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I've neglected this blog for quite a while mostly because I've been traveling in foreign parts.

I'm not even sure who reads this, but for the few souls that do happen across it from time to time, I thought I'd let you know that I'm moving back to Ireland (pause; re-read, think to yourself, "is she serious?"). As the mass exodus from Ireland continues, we're going back into the thick of it. As a famous adman once said, when the world zigs, zag.. Or something like that.

I will leave this blog up for a while in the hope that people find it useful or briefly entertaining or terribly offensive. Or, if anyone would like to take it over, let me know (the picture of the empty chair in my garden is a weak metaphor for me looking for someone to take over...) Or even if you just have some suggested topics or thoughts on any Vancouver related things that you might have liked to know about when you first moved here, I'd be happy to post them.

In the meantime, I've a few more things that I've thought of, now that the summer is here. Oh Vancouver summers, I will miss you. I hear its thunder and lightening in Dublin today.

On the job front...

I happened to come across a rather benevolent tweeter (is that the word?) called BestJobsInVan. It's a girl who tweets almost daily about jobs related to the marketing/advertising/PR/communications/journalism industry in Vancouver. She collects all current opportunities and re-posts them. They tend to be entry and junior level posts but nonetheless worth keeping an eye on if you want to get an idea of what's going on in the industry. If any of those qualify as your industry. If not, this post is worthless to you.

Sausages.

I love a good sausage (focus my friends, keep the puns at bay). And to date, despite a thorough search of Vancouver’s butchers and markets I have yet to find a sausage that comes close to rivaling the infamous, the beautiful, the succulent: The Superquinn Sausage (which, incidentally, has its own facebook fan group)

Himself and myself take it upon ourselves to try a sausage from every meat-like store we come across, including:
Whole Foods
Jacksons on 4th Avenue
Market Meats on 4th Avenue
Butchers on Granville Island
Choices Market

The problem is two-fold. The first is that they don’t assume that a sausage should be made from pork (mad Ted, mad) and the second is that they are particularly fond of adding a multitude of unknown herbs to the meat.

So here’s the deal. You need to specify that you are looking for something like an English pork banger (seems to put them on the right track) and when they reach for the least colourful looking lump of pale pork sausage, you know you’re getting close.

But not close enough. The best we have tasted is Whole Foods pork banger. Not a patch on a good Irish sausage, but not terribly offenisve to the sophisticated Irish palette at the same time. Jackson's isn't bad either and they're so damn nice in there that they would probably re-create your perfect sausage if you asked nicely.

If anyone has any insight on other purveyors of the humble pork sausage in this city, leave a comment and we’ll be over to yours for dinner. Or breakfast.

A word on Canadians. Specifically Vancouverites.

(They love to dress up. Halloween is nearly too much for them. I dressed up as a Canadian for our work Halloween party. They asked me where my costume was..)

1. They don’t do last minute.
Spontaneous they are not. They have every bank holiday and long weekend planned months if not years in advance. For example, you might find yourself discovering that there’s an upcoming long weekend and decide to take off out of the city only to discover that every resort, hotel, camp ground and hut has been booked out for the past six months. None of your last mintue get aways, unless you think deciding something four months ahead is last minute.
Also, when someone says “meet you at six for a drink” they mean that literally, or you tell someone to come over for dinner around 8ish, they will be on your doorstep at 8. On the button.


2. They get to the cinema while you’re still at home deciding what film to see.
They don’t do reserved seating over here so as a result they all get to the cinema a good hour in advance it seems. They’re also huge fans of reserving an entire row of seats for their buddies. Once again, it kind of throws last minute plans out the proverbial window.

3. They love to line up. (That’s queuing to you and I)
They’ll think nothing of standing in line for an hour or two. It’s sort of a national past time. They love a good line up. Outside restaurants, bars, musuems, shows, you name it there’s a line up. And its not an Irish line up which is just a collection of people pushing in the same direction, survial of the fittest style, over here it’s a neatly organised, single person line.

4. They don’t go to a bar to banter with strangers (or rather they can’t)
Most bars have a person greet you at the door, find out how many are in your party and seat you at a table accordingly. This presupposes that you know exactly how many people will be joining you whereas back home you never knew who would make it out for a few drinks and at what time they might show up. If you have a table for five and a sixth person shows they get a bit fussy. (how dare you have more than your specified amount of companions in this public house).
Once seated you then have an appointed server who does table service meaning you have no real reason to chat to anyone else because everyone is sort of incubated at their respective tables. Nobody stands around and chats. I think this is one of the reasons that it can be hard to get to know people over here, bars are not structured to incur a bit of banter and chat. It’s quite formal and organised.

Cars: To buy or not to buy..

We got carried away when we arrived and bought one of those Jeep Wranglers that were really cool about twenty years ago. The first pictures are from when we were happy saps with our new car and with its roof off in the summer. The next photo is of the car being towed away after it basically fell apart on the side of the road on Vancouver Island a few months later. It was fun while it lasted. Which was about four months.

If you live in downtown Vancouver you don’t really need a car. The city is small enough that you can walk to most places and its pretty bike friendly too (not to mention rollarblades but I won’t judge…). Public transport is quite good, the buses are pretty frequent and full of interesting characters and the skytrain (a flamboyant name for a 1980s monorail) takes you out east if you are so inclined. I’ve been on it once and that was plenty for me.

But given that you will be a bit of a tourist for the first while you will probably want to be going places and seeing things and a car is pretty handy for the odd epic adventure. So here are some options to consider

Zip Car and Co-Op Cars
There are two interesting services to make note of over here that act as decent substitutes to owing a car.
1. Co-op cars
2. Zip cars.

I don’t know much about the former but I was a Zip Car member for a while. Basically you pay about $50 to join which means you have access to Zip Cars in your neighbourhood (or anywhere in the world for that matter). You go online, put in your location and the length of time you need a car and the kind of car you want, and it calculates your options. The average cost of a car is about $12 per hour (approx) depending on whether you want a trusty Nissan or a funky Mini or a family car of sorts. It’s pretty handy if you need a car for a couple of hours on weeknights, but beware that we ended up cancelling our memberships because it became so popular that it was pretty hard to get a car if you didn’t book it well in advance (we tended to wake up on a Saturday and decide we wanted a car in an hour which proved to be wishful thinking)

Renting
You can rent cars all over downtown, they do good weekend packages and some even do monthly packages (or at least they did when the car industry was taking a battering)

Buying
Cars are easy to buy here and they are pretty affordable. You can buy a car in the morning, drive to the insurance company get it insured and have it home by lunchtime. The ICBC (Insurance Corporation of British Columbia) is a good thing, because unlike Ireland where all insurance companies are independent meaning you get a variety of quotes per dealer, the inusrance system is centralised over here, so your quote will be the same no matter what dealer you go to. Its nice that the system is so transparent.

If you want to take advantage of the no claims bonus, you will need to get your insurance company to fax the relevant documents to your insurance dealer here. Otherwise you pay a tonne extra.

Insurance is pretty pricey though so that can make owning a car difficult, even if the car itself doesn’t cost much. Check out Craigslist to get an idea of prices.


Parking
Parking is damn expensive in this city. And they tow you and ticket you the way the Irish clamp you. If parking isn't included in your monthly rent, a space can cost anywhere from about $50 to $150 a month. So just keep that one in mind.

Borrow mine.
Audrey the Audi sits outside our house looking for love and attention, and somebody to clean all the segul shit off her windows.

What to do when you've landed - Social Security number, accomodation, banks accounts, cell phones and other joyous things

When I was moving here I had little knowledge about what to do beyond getting from the airport to downtown. How do you get on with life when you’ve just moved to a new country?

Well, there are a few things to sort of focus yourself in the first few weeks, including.:
1. Social Security Number
2. Renting a place
3. Getting a cell phone
4. Opening a bank account

But you have no idea where to start, who to trust, who not to trust, and you could do days of research (and probably should) but you could also read this to help you along.

1. Get yourself a social security card and number.
If you have come over with USIT then you will go to one of those SWAP orientation meetings, and they will sort out your card for you and it will be posted to your address. If you don’t have a Canadian address they will hold it for you at their offices downtown. A social security card allows you to work in Canada and is used for your employment, taxes etc.

2. Sorting out somewhere to live and furnishing it
I wrote about this a few weeks back, so scroll down to April entries for more info. Bascially though, craigslist is a pretty safe bet. If you do happen to rent an unfurnished place, craigslist is also a decent spot to buy used furniture and general stuff for the house. Of course, there are plenty of sketchy offers and you have to choose carefully but you can find some good deals. There are a lot of people contatntly on the move in and out of Vancouver (moving back to Toronto for example) and sell the entire contents of their condo. Also, garage sales are pretty big in this part of the world. Can’t say I’ve bought much at those, but each to their own.

Tip: Just so you know, most rental accom asks for one months damage desposit as well as the first months rent. Many places also ask for post dated cheques for the 12 months, so basically this is just you writing a cheque that can be cashed on the first of each month and not before it, which the owner can cash and not have to come to you each month looking for pay.

3. Getting a cell phone
Cell phones are expensive here. The main networks/carriers are:
TELUS – equivalent to O2
Koodo – owned by TELUS, but is their younger brand.
Rogers – more of a Vodafone
Fido - Owned by Rogers, but their cheap and cheerful brand. More like Meteor

From what I can tell, Fido seems to be the cheapest. I’m with TELUS but only because they used to be my client and I got a discount on an iPhone. Otherwise I would likely be with Fido.
Networks charge you for incoming calls over here, which is ridiculous. The telecoms industry seems to be quiet behind Europe in many ways, and everything is done by contract, which makes phones quite expensive.

I suggest having a phone card. They are super cheap for international calls, keeping the Irish mammy happy.


4. Opening a bank account.
Within a short time, you no doubt will be rolling in wealth and will need somewhere to keep your obscene amounts of money.
If you bank with HSBC back home, they supposedly look after transferring accounts internationally, however in practice I don’t know how accurate that is. They call themselves the world’s local bank, but from experience I think that is nothing more than a slogan crafted by a ambitious copywriter somewhere.

Canada’s big banks are:
BMO (Bank of Montreal)
Scotia Bank
RBC (Royal Bank of Canada)
TD Bank
CIBC

Banks, like cell phone companies, enjoy charging people for things that banks at home do not. (not that Irish banks are exactly the poster children of honesty). They charge for cash withdrawls from ATMs (there are certain ways around this) and a host of other excess charges.

I don’t know enough about banks over here to make any sort of suggestions about which ones are the most competitive, however, look at things like:
- Credit history. You won’t have one in Canada, so what sort of credit card limit are they prepared to negoitiate.
- AIRMILES on credit cards. What are they prepared to give? ( I know that CIBC is pretty good in this regard)
- How many transactions/withdrawls can you make per month before they start charging you


Also to consider are credit unions. Credit Unions are slightly different to the ones at home, firslty they are for-profit and are larger and very secure and offer competitive rates. Credit Unions in this part of the world include:
Vancity
Coast Capital
Westminster Savings

If I was doing it again, I would seriously consider opening my chequing account with Coast Captial. They have no charges.

Visiting other countries while in Canada on a visa

Many folks want to know if its ok to leave Canada and head to the US or elsewhere while on a working visa.
The answer is YES.

DRIVING
You need to have your passport and working visa with you. If you travel by car, you have to get out of the car at the US/Canada border and go into the office to get your green card (like when you travel to the US out of Ireland). There’s generally little hassle involved. It just adds about 30 minutes to your trip.

Driving back into Canada again you will need passport and visa. The Canadian border police are pretty decent, they want to see your visa and make sure you are legitimately entering Canada.

FLYING
No hassle flying out of Canada, returning through immigration however, they will look at your visa and likely ask you questions about what you are doing in Canada, what you are working at, and ask you what your plans are when your visa comes to an end.

We have had no hassle coming in and out of YVR (Vancouver airport) and that includes trips to the US, Europe and Mexico.

Holiday/Vacation Time.

This might not be your immediate priority when planning a move to Vancouver, but its something that we hadn’t thought much about before moving here.

In Ireland we were used to about five weeks holidays if not more. So it came as something of a shock to the system when we were told the standard is TWO WEEKS per year. I know that that’s how it works in the US, but I thought Canada might be a little more flexible.

Obvisouly some companies are more open to negotiating increased holiday time than others, but in general, they seem pretty set in their ways.

So if you are moving from the other side of the world and you use a week holiday at Christmas time to go back to your home country, that leaves you with little time to take holidays in Canada throughout the year. To be frank, this has been a real pain in the backside for us.

Incidentally though, the price of domestic air travel is pretty prohibitive anyway (I’m just full of good news in this post). Seriously though, a return flight to Toronto is about $700, and return to Calgary is about $300. So for that kind of cash you might get used to staying put on the west coast.

There’s plenty to do in this part of the world, well for at least the first year anyway.
Brief overview of close-ish road trip options as follows (including approx. travel times)

Whistler – 2 hours by car
Squamish (about 1 hour south of Whistler)
Seattle, Washington – 3.5 hours by car
Portland, Oregon – 7 hours by car
Kelowna – 5 hours by car
Vancouver Island ( need to take BC ferries) 1.5 hours
Tofino (Vancouver Island) 5 hours inc. ferry
Victoria (Capital of BC on the Island) 3.5 hours

Photos of Vancouver

Some shots of Vancouver and surrounding spots like Whistler and Tofino on Vancouver Island.

You’ve got a one year visa – what if you want to stay on?

I'm not sure about you but before I moved to Vancouver I had some pretty fixed images in my mind of what it would look like. Here are two pictures of the West End, overlooking the Pacific, where there are some pretty nice sunsets. When its not pissing rain.

Chances are twelve months in Vancouver will fly by and soon you will find yourself getting a bit scared by the expiry date on your working visa, and the foot note stating that it cannot be extended (although I think this might have changed for the 2010 USIT visa, if anyone can confirm that, let me know)

The Irish Mammys will hate me for saying it, but its easy to get pretty comfy over here. I know mine is none too happy about my being on this side of the world (they make a shite cup of tea she claims)

The year passes so quickly in this part of the world, I know that that is purely perception based, but I’m convinced that it’s to do with the fact that there are four distinct seasons in this part of the world, comapared to Ireland’s one season, the lesser known WRINGER (WINTER SPRING SUMMER rolled into one tweleve month season)

I’ll share my experience of what we did when we decided about eight months into our stay that we wanted to stay on. Our respective companies were onto us about our impending expiry dates of our visas, and fortunately, offered to sponsor us. In British Columbia there is a programme called the Provincial Nomination Programme (PNP) which is basically a form of fast tracking visas for employees in specific industries or companies.
Here is a lin that explains the programme a lot more efficiently than I could: http://www.welcomebc.ca/en/immigration/come/work/about/index.html

Most medium to large size companies have a good bit of experience in sponsoring foreign employees, their HR people will be pretty familiar with the process and likely have a lawyer that specialises in immigration law working with them to help the process along.

The net result of PNP is that you end up with Canadian residency, which means you have a residents card. After about five years of that you will be eligble to apply for Canadian citizenship. I’m pretty far from that stage, so I don’t know much about it. Other than the fact that you have to take an exam that tests you about beer and bears and maple syrup and other important Canadian things.

I’ll probably get thrown out of the country for taking the piss out of them on this blog. Better stop.

Vancouver Job Market

According to BC government statistics
(http://www.bcstats.gov.bc.ca/data/dd/handout/bccanlfs.pdf if you want to have a gander for yourself) the unemployment rate in British Columbia rose from 4.6% in 2008 to 7.6% in 2009. Specifically in Vancouver, unemployment rose from 4.3% in 2008 to 7% in 2009. These figures were released in January 2010.

I include these stats not to scare anyone but to illustrate that contrary to popular belief that Vancouver was magically immune to the global recession there were indeed many layoffs. I know this to be true from the industry I work (Communications and advertising) in in which there were many redundancies and a lovely pay freeze for most of 2009.

However, its also important to know that many redundancies occurred in very specific industries and the following link is a pretty good way of figuring out two things.
(http://www.bcstats.gov.bc.ca/data/dd/handout/EMPREGN.pdf)
1.The industries that employ the most people in Vancouver
2. The employment rate per industry for the past couple of years

So for example you can see that the numbers employed in manufacturing and construction fell in 2009 (not a massive decrease though) but there was an increase in healthcare and education. It’s a good place to start to get an idea of how the labour market is divided up.

Anecdotally speaking Vancouver’s biggest industry is tourism. There are high hopes that Vancouver and BC will attract increasing tourism post the 2010 Winter Olympics and that the province will be seen as a credible, modern tourist destination for both summer and winter vacations. To that end, many hotels were built prior to the Games as well as the Vancouver Convention Centre with the hope of attracting international conventions.

Vancouver is also a hotspot for the fim and production industry. You basically can’t walk around the city without passing through a set for a film or TV show. So careers related to that industry must be in relatively consistent demand.

A lot of jobs are in the public sector in various government bodies such as Vancity (Credit Union) BC Hydro (Hydro and Power Authority), VANOC (although that was just for the Olympics I think) CTC (Canadian Tourism Commission).

The Vancouver Sun (one of the main dailies over here) recently published this report (http://www2.canada.com/vancouversun/features/public-sector-salary-database/index.html) about public sector salaries, such as government salaries, university and college salaries, health service authority etc. Its handy to just get some insight on the various salary levels.

I will build on this post as I do more research into the various industries and have a read through stats (I like stats I’m a nerd) but I hope this is a helpful start.

I will also post some links to job sites but good old craigslist is a very reliable start. (www.craigslist.com) just to have a look around.

Vancouver versus Toronto

I hadn’t given much thought to this until somebody asked me about this a few months ago. All I can offer is my( subjective) opinion on the two cities and what makes them different.

Choosing a city to live in is a pretty big deal. You could spend a lifetime trying to decide on the merits of any one city. But if you are moving somewhere for a couple of years then its best to focus on the most immediate priorities, which for me were:

1. Can I get a job doing what I want to do?
2. Is there a decent standard of living?
3. Will I have some adventure and fun?

(Actually, I sort of made those up right now, but they did shape my decisions)

Working
Vancouver is not the capital city of Canada. Its not even close. All in, including suburbs there are about 3 million people. That’s about a 10th of the population of Canada. So, many industries are not as well represented out here as they would be in say Toronto or perhaps Ottowa. So, its about researching what you want to be doing, and finding out if it corresponds over here. I work(ed) in advertising, which although small, is a pretty decent industry in Vancouver. But for every one job in Vancouver, I’m guessing there are multiples of that available in Toronto just on the basis of the size of its industry and population.

However, I recall somebody saying to me not long after I started working in Vancouver that “if you can make it work in Vancouver then there’s no good reason not to work out here”. I tend to agree with that. I’ve been to Toronto a few times, it seems like a nice big cosmopolitan city, not unlike London or NY. But it was not the allure of a large city that I was looking for. I wanted something a bit different, and that is where Vancovuer comes in.

I believe Vancouver to be something of an anomoly when it comes to style of living. If you can work in the industry you want to be in in Vancouver(although I imagine salaries are slightly higher at the top end in Toronto), you can also enjoy the unparalled nature of this part of the world.

Lifestyle
It’s a pretty wealthy city. And even though its smaller than Toronto, property is more expensive out here, because there is less of it, and more people looking to live here. And the salaries might be less to, so you really are paying a premium to live out here.
So if you are not into the beauty of British Columbia, and you like big cities, and great nightlife and would prefer to be hungover than up on the mountain or out in the air, then you might well prefer Toronto.

Adventure and Fun
If winter sports are your thing, then you will be happy out here, There are about six mountains in driving distance for you to ski your heart out. But, don’t be naïve, its not cheap, unless you fork out a lot of cash for a seasons pass someplace, so you likely won’t be skiing every day, or every weekend (but don’t let me stop you).
Also, during the summer the beaches that wrap aroudn downtown come to life and although I don’t know how many people swim in the sea, it’s a pretty nice beach culture. Moutainbiking is another big sport over here if that sort of thing rocks your boat.

In short, from what I have experienced, Toronto is a bigger, flashier, (possibly cooler) city than Vancouver. It houses all the big businesses, award shows, film festivals, and probably has more going on. But Vancouver has its fair share of fun too (think recent Olympics for example). You are not comparing like with like when it comes to the two cities, they both offer very different things. The people are different too.

People
Who am I to try and present character profiles of the average Vancouverite versus Torontonian…

The stereotypes are:
Vancouverite: Hippy, tree-loving, organic, pseduo intellectual type, that prefers running shoes and athletic spandex clothing ( I might be wearing Lululemon pants writing this)

Torontonian: Urban, fast paced city slicker, high heals, high fashion, all business.

Obviosuly these are not insightful or accurate cross sections of society, but they might be a little bit true and might just help you get a better picture of the difference between the cities.

An insight into Vancouver neighborhoods

Places to live in Vancouver

So every few months I get an email from a friend (or friend of a friend twice removed) asking me about spots to live in Vancouver. Below is a brief, and subjective overview, of the different areas. This is not official by any means.
Some things to remember:
Vancouver is pricy and getting pricier.
• It’s a small city, very small, all neighborhoods are close to downtown.
• Despite its small size, the neighborhoods are quite diverse, each with a different character.
• This means you can kind of sniff out the spot that suits you best, whether you like shiny new apartments or more relaxed under-stated living.
• Check out craigslist, clicking on Vancouver, for all apartments. Most places are listed on craigslist and that’s how appointments and viewings are made.

YALETOWN
– Filled with lots of very tall glass skyscrapers, there is no shortage of shiny new apartments (invariably decorated with leather furniture) in Yaletown. Its not so much a neighborhood as it is a collection of buildings that people happen to live in. Its spread out quite a bit, meaning you can live right by the water with some pretty views or along the streets of the centre of Yaletown which means living in an NY style loft (think Soho on a small scale). It’s a pretty pricey spot, and the units can be really small, so its not exactly great value for money. But its ready made living, everything is close by, 15 minute walk to downtown, and its pretty safe. Furthermore, if you own a pug dog you will really fit in.
Prices start at about $1200 for a one bedroom (cheap end) but average price is in and around $1600 - $2000.
Most buildings tend to have good security, concierge, fitness facilities, and parking. It’s a comfortable sort of plush living.
If you are looking for a one-month rental when you move to Vancouver there should be plenty of ready-made spots in Yaletown.

WEST END – I’m bias because I live here, and I love it. We lived in Yaletown for the first year of our Vancouver life, but a year of going up and down to the 28th floor got a bit annoying, although you can never tire of the views of the North Shore mountains and the Pacific evening sunsets. We paid about $2000 for a one bedroom of about 800sqft, furnished, including all bills. Probably not a great bargain but the novelty of living in the sky was very exciting for two Paddys (well, he’s not really a Paddy, sort of I suppose).
A friend was moving back to Toronto and his place, a two bedroom unit in the ground floor of a heritage house in the West End on the water was up for rent.
We came, we saw, we liked, we rented. We love having our own front door that doesn’t lead onto a corridor (sounds basic, but it can be a rarity in Vancouver) but more importantly we like the vibe of the West End. It’s the gay neighborhood of Vancouver, not that means a whole lot, but the buildings are much older, and tend to be only about 4 stories high. I’m guessing a lot of the buildings were built in the 60s/70s so they can look a bit dated on the outside but on the inside the units tend to be bigger and just a bit more relaxed. The streets are proper neighborhood style, tree-lined with no shortage of skunks/raccoons/squirrels. The squirrel:human ratio is pretty much on a par.
The West End is right by Stanley park and the water at English bay, so it has a much more leafy/nature feel to the area. (Compared to the urban feel of Yaletown or the industrial feel of Gastown). Its just a chilled out, pretty, and friendly place to live with lots of shops close by. And its about 20mins on foot to downtown. You could probably get a one bed starting at $800 - $1200, or maybe less. In Dublin terms, I guess this is more Ranelagh/Rathmines....

GASTOWN – Heading out of Vancouver on the East side, Gastown didn’t really exist as a legitimate neighborhood until a few years ago (I think, I could be totally wrong, maybe ignore that). Gastown is comprised of a lot of reclaimed, redeveloped buildings, warehouses and the likes. It’s a pretty artsy sort of neighborhood, lots of hipsters, film and design based studios, people with ironic sunglasses and skinny jeans (I’m stereotyping, just to make it easier). You can pick up a pretty sweet industrial sort of loft, but there are also lots of shiny new apartments popping up (such as the new Woodwards building). Rents are getting more expensive, I’m guessing you would be looking at $1500 at the lower end. Its super close to downtown.
The centre of Gastown is pretty much Water Street and it surrounding streets.

EAST VANCOUVER – This is one of those neighborhoods that grows on you. Initially I didn’t appreciate its character. It’s a pretty cool part of town with a lot of interesting stuff going on, nice boutiques, great places to eat, cute little character houses in certain spots (around Commerical). It doesn’t have the polish of Yaletown or the sophistication of Kitsilano, but it is a very relaxed, liberal sort of neighborhood where anything goes.
East Vancouver is anywhere North of Main and 1st/2nd (be careful where though, because there is a very sketchy part of East Vancouver, known as the Downtown East Side, which is one of North America’s poorest neighborhoods, with a serious drug and homeless problem). Its very condensed to a few blocks, so you won’t end up renting there, but that said, you might not be comfortable being too close to it). The poorest part is in and around Main and Hastings. Close to Gastown.
The sweet parts of East Van, including Commerical Drive, are around Main and 10th and North of there. Its pretty funky, and my friend Meghan lives there, and she’s very funky and has nice clothes.

STATHCONA – This neighborhood didn’t really feature on my radar until recently, when I drove through it. It’s really pretty in parts, lots of cute houses being renvoted and nice gardens and little itneresing shops. Like a lot of East Vancouver areas, it suffers in reputation perhaps, due to it proximity to the Downtown East Side (DTES) but you can root out some nice spots and I expect its pretty affordable.


KITSILANO This is opposite the West End across the Water. Its futher from downtown because of the small problem of the Pacific, but you could cycle there in 20 mins or so from downtown, and who wants to live in downtown anyway?!
Kitsilano is by the sea, it’s very “Vancouver” (think lots of fit looking attractive people sipping coffee in lycra workout clothing) and its not exactly edgy. But it’s lovely and suburban and safe, and pricey. I guess it’s a utopia for middle class families, and its right by some lovely beaches and walks and shopping areas. Rents are pretty pricey though. I’m guessing $1600 onwards for one bed.


NORTH SHORE/NORTH VANCOUVER – over the bridge (going North) and across the water. More houses and apartments and shared houses and levels. Don’t know much about it, but lots of younger people and young families live over there, its cheaper and close to the mountains but further from downtown. If you want to be close(er) to the mountains and maybe are looking for something a bit cheaper (not much though) then it’s a good option. A sea bus takes commuters from the North Shore (at Langdale) across to downtown in about 10 minutes, its terribly handy. Don’t think its full of young folk, and not sure if its ideal if you like to be out late.


WEST VANCOUVER If you recently won the lotto or have a spare $16 million in your bank account, then this might be the spot for you. Its beautifully manicured, like the Beverly Hills of Vancouver in some parts, and there are more porches than you knew could exist.