adventures in V-town cont'd

last night cruised around on davie street for awhile & ate dinner there. a very international mix of options.

today slept in and then, since the art museum is closed on several floors for work, travelled directly to chinatown and walked about-- I like it much more than I like the chinatown in S-town. from there to the police museum, was not expecting a ton of interest, but was pleasantly surprised by an extensive and gory autopsy room, a history of violent unsolved and solved crime in vancouver (the "babes in the wood" murder of two young boys in stanley park, for example... or the man who killed his wife over time by giving her arsenic-laced white spot milkshakes, and more, along with forensic materials & procedures and various other crime apparati. The illegal weapons part was also interesting, the sorts of implements of torture you'd see in Xena.) I also liked the exhibition about policewomen and the evolving role of the policewomen over time, replete with pictures. this trip has been great so far in terms of girls in uniform. The police museum also sold handcuffs, but I decided to put that off. I didn't spend much time in the fake slammer, but in general the museum was fun.

From there, went to Commercial Drive and walked the entirety of that and then back up again, stopping for coffee, and when I felt like I needed to sit down for a bit, stopped to get a haircut and now my head is lighter with four or five inches of hair gotten rid of. I do like this Canadian accent, but in general there's so much of an international population that I've only come across that accent a handful of times.

Then I returned to where I'm staying and stopped to shop along the way. It's a great time to shop, because they're having their winter clearance sales and I was able to find an outfit, the best part of which is a versatile purple blouse. I was too afraid to go much further than one outfit without an objective fashion consultant on hand. that, and I couldn't put myself through much more shopping.

public transportation is great, it's been fine to leave the automobile in the locked & gated parking garage where I've been staying.

Now reading Pamuk's The White Castle.
I guess I'll be driving out tomorrow, maybe stopping at the suspended bridges and treehouse community or in victoria along the way. with more time, perhaps a night in victoria could be fun. In other news, enjoyed this interesting news story on my google reader. I didn't know my new work was enconomist material quite yet, and was pleasantly surprised by that.