Stayed in hotel in Romulus, Thursday night. Not a great hotel, but it was a place to sleep. Fell out of bed at "Oh-Dark-Thirty," for flight to Houston at some ridiculous time of the morning. So, back in Texas for 90 minutes. I can faithfully report that a modern airport in Texas looks just like a modern airport anywhere else. Only thing of note, is that I noticed far fewer people of obviously-Hispanic ancestory than I expected. In some cases, Spanish was clearly the preferred language. Probably, I just don't know what "Hispanic" looks like.
Boarded another plane, flew to Vancouver. (Yes, we flew south to Houston in order to get to Vancouver.) Spent long time in "cattle-pen", weaving our way to the Customs agents. Not as long as I would have expected to spend in line at DTW. Noticed something like a dozen international flights landed within 10 minutes of ours. Had it been DTW, we'd still be standing in line.
All cars are small, here. All trucks are domestic, all cars are foreign (Japanese, with a smattering of BMWs).
Many people (like one-in-three) are clearly of Asian ancestory. Not surprising, as I understand that many people who left Hong Kong to avoid becoming part of the PRC moved to Vancouver.
There are sushi places everywhere.
Nicole noticed that, for a port city, there are amazingly few gulls flying around.
Spider Robinson's characters frequently praised Ricard's Red. I finally found it at The Keg. It's not bad at all. It's a "two of these is not too many" beer. Good character, enough flavor to notice it, but it doesn't overwhelm a meal or nuke your ability to taste anything else.
Houses, like in London, are set behind privacy hedges and fences. For some reason, they remind me of Hawai'i, but I can't grasp why.
Arrived in early afternoon. Went to Vancouver Art Gallery. Saw the exhibition on cartoons. Some interesting stuff (e.g. Krazy Kat, Shaun Tan's The Arrival), but mostly not. Exhibit moved from early American newspaper cartoons to more-recent American stuff that isn't published in newspapers, to manga, and finally to anime. Surprised by the complete absence of Neil Gaiman's Sandman, or anything by Alan Moore. But then, the examples of manga and anime weren't anything I'd heard of, so they must be off-the-beaten track. I'm guessing licensing issues prevented use of any of that stuff. Clearly, they saved that money for the animation portion of the show, where we saw stuff from Pixar (Toy Story), Nick Park (The Wrong Trousers), and Dreamworks Animation (Over the Hedge).
Out the hotel window, 14th floor, 6:30 AM:
Boarded another plane, flew to Vancouver. (Yes, we flew south to Houston in order to get to Vancouver.) Spent long time in "cattle-pen", weaving our way to the Customs agents. Not as long as I would have expected to spend in line at DTW. Noticed something like a dozen international flights landed within 10 minutes of ours. Had it been DTW, we'd still be standing in line.
All cars are small, here. All trucks are domestic, all cars are foreign (Japanese, with a smattering of BMWs).
Many people (like one-in-three) are clearly of Asian ancestory. Not surprising, as I understand that many people who left Hong Kong to avoid becoming part of the PRC moved to Vancouver.
There are sushi places everywhere.
Nicole noticed that, for a port city, there are amazingly few gulls flying around.
Spider Robinson's characters frequently praised Ricard's Red. I finally found it at The Keg. It's not bad at all. It's a "two of these is not too many" beer. Good character, enough flavor to notice it, but it doesn't overwhelm a meal or nuke your ability to taste anything else.
Houses, like in London, are set behind privacy hedges and fences. For some reason, they remind me of Hawai'i, but I can't grasp why.
Arrived in early afternoon. Went to Vancouver Art Gallery. Saw the exhibition on cartoons. Some interesting stuff (e.g. Krazy Kat, Shaun Tan's The Arrival), but mostly not. Exhibit moved from early American newspaper cartoons to more-recent American stuff that isn't published in newspapers, to manga, and finally to anime. Surprised by the complete absence of Neil Gaiman's Sandman, or anything by Alan Moore. But then, the examples of manga and anime weren't anything I'd heard of, so they must be off-the-beaten track. I'm guessing licensing issues prevented use of any of that stuff. Clearly, they saved that money for the animation portion of the show, where we saw stuff from Pixar (Toy Story), Nick Park (The Wrong Trousers), and Dreamworks Animation (Over the Hedge).
Out the hotel window, 14th floor, 6:30 AM:
