Kyran and Mercedes Findlater travel the world: Vancouver and the Quest for Science!

Hello out there and welcome to another episode of the Findlater's Travels

I know that it wasn't long ago that we did a blog about being in Vancouver but here we are again in Vancouver!

This time around we came to Vancouver for another of my short environmental courses but about a week out from the event they cancelled it on me.

Because we had already paid for accommodation and Kyran had asked for the time off work to come with me we decided to go anyway and to make the most of the time to see what we haven't seen yet and some things that we need to do while we are here.

Before we get into all the juicy Vancouver-based pictures I should let you know what we have been up to until this point.

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Kyran: He has been working hard, meeting deadlines etc. as you can expect. He has also been getting into his childhood dream of Airsoft which is illegal in Australia but legal in Canada. Airsoft is like paintball, but the guns are more realistic looking, more accurate, and the balls are just solid plastic (bio-degradable) without paint in them.

He has been catching up for all those years of not being able to play it!

He has also been to America on a business trip to install one of the units that he has been working on with his team at Techbrew.

All this as well as being in the small town newspaper with the guys he works with.

Mercedes: Well my life has been a little less exciting, I did get into quilting and have done a bit of crocheting and cherry picking and got a guitar which I now need to start learning.

I also managed to snag a job working for one of the local Bank branches in town, so I can now add that industry to my long list of experience I have that is not what I studied. Which brings me into the shenanigans that we have been up to in Vancouver.

VANCOUVER!

So we had booked our accommodation for 4 nights and I have decided that I am not getting any younger so to make the most of our time in Vancouver we looked for jobs for me in the industry that I spent years are University Studying for.

Day 1: Walked around and signed me up to all the employment agencies in town. At some point walked into a skyscraper building and noticed a multitude of relevant companies listed in the directory that are possible employers so we started just walking in and asking questions... all the way to the 15th floor. The 13th floor was missing, must be budget cuts!

Day 2: Went in search of an elusive employment agency that Google said it was one of three places in the Greater Vancouver region but ended up getting lost and going shopping instead.

Day 3: It was time to do some tourism and get some photos so that there is something to show you guys. Now we will get into the juicy photos and stories.

The Plan was to see the Biodiversity Museum but we got distracted and realised that the Science World/Centre was closer and thought that we might stop off there first.

Little did we know....

That being around children even if they are not yours seems to sap the energy right out of you!!

Also that having kids seems to turn you into the terminator whom can't seem to get enough of them. There are ladies walking around with two kids in hand and one on the way and they seemed to have more energy and spirit than us!

We were one hour into the tour of the Science Museum when we decided the we never want kids and that we couldn't even carry our souls any more - we were that tired! So we did what anyone does when they need energy... we looked for SUGAR!

Once the sugar kicked in we proceeded to get our money's worth and try not to trample on any children at the same time.

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A quick Side Note/ Review:

TELUS World of Science. Built in 1986 for Expo '86

Price: Expensive - $25 per adult

Activities: Interactive; more of them were for the children of course but there were opportunities for adult awareness and interaction.

Atmosphere: Crazy with children laughing and screaming, well staffed and a good cross section of outside and inside activities.

Overall: Would recommend but be warned it is very family oriented, great for families with children... not so great for couples without children.

OK all right lets dive into all the things that we saw!!

First up this is a column of recyclable things broken down before they are ready to be used again.

FYI Canada is really great with their recycling over here Australia should take a page out of their book!

Next up the outdoor section of the museum.

The outside was a good combination of Gardening and Sustainability as well as Biodiversity and Environmental Awareness.

Next was the block building workshop/ display.

Of course none of them were glued, it was all pure skill. This was a great area as there were children building block castles everywhere, had I not done this recently in another Science Centre I probably would have joined in as well.

All right then next up is the Dinosaurs and I can tell you that they are something completely different than what I am used to seeing in the Australian Museums.

OK lets break up the photos with some illusions, the following photos are all designed to mess with your eyes/ head..

Good luck!

Above: Are we looking at the inside of the box or the outside?

Below: Apparently the A and the B squares are actually the same shade of grey (don't worry we couldn't see it either)

Above: Apparently the red and the orange spirals are actually the same colour (we too couldn't see this)

Below: The warped/bent circles that you see here are actually perfect circles!

Above: this was an activity where you had to look through the eye piece with on eye and try to bring the two circles to the same level, this is how good Kyran did! (not so well..)

Below Left: a camera that sees even the freckles that are not visible to the human eye.