Vancouver in the Eyes of A Syrian Soul

by Jihad Bitar The snow was already melting and Vancouver skies were showing some of its blue color by the end of May when I first visited this strange city.
I wanted to walk around the city streets exactly as they told me in the guidebook, turn left, turn right, eat Japanese food and be careful of Hasting street after dark, that was essentially the guide for me, I literally did what is written there and I did feel good about it.
My first trip to the Canadian West Coast was intense, it was for only four days and I wanted to see everything that the guidebook wrote about, I didn’t sleep well since I have no time to waste. 4am was my waking time every morning, walking from my hotel to the central station to catch the bus that will take me to my destinations I planned to go to, no time to organize my visit and no time for booking my ticket either, just go there take the bus and do it.
My hectic and unrealistic schedule made me cover all of Vancouver attraction locations and it took me to whistler and Victoria, in just 4 days before going back to my beloved Toronto.
The picture perfect of every neighborhood corner in Vancouver is an achievement, this city is only 150 years old and it doesn’t hide its youth, yet it manages to develop a distinct character in its building architecture as well as its urban design vocabulary that many cities around the world wanted to copy it. The ocean adds one more natural beauty on top of what is already beautiful.
Walking on the street of Vancouver is a challenge, there is no one element to look at, you have hundreds in every scene you see and all of those elements need to be looked at separately to enjoy, yet you can’t, it’s like being in an art museum having all kind of painting from different art schools on one wall, how can you choose where to look or how to concentrate, it’s hard, may be impossible, however you have no other choice being in a beautiful chaos…. The mountains, the sky, the signs, the canopies, the noise, the streets, the people, the pretentiousness, the homeless, the weird, the liberals, the conservative, the Asian, the blonds, the sexy, the runners, the skaters, the cyclist, the traffic lights, the buildings, the energy, the food, the smell, the fragrances, the sunglasses, the wine, the tea, the coffee, the chocolate, the shoes, the ice cream, the languages…the, the, the…hundreds of elements and I’m in the middle…I needed to go away from this wall.
The next morning I went to whistler, the famous ski resort in the mountains surrounding Vancouver.

I arrived to whistler around 7am, nothing is open yet in the skiing village. The snow flacks falling and is getting frozen before touching the ground. I can see my breath disappearing in the cold air. The morning light quickly spreads in every corner of the village and the sun rays dye every chalet with a vintage golden yellow making them look like pictures ripped out from an old touristic magazine.
Again I did what’s written in my guidebook, I start walking the trail, I went through woods surrounding the mountain it’s a nice long walk, the funny thing is that I was wearing pairs of running shoes in the snow, it wasn’t easy but I managed to do it.

While strolling I kept thinking in case of seeing a bear what should I do? I didn’t know the answer till I get back to Toronto and Dave, a manager at the company I worked for BBB Architects and told me that in a bear situation try not to move keep quite don’t run, don’t look straight in te eyes…I’m not very sure about the method but that was the answer of my question…
Back to my trip, after walking for almost an hour the trees on the road starts getting less intense and without any preparation I came up with the most beautiful scene of the Canadian landscape, a glacier lake surrounded by mountains and the ice start to melt away, I was staring at the scene as I have never seen anything as beautiful before, after the appreciation of this view I continued my walk and again after another hour I get to the biggest lake in whistle, they call it lake green. It was bigger and more beautiful than the earlier one, I just wished that I could show my parents this place and enjoy it with them. By now I was exhausted and I quickly continue walking till I get to the bus stop that will take me back to the village where I can go back to Van.
Arriving to my hotel in Van, and I immediately get to bed preparing myself to the next adventure…Victoria city….

The way to Victoria was fun, bus then boat then bus again. The two trees at the entrance of Fairmont hotel Victoria, were my great memory, those trees were like two old guards, they are tiered but they can’t rest, they have to stay standing and protect the hotel yet they are old and they need to lean on the merciful earth underneath them, beautiful in a way that I can’t even describe them.
Get back to Vancouver using the same method but in reverse, bus, boat, bus again…but this time to end my trip I went straight to the airport where I went back in 5 hours trip to Toronto,

Great trip it was, that I came back to Vancouver after one month to start my new job at VIA Architecture and my new adventure of discovering the West world's end zone (this city) more closely.