yaletown

Last night was the illuminate yaletown show happening on mainland and hamilton. It was kinda cool. Lots of people out, some neat light shows, some lame ones, some ice sculptures. Mostly just nice to walk around. I took a few photos at the event, the better ones are up on flickr here.

Been living in yaletown for 3/4 of a year now. One thing I've noticed is that it's almost like a weird little utopia.

The majority of people living here are between the ages of 25-35, with about another 10% or so who are older than 20 but younger than 40. No one lives here outside of that range. No one has kids. Everyone has their little dog that nicely complements their purse or jacket. At Halloween you forget that kids go tricker treating. Because there are no kids. Most people who live here are financially well off, and everyone is in good health. The power never goes out. Storms are weakened to the point that you don't notice them, they're blocked by the buildings in the West End (I had no idea there was even a wind storm a few weeks back until everyone started setting their Facebook status to things like "Jane is happy her power is back after 8 hours without". Amazingly enough, it did snow here last weekend. Downtown rarely gets snow. The temperature is somewhat milder than outside of the downtown core. It doesn't even rain as hard, or as much. There are two types of restaurants here, the standard pub style, with overpriced, usually low-ish quality food, and medium-high end, with overpriced food that is generally ok. Most people walk to work, and few have cars. The buildings are less than 7 years old. Most look the same. Primarily one bedrooms between 400-700 sqft, in suite laundry and a dishwasher. Honestly, the whole neighborhood just feels a bit too homogenized. But I'm still having fun, so I'm happy :).

I'd go on about the other areas of downtown that I love... but my sleep schedule is too messed up, so I'm going to bed.