July 1st was Canada’s 150th birthday, as any Canadian would have known.

My family (read: my mother) was very insistent on attending the Canada celebrations in downtown Vancouver, so the rest of us (my father & I) were forced to attend.

The previous year we had decided to change it up a bit from the usual, and attended the Canada Day celebrations in Steveston with their $15 freshly grilled salmon plates, and it was decently fun. The years previous to that were all spent in downtown Vancouver, so this year was very much a “back to normal” kind of deal. I honestly wasn’t expecting much, because all the previous Canada Days hadn’t been something I enjoyed too much. It was usually 2 or 3 stages playing music/shows, and then some booths around. I didn’t care much for the stages, since I knew I wouldn’t be staying to completely hear any song. And the booths were usually just sample food or information kiosks for whatever brand they are promoting.

I was mostly correct with the booths, except for seeing the Beyblade Burst booth. I was so surprised seeing Beyblade show up at a Canada celebration. Beyblades were a part of my childhood, with the anime, the toys, and all the hype it had during my elementary school years. Beyblades are built via parts, and the old ones were composed of a plastic top ring, a metal middle ring (larger than the top ring), a plastic base, and a character chip (cosmetic purposes only). They also used to be much flatter than the ones now. Apparently, there was a tournament being held here today, so there were a bunch of young children competing together. It was very nostalgic seeing children enjoying something I used to enjoy so much.

This probably sounds very negative, considering how the stages alone would usually be quite fun for most people (me included). I usually get a bit excited for the food trucks since there is always a variety of different foods around here, so I was banking on that to entertain me throughout most of the day.

Well, I was a little disappointed. The food trucks seemed to be the same ones as the last time I was here. Corn, a hot dog one, a lemonade truck, and what seemed to be a burger/fish & chips truck. Considering how many food trucks I see around downtown (and I don’t even spend a lot of time in downtown), I was expecting a lot more.

So we walk around Canada Place for a bit, look at the stages, food trucks, display rooms, and the ocean of people.

My mother was laser focused on finding the supposed mythical stall that was exchanging money for the new 150 year anniversary coins. It was supposedly here every previous year (we’ve never seen it), and it would only make sense for it to be here this year as well.

After not being able to find it, we ask the info desk (read: my mother asks the info desk) and learn that there is no stall that exchanges coins this year, even though they came the previous years.

With our hopes and dreams crushed, we leave Canada Place (I, at least, was happy to be going home).

Only to find myself participating in the city’s longest continuous line by the Royal Canadian Mint store on Granville. The (not actual) record breaking attempt started in front of the store, near London Drugs, went to the end of the block, turned the corner, then turned back up the alley way beside the Tesla store, and stopped somewhere just past the underground parking entrance. Of which of course cars still had to go through, so every once and a while the line in front of the entrance would disappear.

It was now quickly becoming clear that there was a 3 hour journey between us, and being able to exchange 2 150 anniversary toonies per person (and 3 “memorial tokens”, whatever they were). So while my father waited in line, my mother and I went to get some lunch. We ended up going to the many food trucks just across the street (why weren’t they at Canada Place?) to get some food.

Some hours later, disaster struck.

At around 5pm, the store manager decided that there wouldn’t be enough time (they close at 5:30) to accommodate more than the people already inside the store, so everyone else was out of luck. We were probably a good 5 meters away from the door. We waited around 4 hours, only to get denied at the door. Yikes.

So we went home, and mentally prepared myself for having to come back tomorrow for the Canada Day Parade that was supposedly scheduled to start at 5pm. I took solace in knowing that I wouldn’t have to be there all day, since the Parade was much later on.

Day 2

I got up at 11am, thinking I could play some games/do some work (probably more games than not), only to be surprised that my mom was in a rush to leave.

I had no idea why, but we got to downtown at 12pm. A nice 5 hours before the parade. Yikes.

We walked around the same places we walked around yesterday, hoping that the Royal Mint decided to open it’s doors again (it didn’t).

So what we ended up doing is bike around the Seawall. I haven’t biked around there in a while (maybe a year or two?), so it was a good way to spend time. A lot of other people must have had the same idea as us, because this is the most crowded I’ve ever see both the bike lane and the bike rental shops (of which I really only go to one).

Once we were done, we walked back to where the parade starts, and watched it.

The parade was a good hour and a half, a bit longer than I was expecting, and a lot more enjoyable than I was expecting. Standing around for an hour after biking and walking for the last 5 wasn’t exactly relaxing, but it was okay, considering I was about to skip out on gym days the following week (for important stuff!).

The parade was fun. There were a lot of floats by organizations I didn’t expect to be there. I also didn’t expect that many different cultural/countries to be represented there, but if I think about it a bit more, it makes perfect sense for Canada to have a lot of different backgrounds.

I’ll end the blog with a bit about photography (since I didn’t spend any time on it yet).

After a review of my photos, a lot of them were more blurry than I would have liked. I guess it’s because there’s movement during the shots, as well as the changing distance between me and the subject, making the focus hard to get down right. It’s also difficult to get a good angle/view of the subjects in a parade. Considering there’s not many open good spots for me to go to, I really just had to stand still and take pictures of floats as they passed me by. That’s nice and all, but I don’t really get many angles to choose from, and my photos don’t look like anything special. I guess that’s where the skill factor comes in, but I’m not yet at a level where I can show that off…

As always, there’s an edited photo among the bunch. Try finding it!