West End Girl

I finally got around to taking some more pictures of my neighbourhood! I think it is such a pretty area, and a great location too. I'm surprised it doesn't cost more to live here. It's not cheap but it's about the same as living in central Wellington, even taking into account the exchange rate.

This is my apartment building - it's pink! It's not much to look at from the outside but inside it's pretty cool. The hallways are old and dark and smell funny, but our apartment (I'm sharing with a girl from Toronto) is nice.

These pics are from my walk to work:

You can just see the sea and the mountains at this point.

Now we're changing from quiet suburbia to busy central city. I turn right at this intersection onto the famous shopping street Robson and continue another 10 mins through downtown to get to the office where I'm temping.

Some more images from the 'hood:

There are no garages opening onto the streets because they're all tucked away out of sight in these mid-block alleys. They seem safe enough - there's no reason to use them unless you're accessing your vehicle. The "bottlers" a.k.a. "trash divers" also push their shopping trolleys along them at all hours while looking out for bottles and cans to return for a few cents.

Two blocks north from my place is busy Denman St, with lots of little restaurants (Japanese, Greek, Malaysian, Thai, Indian, plus lots of places to get pizza and burgers) and neighbourhood stores, as well as the ever-present coffee chains.

Continuing along Denman you eventually get to the beach! English Bay Beach, only 5 mins walk from my place. Did I mention I love my location??

I took these photos earlier in the week on a nice sunny day. The rain has eased off and we've had 3 beautiful days of sunshine in a row! Seems like summer is finally here.

This week I had a visit from my friend Katrina, who lives in San Diego. More on that in my next post!