This week was kind of a quiet one. Basically every year our company has a retreat where we go away for 2 days to a place called loon lake (since I know I’ll get called on it, yes I did look the lake up and it’s stocked with a ton of rainbow trout) and have discussions about how the last year has gone as well as little mini speeches about how to we can improve certain things and stuff like that. Since the retreat is on Thursday and Friday, We had to get 5 days worth of work done in 3 days. Still it was definitely worth it.

Once we got to Loon lake we did all sorts of team building activities like casual drinks, shotgunning and even shotgunning competitions. What a great way to bring a company together. It was a good time, though my stomach wasn’t really right so I didn’t jump into the festivities as much as some people.

Got back to town on Friday to celebrate Christy’s last weekend in Vancouver before she goes back home for the holidays. Went out to a wicked French restaurant but I didn’t bring my camera so you’ll just have to take my word for it that it was a good time.

On Saturday Christy was super hung over and I was still having a lot of problems with my stomach but I still wanted to try and do something. Considering it gets dark here now around 4 pm, I thought I’d walk down to Granville Island to try and at least get out and enjoy the daytime. I’d say “Get out and enjoy the sun” but December sunshine in Vancouver is a rare commodity. Stopped by some of the local haunts on the strip near my house, including the music store, and the comic shop. One thing I’ve noticed about this city is that the music poster art you see on the day to day is really great. It’s just nice to see cool stuff like that in public, compared to Toronto where the posters are the more standard band name in capitals on some horrid neon paper.

After the posters I walked through a district of town I like to call the “Maybe Vancouver is a little more shielded from the recession than the rest of Canada” district. And after that I made it to Granville Island. Granville Island, if you haven’t been to Vancouver before, is an area made from the old industrial waterfront industry buildings that they turned into sort of a tourist spot. I think it was all dolled up for expo ‘86 but I could be wrong. It has a marina, all sorts of shops, and one of the best food markets I’ve ever been to.

I could do a giant essay about how much I love good food, and living in BC I’m really lucky to have access to some of the most amazing seafood, produce and well, everything. On top of the obvious seafood, BC is really big on eating local and organic, as a result there’s a ton of local cheese makers, meat curers, wineries, basically everything. Feel like local organic buffalo mozzarella or elk prosciutto? No problem. Want to try the local oysters? Which of the 14 varieties at Lobster man do you feel like (the local favorites are the kishus)? One thing that doesn’t get the full cred it deserves out here is black cod, or sablefish (they’re both the same thing). Salmon and trout get all the love. I’d never had it until I got out here but it’s amazing. You can get it at most fish stores and restaurants either as is or smoked, when it’s smoked it still needs to be cooked but it keeps such a bold flavor despite the fact it’s a light white fish. Seriously if you ever get out here, order the sablefish, it’s unbelievable. Another nice thing about it too is that its fishery is really well maintained and sustainable.

Looking at all the food made me hungry so I went to the cheap Mexican stand at Granville. Awesome enchiladas for 6 bucks. Despite being interrupted by the two most terrifying gingerbread men ever, the food was good as usual.

After being happy with getting out and walking around in spite of the crappy weather, it was hilarious to see that the weather really turned around on Sunday. The day I spent inside watching NFL football.