Olympics Opening Night

On Friday I was in Vancouver for some work at the Children's hospital so I thought I'd check out downtown to see what I could see on the first day for many of the exhibits. I didn't want to wait in any lines so what I saw was limited.

Casa Italia is where I went first. There wasn't much there. They are selling clothing and have TVs going with images of Italy and Italian athletes. If you come at the right time they may be giving out cheese samples.

Next I wandered over to LiveCity Yaletown but the lineup wrapped way around the block and didn't seem to be moving, so I passed on that. I walked down towards BC place through throngs of people. LiveCity Downtown was closed as it didn't open until Saturday. The Four Nations plaza had just closed, so I walked up to Robson square.

There was a choir playing on a stage and down below beside the busy skating rink there was this group doing gymnastic/acrobatic tricks. They made a few mistakes but there's no way I could do many of the stunts they pulled off.

Up above the square people had fun on the zip-line. One of these weekdays I'm going to go wait in the line for that. I'm hoping it's shorter in the morning on a weekday. The zipline is quite short but then when else are you going to be able to zip in the middle of a city.

After this I walked back over to LiveCity Yaletown but there was still a huge line. I'll have to check that one out another day too. So then I walked along the water towards Science World, now called Sochi World since the Russian's took it over for the Olympics.

At the Plaza of Nations there was a market setup with everyone selling their jewelry and souvenirs and lots and lots of food. I bought a snack and then a concert started up. I'm not sure what their name was, but I did hear it was 3 girls from West Vancouver. The songs were good but you had to stand in the rain to watch it. My feet were already quite wet by this point though.

Further along the way was the Quebec house. It looks like a huge cube from outside but it's not a building as there's no ceiling. There was a small restaurant inside and a band that I assume was from Quebec was playing. The people eating were watching but not really anyone else even though there was room. Probably because you got rained on.

Next to the Quebec house is the Saskatchewan pavilion which had this big globe thing that was being projected on. Apparently you could go inside it but I heard that there was another line after the one you wait in outside.

Across the way was the Hockey house where the elite are hanging out with hockey stars and actors.
I went back towards BC place and watched a little of the start of the opening ceremonies on the huge screen on the side of the Ontario pavilion. Then I got on the skytrain and went back to Surrey. Back at Surrey Central I went into the theaterette at school and watched the last hour or so of the ceremonies with some other students.

Then I went over to Holland park where there was barely any line to get into the Surrey celebration site. I had to go around the mall to get there since they wouldn't let me go across the rooftop parking. It turns out this is where they were shooting the fireworks up from a few minutes later.

The fireworks looked like they were falling on the tower.

After the fireworks I stuck around for half an hour and watched some of the Blue Rodeo concert. There was quite a crowd there despite standing in the rain. There was also another concert going on inside a tent with a lineup to get in. Finally I caught a bus home to dry off my feet.