It’s been six years since the City of Vancouver began its expanded food cart program and there are now over 100 food trucks, carts, and vendors selling convenient, diverse, and delicious food on Vancouver streets. Whether you have a favourite lunchtime truck or one dish you’ve been eyeing on Instagram for months, you can check out 20 vendors all in one place at Street Food City during Dine Out Vancouver.
Street Food City
Presented by Tourism Vancouver, Street Food Vancouver Society, and the Downtown Vancouver BIA, Street Food City runs January 16 to 24, 2016 at the Vancouver Art Gallery’s North Plaza. There is no cost of admission. Hours are 11:00am to 5:00pm Saturdays and Sundays; 11:00am to 3:00pm Monday through Friday.
Tents and tables will be setup along with music for outdoor diners. Special Dine Out Vancouver creations and pricing will be available. Follow Dine Out Vancouver on Twitter and Facebook for more information about this event and hundreds of dining options throughout the festival this year.
For every city John and I visit, we enter at least one museum. In the spring it was the Concord Museum in Massachusetts (with artifacts from writers like Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau), then it was the The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York (where we looked up a painting by Iowa artist Grant Wood), we’ve visited the Neon Museum in Las Vegas, and the SPARK Museum of Electrical Invention in Bellingham — just to name a few. One place we always make a point of visiting in Seattle is the EMP, which featured music, Sci-Fi, and pop culture exhibits. This venue and many more are included in Seattle Museum Month.
Seattle Museum Month
Throughout the month of February, guests at 59 participating downtown Seattle hotels will have access to 50% discounts at more than 40 participating museums, including several of the region’s most noteworthy 2016 exhibitions. Your hotel will give you a pass and check-in to explore the following places:
EMP Museum
NW Seaport*
Milepost 31*
USS Turner Joy
Museum of Flight
Museum of Glass
Seattle Aquarium
Frye Art Museum*
Henry Art Gallery
Seattle Art Museum
Steamer Virginia V*
Woodland Park Zoo
Bellevue Arts Museum
Job Carr Cabin Museum*
Kids Discovery Museum
Kitsap History Museum
LeMay Family Collection
Chihuly Garden and Glass
Living Computer Museum
Naval Undersea Museum*
Nordic Heritage Museum |
Seattle Pinball Museum
Olympic Sculpture Park*
Pacific Bonsai Museum*
Pacific Science Center
Puget Sound Navy Museum*
Seattle Asian Art Museum
Northwest Railway Museum*
Shoreline Historical Museum*
The Center for Wooden Boats*
Valentinetti Puppet Museum*
LeMay – America’s Car Museum
Washington State History Museum
Northwest African American Museum
Museum of History & Industry (MOHAI)
Bainbridge Island Museum of Art*
Daybreak Star Indian Cultural Center*
Klondike Gold Rush National Historic Park*
Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Visitor Center*
Wing Luke Museum of the Asian Pacific American Experience
* = Free Admission |
We’re usually in Seattle for a show, a ball game, or a soccer game, but there’s a lot of arts and culture to explore. From pinball and wooden boats, to history, arts, and puppets, Seattle’s museum collection is diverse. Follow Visit Seattle on Twitter and Facebook for more information.
The offers are valid for guests staying at one of 59 participating downtown Seattle hotels. Guests must present an official Seattle Museum Month guest pass at participating museums to redeem the discounts; these discounts will be valid for all guests staying in the hotel room (not to exceed four people) during hotel stay dates.
It has been the soundtrack to sleepovers, road trips, and pool parties for almost thirty years. With that kind of pressure, and a lot of anticipation, Dirty Dancing premiered on stage in Vancouver and left even the biggest super-fans extremely happy.
Dirty Dancing on Stage in Vancouver
Opening at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre earlier this week, I was delighted to see how well the classic 1987 film translated from screen to stage — it’s as though it was meant to be performed on stage all along. Vibrant costumes, toe-tapping musical numbers, and the soundtrack everyone knows the words to.
I could tell that many excited patrons, who posed for photos next to the show poster in the lobby of the theatre ahead of time, were cautiously optimistic: Would this production live up to the cinematic version they loved so much?
When the show began it felt like I was at a Las Vegas cabaret, with the crowd hollering and clapping even before the performers appeared on stage. The live band, which also played the band in the show, was dressed the part. The costumes, both prim and proper 1963 attire for respectable young men and women, and the bombshell dance outfits, were brilliant on stage and under the lights.
My friend Keira, who watched her VHS copy countless times growing up, said that even the casting was perfect. Just by browsing head shots in the program ahead of time she knew who the actors were portraying. Their looks were spot on as were their performances (like Ryan Jesse as Neil Kellerman). Although there will never be another Patrick Swayze, the crowd sure did love Christopher Tierney as Johnny Castle.
As for me, I was smitten with Jenny Winton as Penny, but there were so many standouts, it was a great ensemble. Live singing by Adrienne Walker (Elizabeth) and Doug Carpenter (Billy) just brought that much more life to an already animated performance.
The show did a great job of not taking itself too seriously, while still delivering unique effects and a quality production – from bright golf course and dining room scenes to the sultry secluded employee dance cabin numbers. The audience clapped along with musical numbers, cheered aloud when favourite lines were delivered, and I swear I heard several people sing along to Kellerman’s Anthem.
Dirty Dancing is on stage at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre until January 17, 2016. Tickets are available through Ticketmaster online. Performances run Tuesday through Saturday evenings at 8:00pm, Sunday evening at 7:30pm with Saturday and Sunday matinees at 2:00pm.
It’s great for date night, girls night, or simply a fun night out. Make sure you pose in the photo booth with some of your favourite quotes from the show too.
Follow Broadway Across Canada on Twitter and Facebook for more information about their shows coming to Vancouver in 2015-2016.
Not a day goes by that I don’t see an Emerson or Thoreau quote on Instagram. “Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.”; “Live in the sunshine, swim the sea, drink the wild air.”; and one of my favourites:
Concord, Massachusetts is home to one of the largest collections of Americana in the country, along with artifacts from distinguished writers and thinkers during the American literary renaissance. Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne, Alcott, all called Concord home.
For this reason, John and I planned a day trip to Concord from Boston when we were visiting the East Coast last spring. He’s a fan of American Revolutionary history and I’m a fan of American literature and the Transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century — and it was a nice break from all the craft beer and baseball.
This New England town has so much history, and we barely scratched the surface, but here’s what we were able to do in one afternoon:
Getting to Concord from Boston
We were staying in Downtown Boston, right near the Boston Common. We took the Red Line T from Park Street Station to Porter Square Station (15 minutes, using our $16 7-day Charlie Tickets). At Porter, we upgraded our transit ticket and hopped on the purple Fitchburg commuter rail line, getting off at Concord (35 minutes).
Concord Museum
From the train station we walked for 15 minutes to get to the Concord Museum, passing Emerson Playground, Thoreau Court, and Walden Street. Entry to the museum is $15 for adults and it includes admission to their six-gallery exhibition and their seasonal exhibits upstairs (The Art of Baseball was on when we visited).
Founded by English settlers in 1635, Concord was the first inland town in Massachusetts, an advanced outpost of Puritan civilization in an area occupied by Native Americans for centuries. Over a century later, as the site of the battle of April 19, 1775 between Minutemen and Redcoats at the North Bridge, Concord was the birthplace of the Revolutionary War. In the mid-nineteenth century, the community became the center of an intellectual revolution that remade American literature and thought. Concord was the site of Henry D. Thoreau’s experiment in independent living at Walden Pond and the base from which Ralph Waldo Emerson preached his philosophy of self-reliance.
The museum contains national treasures like the famous lantern hung in the steeple on the night of Paul Revere’s ride in 1775, the contents of Henry David Thoreau’s house at Walden Pond, including the desk on which he wrote “Civil Disobedience” and Walden, and Ralph Waldo Emerson’s study, where he wrote his influential essays and met with other distinguished writers and thinkers during the American literary renaissance.
Alcott House
From the Concord Museum you can walk over to Louisa May Alcott’s Orchard House, home of “Little Women”, which is accessible only by a daily guided tour. It is located just half a mile from the museum so it’s easy to visit both in the same day.
Emerson House
Ralph Waldo Emerson House is across the street from the museum (300 feet away). In this home, Emerson raised his family and composed his most important written works, including the final draft of his groundbreaking essay Nature in 1836 and Self Reliance in 1841.
Sleepy Hollow Cemetery
After stopping at the Main Street Market & Cafe in the centre of Concord for some lemonade, we walked up to the Sleepy Hollow Cemetery to pay our respects to some great American authors.
The cemetery is a 15 minute walk from the Concord Museum, and about 8 minutes from the market. Walking past houses, each with a plaque out front to tell you just how much history was contained within, we headed uphill to the gates of Sleepy Hollow. This is a pilgrimage that many people around the world have made before. A sign off the parking lot directs visitors to points of interest, including Authors’ Ridge, where we were headed.
Surrounded by trees, on a ridge above a ravine drop-off, we walked up a set of stone steps and found the final resting place of Louisa May Alcott’s family, the Thoreau family, Nathaniel and Sophia Hawthorne, and more. Offerings of pencils and pens were left at the headstones of Louisa, Nathaniel, as well as at the base of a small stone, no taller than a book cover, that simply said: “Henry”.
Just below the ridge was a rough marble boulder, as tall as me, featuring Ralph Waldo Emerson’s gravestone. It was adorned with coins from others who had visited before us.
Old North Bridge
Departing the cemetery, we walked for 20 minutes over to Minute Man National Park.
We passed the Concord Battleground, the Old Manse, and went right up to the Old North Bridge where, on April 19, 1775, the American Revolution began. It is where the first shots were fired between the British red coats and the colonial militia (Minute Men) and where Emerson coined the term: “The Shot Heard Round the World.”
Next time we visit:
Getting Around
We loved the train adventure, and our transit cost was $11.15 each for the day, but next time we’ll get a ZipCar or rent a car for the day so that we can get to a few more places in Concord that we couldn’t reach on foot in the amount of time we had. There are bike tours available in Concord but from what I have found online, they no longer offer rentals with the tour packages, which would otherwise have been perfect for us.
Walden Pond
We missed the Emerson-Thoreau Amble, which takes you from from Heywood Meadow on Lexington Road to Walden Pond, basically between Emerson’s house and Thoreau’s cabin. Cutting through woods, wetlands, and fields, it opened in 2013 and I just didn’t know it was there until we got home. We should have walked this path between the Concord Museum and Walden Pond, as I previously thought the only way to get there was via the Turnpike, but of course there would be a walking path here. It’s 1.7 miles long (2.7km).
Other activities John and I got up to in Boston were touring the Harpoon Brewery, sipping morning coffees while walking around the Common, drinks in Harvard Square, eating cannoli in the North End, and taking in a Red Sox game.
