hotel worker what was going on in Seattle this weekend. And he told me about the annual Seafair Air  festival near Lake Washington. I also felt my first culture shock, when I accidentally cut in front of an older man. And he said absolutely nothing to me! I didn't even know he was waiting in line if I didn't ask him. But he allowed me to get in front of him for 3 mins, which was strange to me.

The next morning I went to Seafair in Seattle. I managed to get into the event for free because I'm a veteran(Yay, Veterans benefits:). The show was quite enjoyable, they had various carnival style games, a bar with cheap beer, and the main attraction was the Air Show near the Lake, as you can see in the picture.

Lake Washigton Seafair

Seafair crowd

After Seafair ended. I decided to check out the Seattle Sounders game downtown. Man, It was packed! The locals have a passion for soccer in the US that I don't really see in most of the country outside of the urban areas with large immigrant populations(like Southern California). The were singing chants like in English Soccer matches. The atmosphere at Century  Link Field was off the charts amazing! It was an enjoyable game as they played the Los Angeles Galaxy(My hometown team), unfortunately they lost:( 

Sounders Fan

I'll add more soon:)

Vancouver, British Colombia, Canada

Return to Vancouver January 2013

One of the cleanest cities I've ever been to, Eh?

I went to Vancouver for the first time in August in 2012, but it was only for a few hours and I didn't get to see all of the sights of the city, and it was sunny and beautiful for the couple of hours I was in the city. It was part of my trip last year visiting Seattle, Washington.

This time I wanted to see how Vancouver "really" felt like. Coming from sunny and warm Southern California, where it's pretty much the sunny and warm all year. Vancouver B.C's climate was a bit of shock to the system from what I'm used to in Sunny So Cal.

I was super unprepared for the wet and rainy weather for the couple of days I was in Vancouver. I wore my Vans to Vancouver, and noticed how soaked they got, and how uncomfortable my we felt being wet from the pouring rain of Vancouver.

 I couldn't take the suffering of my feet being wet anymore, so I  bought a nice pair of shoes from a shopping mall in downtown Vancouver. And from what I've noticed of Canadian shopping malls compared to the one's in the United States. There's a lot less clothing options than what you can get in the U.S, with another thing being that Canadian products have a higher tax on them than American products due to taxes being used to fund Canadian Health Care and what other projects they got going on.

Now here are some major differences between Canada and the United States.

Canada is alot more similar than different to the US. But here are some notable differences.

Tim Hortons

Some of the best coffee I've tasted in my life came from Tim Hortons. We are missing out on Tim Hortons south of the border. The coffee is excellent, and the Donut dough was soft and moist. The donut chains in So Cal is lacking in quality compared to Tim Hortons. And especially in the cool and wet weather in Vancouver, a warm Tim Horton's coffee sure helped.

Words Spelled Differently

Canada still uses British spellings of words like Colour, Centre, Neighbourhood, Cheque that is not used in the US. It took me a while to get used to the different spellings of the words used in Canadian English

Ketchup Chips

Ask an American about Ketchup Chips, and they will look dumbfounded to not believe they exist. Ketchup "flavoured" Chips are unique to Canada, and quite tasty. Another thing that is noticable is that French are on all the packets in Canadian products, compared to where I live in Southern California.

Less "Urban" Culture

Even in Seattle, which is similar to Vancouver in many ways. There is a Urban culture influenced by minorities. This type of culture was basically non existant in Vancouver. The attitude and customs felt more like a European/Asian hybrid, with the locals having a  more reserved and generally nicer attitude than what I'm used to in Los Angeles. Vancouver also had a more cosmopolitan vibe in comparison to most American cities and urban areas it's size. And felt alot more cleaner and safer in the inner city areas compared to any major American city.

Overall

I enjoyed my time in Vancouver, British Columbia. It's probally one of the cleanest and safest cities I've been to in my lifetime. The only downfall was the wet and rainy weather:)