Contrasts.

The last few posts showed the beauty of Vancouver. The location is so pretty, as well as the parks, buildings, artworks etc.

However after all the beauty of Vancouver, we did see part of the ugly side of the city today. The tourist buses won't take you along a certain part of Hastings Street but a local bus we caught happened to. I was shocked at how bad things were in this part (of approximately 3 blocks) of the street. So many of the people there cannot stand but are fully bent over permanently. It was a tragically sad sight seeing so many so affected by drugs. The slum area we happened across in Romania was way better than this. The people there had make-do houses and whole families were there. They were not at all like the sad drug affected people we saw today.

The first photo is of the very impressive library building. The last photo shows the 2010 Olympic Torch lit during those Olympic Games. We saw the torch today but it was not lit.Read more