Today, I arrived at the seniors centre at 10:30, put on a pot of coffee, and filled the dishwasher ... I called Flora and Linda to say coffee's on and they arrived at 10:45 ... hmm, this seems to get them here on time !! Flora's friend Brian joined us and later my daughter Kristl (she is practising to be a senior today) ...
We caught the #20 bus to Robson and Seymour Streets and walked to Georgia and Howe past the Georgia Hotel which was not open because of construction of a residential tower ... at the Hornby Street corner, I pointed out the HSBC pendulum gallery behind glass walls ... the pendulum was not swinging today, but a brass plaque indicated that it was designed by Alan Storey of Summerland BC ... the pendulum is 90 feet long, suspended from the glass ceiling to about 10 feet above the ground floor ... hydraulically controlleld, it swings 20 feet distance barely contacting a similar pillar mounted on the floor ...
The Four Seasons Hotel displayed Christmas trees on two levels ... this year is the 25th anniversary of the christmas tree charity drive and many organizations and corporations decorated trees with their own themes: the Recycling Depot's tree was covered in empty pop cans; another tree was mounted in a bathtub with rubber boots on the feet and rubber ducks of various sizes on the tree; one tree was covered in multi-colored blossoms, another in autumn leaves with gold, orange and red ornaments; several trees featured toys as the main theme; Children's Hospital tree was hung with photos of babies who received medical care at the hospital; BC Hydro's tree included tiny knitted sweaters hanging on clothes lines with wooden clothes pegs; the architectural theme of one tree included pencils and drafting stencils, the tree skirt consisting of architect's floor plans ... many other trees were beautifully simple in color themes such as blue and silver or purple and gold with ribbons and balls, or handmade ornaments made of recycled materials by young children ...
Next we visited the Vancouver Hotel with uniform sized trees lining the full length of the lobby, covered in multi-colored LED lights ... the Hyatt Hotel had displays of gingerbread houses, towns, Vancouver schools, several depictions of the Eiffel Tower, a Paris city street, Whoville [from the movie "The Grinch Who Stole Christmas"]; a map of Canada with plasticine characters and ornaments depicting the different regions of the country - a skier for BC, a giant snowball for Labrador ... one of the smaller displays was a two-storey dining room complete with tiny dishes filled with miniature food items, imprints of gingerbread men were on the walls and the roof tiles were thin chocolate bakers discs ... the largest display was 15 feet high and 20 feet long: the front of a life-size gingerbread house with deep overhanging eaves behind a white picket fence ... some of the ingredients used to build this 'giant' gingerbread house were 1400 eggs, 30 kg of icing sugar, 16 kg of pastry flour, 4 kg of molasses as well as several kilograms of a few secret items to add flavour ...
From the Hyatt, we walked through a light rain to the Pan Pacific Hotel only to find the ground floor lobby empty ... an attendant told us no display was set up this year due to construction of the new 2010 Conference Centre beside Canada Place ... we caught the skytrain at Burrard Station to return to the Drive ...
Contributor Virginia B
Photos by Laurette V
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