LiveCity

On Wednesday I went out to Vancouver in the morning to spend a day in Vancouver enjoying the Olympics.

My first stop was LiveCity Downtown. The wait to get in was about 15 minutes. One of the places inside was CentrePlace Manitoba.

Inside there were many videos about Manitoba and some touch screens with info about it. Apparently Winnipeg has the most restaurants per capita and the province has over 100 different festivals a year.

This is their model of the Museum of Human Rights building,

to be complete in Winnipeg in 2012.

The other pavilion in LiveCity Downtown was the Canada Pavillion. There was a half hour wait to get in but this being LiveCity, there were many TV screens to watch with live coverage of the Olympics. While waiting in line I watched the first period of US vs Switzerland hockey.

Inside they had some simulation games, like snowboarding and this hockey penalty shot game. There was no actual puck, you just had to shoot as if it was on the spot on the floor.

The real cool thing about that day at the Canada Pavilion was the Stanley Cup! I waited in another line and got to touch it and have my photo taken. It was awesome! Also, again...kudos to LiveCity for having TVs everywhere to watch the Olympics while waiting. I don't know why every place doesn't do this.

After checking that out I walked across to LiveCity Yaletown where the line-up was surprisingly non-existent. Last time I was there it wrapped around the block. The place is a lot bigger than the downtown site with most of them pavilions belonging to Olympics' sponsors. The first thing I checked out was the Panisonic pavilion with the 3D theater. It was about a 20 minute wait to get a ticket for the theater and then we had to show up 10 minutes before the show.

The show was short but the 3D was quite good. It showed scenes from the last Olympics and then some highlights of this year's opening ceremonies followed by some highlights from this year's sports. I think it's awesome they have been constantly updating the video they show with updates from the days before. In particular there were scenes from the Canada vs Norway hockey game and the 3D, zoom and angle made you feel like you were right on the ice with the players. I've never watched hockey like that before.

Next I went over to West House, a sustainable laneway house worked on by SIAT, Smallworks and some other companies. It's going to be moved to another part of Vancouver after the Olympics and lived in for 6 months by someone to see how it works out.

Unfortunately Rob was not there to show me around, but I know he worked on this wall panel that lights up based on energy usage. There was no demo of it though. The house was a good size for one person to be really sustainable, but you couldn't really entertain many people in it. You'd also have to not keep much stuff, because I don't know where you'd put it, but people own too much stuff these days anyway.

Next I walked through the Vancouver Green Capital building. They had some displays of products made from recycled material and some videos from CEO's and experts who live in the area and are making green choices.

They also had these paper things hanging from the ceiling that lit up.

My next stop was the Samsung building but I took this photo earlier. When I went into it there was no line. Inside they had some cellphone games that had been blown up and put on touch screens. They also had a cross country skiing simulator and a snowboard decorating touch screen application.

You had to do all three games to get stickers of the mascots which then got you a scratch ticket. In cross country skiing I covered much more distance than the little girl I was up against, but on the scratch ticket I didn't win anything.

They also had some entertainment there where they tried to work cellphones into the theme. In this performance by Cirque des Communications they performed acrobatic stunts and balancing acts sometimes while chatting on their phones or taking photos with them.

...and there was a girl inside the moon.

...and a guy who could balance on chairs really well.

The next thing on their little stage were a couple guys who were doing improv and would work any lines into their skit that the audience texted them. They ended up saying things like "I'm pregnant", "Lets learn to belly dance" and "That girl in the red is so hot".

Samsung made my phone and its a piece of crap so the pavillion was better that I expected and there was no line up, just short line ups at the games. Across the way was the Acer pavillion which I popped into very briefly. All they had in there was a crap load of computers for people to play games on or surf the net. It was pretty busy.

The one pavilion in LiveCity Yaletown that I didn't visit was the Coca Cola one since there was a decent sized line up and I wanted to go catch the Canada vs Russia hockey game. Apparently LiveCity Yaletown is not, in fact, live. They play highlights every once and a while and at this point there was a band playing instead.

I watched the hockey game with these guys! Not sure whats up with Greg. He looks half dead. I also missed getting the youngest Brown brother, James, with my shot.

I had said I didn't want to watch it at Robson square again, but when it was about to start it wasn't raining. I put on one of the free ponchos anyway just in case, and because everyone else was wearing one! It was a good thing because it started pouring soon. Then the only problem became trying not to sit in a puddle. I find it hilarious how the ponchos say "You Gotta Be Here" as part of that campaign. You gotta be here...for the rain?...and prepared for it?

The view from the afro!

The game was awesome...but much less close than anyone thought it would be. Canada dominated right from the start. Russia was the leader coming into the Olympics, but Canada easily eliminated them. Now we face Slovakia (who also beat Russia) who beat Sweden in another unexpected game result. Tomorrow's game should be great.