Vancouver - Encarta

Vancouver (pronounced: [vænˈkuːvɚ]) is a city located in southwestern British Columbia, Canada. It is named after Captain George Vancouver, an English explorer. Vancouver has a population of 587,891,[1] while its metropolitan region, the Greater Vancouver Regional District (GVRD), has a population of 2,180,737 (2006 estimate).[1] Greater Vancouver is the largest metropolitan area in western Canada and the third largest in the country.[2] It is also the largest city in the Pacific Northwest and is the second-largest metropolitan area (second to Seattle). Vancouver is ethnically diverse, with more than half of its residents having a first language other than English.[3] The city is growing rapidly, and the GVRD population is projected to reach 2.6 million by 2020.[4] A resident of Vancouver is called a "Vancouverite".
Vancouver is located between the Strait of Georgia and the Coast Mountains. Its economy has traditionally relied on British Columbia's resource sectors: forestry, mining, fishing and agriculture. It was first settled in the 1860s as a result of immigration caused by the Fraser Canyon Gold Rush, particularly from the United States, although many immigrants did not remain after the rush. The city developed rapidly from a small lumber mill town into a metropolitan centre following the arrival of the transcontinental railway in 1887. The Port of Vancouver became internationally significant after the completion of the Panama Canal, which reduced freight rates in the 1920s and made it viable to ship export-bound prairie grain west through Vancouver.[5] It has since become the busiest seaport in Canada, and exports more cargo than any other port in North America.[6] The economy of Vancouver has diversified over time, however. Vancouver has a growing tourism industry, for example, and has become the third-largest film production centre in North America, after Los Angeles and New York City, earning it the nickname Hollywood North.[7][8][9][10][11] More recently, Vancouver has had an expansion in high-tech industries, most notably video game design.
Vancouver is consistently ranked one of the three most livable cities in the world.[12][13][14][15] In 2007, it was ranked the 89th most expensive city in which to live among 143 major cities in the world, and the second most expensive in Canada after Toronto.[16] Vancouver tied with Vienna as having the third highest quality of living in the world, after Zürich and Geneva.[17][18]

Vancouver or Baywatch?

You would swear this place is "Baywatch" with all the white sandy beaches, girls and not to mention you may even run across a movie star or two, or someone famous because many come here to live and/or work or just to hang out, and driving around this place there are movies being shot everywhere. Click on the picture for an enlarged view. Pictures are Ryan and me with the beautiful mountains and sun tanners.

Partying with Celine Dion

We are back in Vancouver and the boss is holding a party in the hanger to celebrate some brand new airplanes that are coming into the fleet and he has invited Celine Dion along to sing and she wrote a song for the airline which she has since made famous. The back up singers are friends/co-workers and flight The party was a lot of fun and many of us went for a test ride in the new aircraft

Fuel Saving

At the local elementary school several children pile on a tricycle after school for the ride home.

Some of the tricycles have 12 to 15 children with some riding on the roof. There is so much weight on the vehicle some children have to give a little push to get the momentum going before driving off. The drivers do not seem to be to concerned about the enormous strain that they are putting on their vehicles. Most all of the tricycles are powered by a very small 110 cubic inches motorbike. Once the tricycle picks up speed it continues on a very busy highway with what seems to be very crazy traffic. None of these young passengers are wearing helmets or are in the presents of an adult to get them home safely. Many of these vehicles are waiting at the school in a long line up, waiting for the children to finish school. It seems that it is the most common transportation for the school children and of course a fuel savings.

Traffic Jam in Cabanatuan City, Philippines

Two hours by night or eight hours by day, drive away from Manila, because of traffic, this bustling little city of Cabanatuan is still bumper to bumper and moving at a crawl. There is something a little different about this traffic. It is almost all tricycles or motorcycles. Click on the pictures for an enlarged view.

Three hugh pigs on a small motorcyle

Watch carefully. In this video you will see three pigs and two people being transported on a small motorcycle and sidecar. It is quite entertaining to just watch the traffic in the Philippines if you have never been to anywhere like this, and see the different kinds of transport and the different things that are used for transportation. I once even saw a ambulance being used as a taxi.

Bamboo House - Awesome

This bamboo house is built to last forever, complete with a cement foundation, indoor and outdoor kitchen, a modern bathroom with tiles, a big veranda, electric wiring throughout every room in the whole house and a concrete fenced lot. Click on the picture for larger viewing.

Manila Traffic Jam

Traffic is bumper to bumper and not moving. Highways are jawith big busses and peddlers risk there lifes selling the goods on the highways. They sell everything under the sun, from cigaretes, newspapers, food, crafts, toys, drinking water, softdrinks, garden tools or anything that you could possibly think of. They will sell car to car, or they will actually go on the busses and sell person to person and since the busses are not getting very far it does not take them far out of their way. And if they do go far out of their way they hop another bus back, selling their goods along the way.

Different kinds of Transportation

There are so many kinds of transportation, ways of shipping things and ways of getting around, it doesn't matter where you are, in the city or up in the province, some kind of transportation will be at the snap of your finger. The transportation, the vehicles on the roads, the culture of the driving and the safety on the streets are so different that we as Canadians are accustom to. Sometimes I am entertained just by sitting at the end of our driveway with a cup of coffee and watching this whole transportation experience. I once watched a man on a rototiller witch he was using for road transportation. He had a flat tire. I order for him to safely change his flat tire on the road, he put hollow blocks down on the road (here in Canada we might use orange or yellow cones or maybe even flares) leading up to the vehicle and around the vehicle. These hollow blocks were hit by three other vehicles witch sustained damage and almost caused an accident.

Manila Traffic

The Philippines is a small country of thousands of islands and a population of about 90 million people. The largest city is Manila has about 12 million and you can sure tell when you are landing in a airplane, the size of the city. Once out of the airport, if you have never been here before, you are overwhelmed by the traffic, and the culture of driving in the Philippines, and all the different sources of transportation.