93.1 Red FM Vancouver

Yes this Indian Radio Channel (at least the name and frequency is the same) is on FM in Vancouver and it plays punjabi and bollywood music. We tuned into it by accident as soon as we entered Canada.

I am not sure if I can strike a good contrast of Vancouver with Seattle or even compare it but I felt Vancouver to be a bigger Seattle. It is closer to the Pacific, has bigger waterfront, taller buildings, bigger Lookout Tower (than Space Needle) more diversity and night life.(beats Seattle hands down) and a decent punjabi community.

This is Vancouver during evening time.

Not a great picture but just an idea.

First night, spent time in the lookout tower (the above pic is from that), roamed around downtown, ate Ethiopian food with a nice aromatic tea, saw a stage show of improvisors (which was really funny and superb) at the Vancouver Fringe Festival at Granville Island and then took a walk at probably one of most happening streets in Vancouver, the Granville Street. The whole street was packed with people who were enjoying the night life of Vancouver. At a theater on Granville Street we saw this ...

Nice isn't it...

That day was long and next day we had to wake up early to visit Stanley Park, most famous Park in Vancouver. The motivation for getting up early and run around Stanley Park was not to enjoy an amazing weather and view at the Vancouver waterfront (a bit more than 8 km) that Stanley Park offered but was Chholey Bhature that we had planned to enjoy at the Punjabi Market in Vancouver.

Some pictures from Stanley Park...

the black squirrel ...

and the lady in the water... I thought this was a nice sculptureAfter this run it took us a long time to get ready for another long day and it was already 11 when we reached punjabi market. This was really a let down. We were hoping for a huge market but it was not more than 2 blocks and really small shops. But someone told us that a bigger punjabi community was in Surrey, B.C. By 11:45, we were inexplicably hungry but were sitting in a little punjabi restaurant and waiting to enjoy our Chhole Bhature ... yummy and parantha and pakore and chai.

We then visited two nice Gurudwara and walked quite a lot and finally before leaving we checked out a Science Center (also saw an awesome IMAX movie, Bugs!) and a brief walk to the waterfront again for a quick pasta. Drive between Vancouver and Seattle is sweet but on the way back we were tired.

That was a trip to the fourth country apart from South Korea, US and India of course.