Sometimes Vancouver incompetence is so amusing

If this doesn't end up on Failblog, I don't know what will.

Basically, a building demolition company is under investigation for something that happened in downtown Vancouver. They were taking down a concrete building, and they screwed up big-time.

And unfortunately for them, there were a lot of people who videotaped the screw-up and posted it on YouTube; some of the videos have already reached over 100,000 views and have made all the major news outlets in town (Vancouver Province, Vancouver Sun, News 1130, CBC).

And to boot, it happened during rush hour on a weekday evening on a street in the middle of downtown Vancouver.

As my friend Larry said, it's a lawsuit waiting to happen. (The car near the first collapse was actually driven by a lawyer.)

Spring weather for the Winter Olympics and other tidbits

I just realized that in less than a month, the Winter Olympics will start in my hometown of Vancouver. And apparently, there's no snow in the mountains.

Those who know Canadian weather will know that Vancouver is the second-warmest major city in Canada in winter (the other being nearby Victoria). It almost NEVER goes below freezing there, and snow in the city is very rare (and usually melts in less than a day).

However, the city gets loads of rain in winter and all the rain turns into snow in the mountains, making for prime skiing and snowboarding conditions. From what I heard, this year, that hasn't materialized and there is almost no snow in the mountains. One of the Winter Olympic venues, Cypress Mountain, has apparently been closed to the public so they can MAKE snow (which is unusual in itself for Vancouver's ski mountains) and maintain it until the Games.

Above: A photo taken in the summer of the Olympic rings between Vancouver International Airport and the Arthur Laing Bridge leading to the City of Vancouver.

The opening ceremonies will be at BC Place Stadium, and it'll be the first-ever indoor opening ceremony in Olympic history. With the buckets of rain that the city gets in winter, that's a good choice, and probably a good way to deter the TV viewers from looking around the stadium's exteriors and wondering, "Where's the snow?"

Also, there's the issue of the Downtown Eastside (DTES). For those outside Vancouver, the DTES is known for being possibly the poorest area of Canada and has a high rate of crime, prostitution, drug deals and open drug use. The previous mayor of Vancouver didn't really do much to fix it, and now it's too late to do anything. It's just a stone's throw from the "good" part of downtown, where a lot of visitors will be staying. Just wait -- there will definitely be some media coverage about this and many will ask, "Why is there a huge open air drug den in the middle of this city?"

This is going to be one interesting Olympics.

You'd think Hyundai would've learned...

When I left the Vancouver area, a new subway line called the Canada Line was opening on the same day; it connects my hometown of Richmond to downtown Vancouver and Vancouver International Airport.

The trains are made by Hyundai Rotem, the EXACT SAME company that makes subway trains here in Seoul (and also in Incheon). One issue that the subway trains have here is the amount of heat generated by the machinery under the train's floor. Because of this, the air conditioning on board many Seoul subway trains can prove quite futile (unless the train isn't crowded).

It turns out that despite the response I got from one of the Canada Line open house events, this problem wasn't rectified; I've been told by friends back home that the air conditioning on the Canada Line trains is equally futile, and it looks like it's because of the exact same reason as the Seoul trains.

I'm slightly surprised that they didn't fix this problem. The Seoul trains weren't built yesterday, so they would've known about this issue already. There was plenty of time, even before the Canada Line started construction, to look into this problem. Instead, we now have a bunch of trains with the same drawback as their older model counterparts. It doesn't seem quite progressive, does it?

Well, here I go...

My plane leaves in less than 11 hours. It's hard to believe that in less than two days, I will be on my own in a odd mystery land called "Daehan minguk." It's kind of surreal at this point, and scary. I don't even know if it's sunk in yet; it feels like it has but I think there's still a bit more sinking to go.

It won't be a "jump in right away" kind of deal. During my plane ticket preparations, I was preparing to arrive for the EPIK orientation but apparently there's a difference between the EPIK orientation and the EPIK-Seoul orientation (which I'm part of). The latter starts a day later, so I will have a day to kill; during that time, I'll be rooming in a hotel in Incheon, which is the city west of Seoul and home to Seoul's airport.

And even then, I still don't "jump in right away" because I have a layover in Shanghai before arriving in Incheon. I heard that Blogger is blocked over there and that my purchase of a domain name (and use of Photobucket instead of Picasa for my blog pics) successfully circumvented the Great Firewall of China. However, posting is still under Blogger.com so I'll have to find another way around it. Fortunately, my VPL account at my alma mater still seems to be functional. I'll see if I can get around the Firewall that way.

Well. Here goes nothing. And quite frankly, if nothing out of the ordinary happens for the next while (Kim Jong Il not invading would be a huge help), I'd be completely happy. Better than something going horribly wrong...

Sunshine, lightning and fireworks -- oh my!

Yesterday was probably the most interesting day for the Metro Vancouver area in a long time, due largely to the weather.

Within a single day:

• sunshine
• clouds
• rain
• gorgeous sunset
• thunderstorm
• lightning resulting from thunderstorm; at one point there were about 20 strikes per minute
• annual Celebration of Light fireworks competition (during the lightning)

You don't get too many days like these, that's for sure. Lightning is rare enough here in Vancouver (I think we get an average of 0.2 lightning storms per year), let alone an hours-long lightning storm like we did last night.

I also found out that taking photos of lightning is extremely hard. Eventually I ended up just holding down the shutter button and letting 'er rip until the memory card ran out of space. But getting soaked in the torrential rain was worth every penny.

Here are the shots that I did get (for larger pics, see my Flickr):








Here's a time lapse of the day as seen from downtown Vancouver, courtesy of KatKam:



And it's interesting how nobody reacted to the fireworks competition (as they normally do) but went "OOOOH AHHHH" at the accompanying lightning instead:



Who knows when Vancouver will ever see a fireworks display during a lightning storm again.

Air ticket madness

It was a zoo yesterday trying to get the plane tickets to Seoul's Incheon International Airport. Direct flights are all either pretty expensive or fully booked -- precisely on the date that I need to get there by. A day later or a day before is a huge difference -- lots of available seats and a $200 price difference. Go figure. (This is a chance for me to blame the school kids for messing everything up, so I will take that chance. Damn kids.)

One of the scenarios that came up was leaving over a week early and spending a week with relatives in Hong Kong before taking the short flight to Seoul from there. That would've been ideal, if not for the possibility that the South Korean customs officials might not let a Canadian in on a teaching visa after such a stay in Hong Kong. Too bad, because that would've been ideal (since I was planning to make a trip to Hong Kong at some point anyway).

Since it'd be quite a commute from Seoul to the orientation venue in the southwestern part of South Korea (a shuttle will be provided) and because of any possible travel delays, I really want to land in Seoul before the evening, which isn't really possible via direct flights. And from the prices of those direct flights, it doesn't seem like that would be a good way to go either.

We hatched plenty of scenarios (one of which had me going from Vancouver to Los Angeles to San Francisco to Singapore to Seoul), and finally found one that would work -- Vancouver to Shanghai to Seoul, for just under $600 on a smaller airline. That would be a lot better. The downside is that I'll arrive at night in Seoul and will do an overnighter, but I'd rather be early than late. I can always sleep on the plane and then take a nap at the airport terminal until the first shuttle to the orientation venue arrives in the morning.

However, now there's the issue of the visa. I was told that the head office in Seoul will send me some documents to take to the consulate in "two to four weeks." It's now past four weeks, and I haven't heard a peep yet. I zapped off an e-mail to my recruiter to see what's up, and they said that the last time they asked, the Seoul office didn't get my documents yet, and that they "should" have gotten them by now. I'm quite anxious about that, as you can expect, since it's now about a month to my departure from Canada.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

Canada Line goodness

After many years of political red tape, the long-awaited rapid transit rail line between Richmond, Vancouver International Airport and Vancouver will become a reality in the form of the Canada Line. It was originally announced that it will open on Labor Day, but by the sounds of it, it might open as early as the BC Day long weekend, which is at the start of August.

That means for the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, visitors coming from the airport will be able to avoid having to cram into a small taxi cab and use a train line instead.

While I love the fact that the line is finally here, I do have some nitpicks with its construction and planning. The station and train lengths are a mere 40 meters and there is no room for further expansion. This is an alarming lack of long-term thinking by the private company that had the construction contract for the line.

Also, all Richmond, Delta, South Surrey and White Rock buses that normally run as express buses to downtown Vancouver will instead terminate at Bridgeport Station of the line. As a regular passenger on the Richmond routes to downtown Vancouver, I can say with certainty that despite the line's and the local buses' increased capacities, there will be a serious overcrowding issue. My peak-hour bus from Vancouver is already bursting at the seams at 15-minute frequencies. The local route (which will be the only option after the line opens) will run at 12-minute frequencies. Now, if a 15-minute frequency can't handle the Vancouver-Richmond passengers alone, how do you expect a 3-minute increase to make any difference when you add local Richmond riders to the scenario as well? It will not work.

Above: A Canada Line train during practice runs, as seen from No. 3 Road at Alderbridge Way in Richmond.

Also, for some areas in Richmond's western parts, such as my house, the commute time will actually increase as a result of the new routings. Besides those living within a kilometer of No. 3 Road (where the line runs), there is no benefit. There will be no other alternatives for Vancouver-bound commuters.

For the Delta, South Surrey and White Rock routes, the extra transfer will end up with little to no savings in commuting time. While the impact is minimal for them, it seems a bit unnecessary. However, I'm hesitant to say anything beyond that because I don't take those buses during peak hours.

If the line opens early (as planned), the route changes won't be in effect until the next schedule rotation, which will be in September. By then, I'll be far away from here and will avoid the circus that will be Vancouver public transit commuting. Hopefully all the problems will be rectified by the time I return. But knowing the local transportation agency around here, I wouldn't be surprised if they remain clueless.

Anyways, here are some related videos, pics and links:

My photo gallery of the Canada Line.

Videos courtesy of the Buzzer Blog:

Approaching Vancouver City Centre Station:



Leaving downtown Vancouver:



Transition from underground portion to above-ground, at Marine Drive Station:



Crossing the bridge to Richmond:



Arriving at Richmond-Brighouse Station, the terminus in Richmond:



Arriving at Vancouver International Airport's YVR-Airport Station:



Projected ridership situation:



Okay, I was kidding about the last one. I think. Actually, I don't know if I'm joking about that.

Planes like crashing near my house

It is past 2:00am and I am sitting here at my computer, drinking some hot cocoa. Sometimes you feel so jittery that you try to drink something that usually makes you even more jittery (like hot cocoa) in an attempt to make yourself less jittery. I don't know how the hell that works, but it's worth a try.

Why am I so jittery? Well, the thought of two planes crashing within two years within biking distance from my house seems like a good reason to be nervous, does it not?

Around 10:06pm tonight (I guess it'd be last night on July 9, since we're past 12:00am now), a small plane bound for Vancouver International Airport crashed here in Richmond, resulting in a huge fireball and at least one large explosion. (News story: [Vancouver Province].)

The crash site is about 15-20 minutes from my house, and less than 300 meters from the Summer Night Market, a large weekend attraction that would've been open to thousands of people had it been Friday or a weekend rather than a Thursday (as it's closed from Mondays to Thursdays).



By the looks of it, what happened was that the pilot of the small plane that crashed was following too closely behind a large Airbus plane, thus getting caught in the wake turbulence behind it. That caused the pilot to lose control of the plane, and the aircraft eventually hit the ground nose-first in an industrial zone in northern Richmond.

Above: the plane's last approximate position before disappearing from the flight tracking map; it likely hit the wake turbulence of the large Airbus on the left. (Courtesy: WebTrak for Vancouver International Airport.)

While that area is well known for being one of Vancouver International Airport's flight paths and while the cause of the crash appears to be an error by the pilot, this is certainly unnerving. Just two years ago, in the fall of 2007, Richmond was also hit by a plane crash. Unlike the one tonight, which hit an unoccupied industrial zone in the middle of the night, the one in 2007 hit a residential complex in downtown Richmond (just 10 minutes from my house) during rush hour, narrowly missing the popular Richmond Public Market. (News story: [CTV].)

From 2007's crash:



While both of these are completely different types of crashes (except for the fact that they both occurred here in Richmond and they both involved small planes), this still feels scary. Richmond is home to the airport, and most of the residents live on the west end of Richmond; surprise, surprise, the airport is also located on the west end of the city. It makes me wonder if we're all a bunch of dumbasses for setting up our city like this.

But then again, at least we're not Hong Kong yet (despite our huge Chinese population):



Let's just hope that in the future, flights landing and departing Vancouver International Airport get less exciting. "No news is good news," as they say.