Avoid Starbucks, and drink your coffee at Blenz instead. The staff is friendly and capable, the drink menu is intelligible and unpretentious, the store-environment is mercifully attitude-free.
I can't wait for them to open up in SF.
There do not seem to be any trained bartenders in Vancouver. No one pours by count, mixed drinks are an utter mystery, as are terms like 'Scotch', 'Water', 'No ice', and 'That's Bourbon'.
Closing times are based on Vedic math. Liquor prices are a wild guess.
Tobacco costs over three times as much. Cuban cigars are sold all over the place. There is outdoor seating for smokers everywhere.
Vancouverites are extremely polite, especially compared to San-Franciscans. This is refreshing. Even the street people are a better class than ours.
The maitre d at the nearest Indian restaurant was an elderly white gentleman wearing an old-lady turban and a Chinese brocade coat. I am so very very glad Mrs. K had never seen such a thing - she would've insisted I do likewise during my years as khazanchi.
There are Japanese people everywhere. They can be divided into three groups: long timers who have lived there for years, short timers who are there for several months, and brief timers who are there for only a week or so. The brief timers are tourists, the short timers are taking English classes, the long timers have opened sushi bars. The majority appear to be women in their early twenties, all avid shoppers.
A goat of my acquaintance would've been in hog heaven with so many young Japanese ladies.
There are far fewer liquor stores there than here. Consequently, there are many more lingerie stores. Read into that what you will. Liquor is heavily regulated, lingerie not at all.
Vancouver has a newspaper. We have the Chronicle.
The streets are clean. The transit system works. The buses do not smell of stale urine.
On the one day that it rained we walked across the bridge to Granville Island.
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Who doesn't like dumplings? And sometimes on just needs dumplings before walking with a pencil shank GBD Virgin lovatt filled with a fin...
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Two points:
A.) San Francisco (amongst U.S. cities, at least) boasts the highest per capita spending on both books and alcohol (which explains why I live here); hence, any city will appear to show a paucity of liquor stores in comparison.
2.) I am unclear on the corellation between Japanese women and goats. Do Japanese women feed goats more, or better food, than women of other nationalities? Please enlighten us.
I am unclear on the corellation between Japanese women and goats. Do Japanese women feed goats more, or better food, than women of other nationalities?
The goat in question is particularly fond of young Japanese women, regarding them as being a renewable source of energy.
I do not, as yet, know how young Japanese women relate to the goat in question, as I have not inquired. He seems happy. Most of the time.
And no, he is not Degenerate Dave. Nor does he have similar reprehensible personal habits.
The last time I was in Canada(Edmonton), I went to a bar and ordered a beer. They asked if I wanted domestic or imported. I said imported. They asked if I wanted Bud or Michelob.
I cannot imagine an "attitude-free" coffee shop being possible in San Francisco, unless perhaps they are importing their baristas from Vancouver, instead of hiring locals.
"Even the street people are a better class than ours." Perhaps they'd consider a foreign exchange program? I know that we'd love to trade some of ours, here in Eugene, for something a little different. I wonder if their street people are as adept at stealing bikes...
On the ratio of liquor stores to other establishments: we have very few in our town, and an extremely high number of coffee and bicycle/outdoor shops. Perhaps we could convince our local baristas and bike technicians to start wearing lingerie to work, and see if it produces an economic advantage?
I don't know why, but I have just had a strange vision of a lingerie wearing goat, riding a stolen bicycle, with a half-eaten Budweiser can in its mouth...
"Vancouver has a newspaper. We have the Chronicle."
The Chronicle's a newspaper?
"The streets are clean. The transit system works. The buses do not smell of stale urine."
THAT sounds so inviting, I might even pay the cigarette price!
LOL! - Funny notes! Maybe a next time notes about your Khazanchi years? - D
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