Originally Posted by Turquoise

Yup, dboy, you're right. I'm a Canadian living in outer London but I often pop in here as I find it interesting reading. I've been reading these threads long enough to know that dbd33 has a big hateon for Canada. I too, was wondering how long it would take him to pop in with his usual snide comments! Canada- backwards, mediocre, US light, frozen wasteland... oh, now there's dead bodies of homeless people strewn about our frozen parks! Yes, that used to be a real problem when I was living in Canada. Damn frozen bodies all over the place. Got sick and tired of tripping over them.

London itself is great and yes, there are a lot of lovely parks. When I first came here to teach, I lived and worked in Barking & Dagenham, Newham and in some areas in North and South London. Man, what sh!t holes- what an eye opener! Overcrowded, LITTER, CHAVS... we now live between Ilford and Romford- a step up but still, nothing to write home about (people at work refer to our area, Chadwell Heath, as Chavwell Heath, as they seem to be creeping into this area too). Lovely London and those nice parks (like Vancouver's beaches) might as well be in Brighton, also. My South African husband was shocked when he first started living here, also. He did some work in Tower Hamlets and Hackney and couldn't believe such crap holes existed so close to London. But unlike dbd33, I won't judge all of England, or it's people, by my conditions. Like a lot of other people, we are confined to where we live by jobs and money and your experiences are of course affected by these factors.
When I first came to England, I had the "grass is greener" syndrome. Now, while there are things I don't like about Canada, I realize now that there also is a lot to appreciate and would go home if not for hubby. I took hubby for his first trip to Canada (from Edmonton through Jasper, Banff, B.C.) and wow, so beautiful. British friends of mine live in Nova Scotia and love it; I would love to see the Maritimes one day also.
Anyways, loved dbd33's latest - try going to local parks around here, where us normal people have to live around London, and see all the hoodies with their staffies, drinking it up. I'll take the frozen bodies anyday!

Good advice from your mom, dboy!

Originally Posted by Oink

Vancouver is a lovely city which gets even lovelier in the long warm summers but my only big gripe are the beach areas. While there's a lot of them, they don't have very good amenities. I'm not talking about donkeys on the sand but it would it hurt them to put in a nice pier or a small funfair of note? We used to go to Clacton when were kids and we used have loads of fun.

See what I mean? Unless you want to watch people's floppy bits or smoke dope with the rest of the wackos on Wreck Beach here's bugger all seasidey stuff to do for kids!

Vancouver Seaside

Originally Posted by Oink

Vancouver is a lovely city which gets even lovelier in the long warm summers but my only big gripe are the beach areas. While there's a lot of them, they don't have very good amenities. I'm not talking about donkeys on the sand but it would it hurt them to put in a nice pier or a small funfair of note? We used to go to Clacton when were kids and we used have loads of fun.

See what I mean? Unless you want to watch people's floppy bits or smoke dope with the rest of the wackos on Wreck Beach here's bugger all seasidey stuff to do for kids!

Vancouver Seaside

Originally Posted by dbd33

What are the beach huts like? Are they bigger than sheds?

Originally Posted by Novocastrian

An interesting quote from the comments section in your webcam link...

"For the last hour or so, despite it absolutely pouring with rain, Sunset Beach las looked white and snowy. Any ideas what’s going on? Would love to know!"

Originally Posted by Oink

Vancouver is a lovely city which gets even lovelier in the long warm summers but my only big gripe are the beach areas. While there's a lot of them, they don't have very good amenities. I'm not talking about donkeys on the sand but it would it hurt them to put in a nice pier or a small funfair of note? We used to go to Clacton when were kids and we used have loads of fun.

See what I mean? Unless you want to watch people's floppy bits or smoke dope with the rest of the wackos on Wreck Beach here's bugger all seasidey stuff to do for kids!

Vancouver Seaside

Originally Posted by Oink

I think the clue there was that comment was made a month ago.

Originally Posted by Alan2005

They do have a crap concession near the lido which is nearly on a par with those pink/white stripy huts you get on beaches in the UK. They could turn that bit at the bottom of denman into amusement arcades although I think it's being turned into yet another cactus club or something; yeah that's what the city needs - another bland "modern west coast" food outlet serving the same stuff as all the others.

Originally Posted by lmartin999

http://www.uk-beachhuts.co.uk/beach_hut_for_sale.html

They don't sit around long though so keep checking the link if you're interested. I reckon Southwold beats Vancouver hands down. Adnams brewery and a good view of Sizewell on a nice day.

Originally Posted by Alan2005

Whilst I think "defiantly agreeing" is quite appropriate in this thread I think you might need a bigger sample size.

Originally Posted by stacey.cook1

yeah I see where your coming from but on the flip side, no pier or funfair equals not putting your hand in your pocket every five minutes to win that one eyed bear in the grabby machine, and also whatever happened to a good old bucket and spade? hours of entertainment right there I tell ya!!!

Originally Posted by tracys

Totally agree with this. In fact I prefer beaches I've been to in Canada because they don't have all the commercial stuff which costs an arm and a leg and spoils the beauty of the place IMO.

I like the natural unspoilt quality of Canadian beaches though I would not say they are the most breathtakingly beautiful I have ever seen.

The only thing I missed were proper loos, can't be doing with the "long drop" toilets

Originally Posted by Oink

There's plenty of wildness type beaches up the Sunshine Coast, but we've had the Olympics now and there's no going back. If we want to be a world class city then we need a pier.

Originally Posted by Oink

There's plenty of wildness type beaches up the Sunshine Coast, but we've had the Olympics now and there's no going back. If we want to be a world class city then we need a pier.