I bumped into the Nitobe Memorial Garden on my way from the bus terminal to the Museum of Anthropology, at the tip of Vancouver, at the University of British Columbia.  The sun stayed out, and I had the garden to myself.  Later I found out it is a traditional Japanese design, for Tea & Stroll.

Outside the garden hung the Pacific Bell.  Masahiko Katori built it, it symbolizes ocean-stretched peace, between Canada & Japan.

Downtown in Vancouver, Taiwanese + Canadian artists paired to construct a light village for LunarFest 2010. I love the lantern forest, the totem poles, and abstract chickens too.  Happy Chinese New Year!

Lots of great signs in Vancouver — note that the Canada Post boxes are the best I’ve ever seen, that dogs are not strangers but roller skates are, and that (below) Vancouver pickpockets are the best in the world.  Though that final assertion is under review.

At Gravity Pope, on the main 4th Avenue stretch of Vancouver’s Kitsilano, there was a Shoe Sale – Art Exhibition on Thursday night.  The art – Jessica Romberg’s Olympic Gold faces — on the wall and popping up from between the Gravity Pope leather shoes.

Canadian nationalism, it’s everywhere, it’s Olympic, and most charmingly, it’s all in Red + White.  After the latest Almodovar film, I cannot resist that color pairing, no matter how unpatriotic it makes me.

Vancouver has turned blue + green, welcoming the Olympic world next week, but there’s plenty of red & white mapleleafs around town too.  Lots of shop windows downtown near Seymour Street, all of them filled with very well-lit nationalist (and usually headless) Canadians.