the next (next) thing: things that happen on holidays

most cities have jarring societal and monetary juxtapositions. Seattle very much does, but it tends to passive-aggressively pretend it doesn't. or maybe it just tries to hide everything behind a welter of earnest hand-wringing and committee-forming. or maybe our gentrification casts a more rakish and far-reaching shadow. or maybe Seattle is still, despite its most earnest puppylike intentions, a big town masquerading as a metropolis.

if appallingly stark contrasts are what defines a proper city, Vancouver BC is a proper city.

I would love to compare today's Vancouver skyline to that of 15 years ago. everything seems new: new and glossy and expensive as fuck, glass walls reflecting the sailboats in the harbor, trees erupting from rooftop gardens, every condo building named something stupid like Alto or Alight.

and if you can afford it, the living is lovely. very lovely! grape varieties I'd never heard of:

and thrift shops with class:

and more fruity towers of succulence:

and more condos:

and ridiculously delicious (deliculous?) oysters ate whilst overlooking the water and sipping a $10 cocktail:

because fuck it! how often do I get to eat pretty food like this? damn right I'm photographing it. with my iPhone, whilst dining al fresco, on a street that faces a men's grooming shoppe:

but then there's this.

if you walk a couple blocks behind where I took this from, you get to our hotel. a couple blocks the other way, you hit the cafes with the twee ampersandy names and the park with the live music and the boutiques of stark design. but for about a ten-block stretch, Vancouver proves most flagrantly that it is, if one were to adhere to the aforementioned definition, very much a city.

everyone we passed was actually quite nice, if they interacted with us at all.

and instead of moronic tags, the graffiti was of this ilk:

the purpose of traveling, ultimately, is to gain or refresh a different perspective, to feel uneasy and giddy and humbled and grateful, to make the colors brighter and the edges sharper. it was an illuminating weekend.

the view from the room: