vancouver impressions

so much to say. seems like a lot has happened in the 3/4 days i've been here, and everything is already blurring a bit owing to jetlag and maybe also the pub crawl last night ;)

anyhow, here are my first impressions of vancouver:

• its cool!
• its cool, but not that cold: i.e. around 0-5 deg c, not too much colder than london. its the warmest part of canada. other places like in the east (toronto) or up the mountains (say banff which i might visit soon) are frickin freezing though.
• its surrounded by mountains, and consequently very built up. lots of modern style high-rise buildings. it looks quite futuristic and consequently has been used for a fair few sci-fi movies. more about "hollywood north" later...
• there are lot of homeless. dont know exactly why, but i was both quite surprised and kind of disturbed (which is strange as they are also commonplace in uk/europe). i think i found it strange as they just have a different manner to those in the uk - they tend to hang out in large groups (there is one area in particular where there are very many homeless, ironically right next door to the vancouver police station), and they dont tend to beg as much as in the uk. vancouver is a very safe city despite the large numbers of homeless and drug addicts however.
• the chinese population is a staggering 36% now. there is a very large chinatown.
• drivers are incredibly polite. they stop for pedestrians who even look like maybe just considering to cross the road.
• the streets are wide, its very clean, and not very crowded at all.
• food and accomodation are considerable cheaper than london.

ok, really need to get off the free internet terminal now. intend to write an entry on the excellent organised tour i did yesterday later on...