Lately I’ve been finding myself visiting the Vancouver area more and more frequently. As with all my adventures, I’m never without my trusty camera, photographing pretty much well anything.

Just like last year, I’ll be splitting up my posts into various categories, and I have quite a lot that I’m very excited to share with all of you!

For the time being however, this post will be a random collection of everything else that didn’t really fit into any particular category, and it begins with this.

“What the heck is this?” were my exact words when I went to go pick up our rental car. We had asked for a full sized sedan and were told we’d get a “Toyota Camry or similar”. Perfect. This on the other hand? This is like a mini mini van.

It’s actually a Mazda 5 which as it turns out is classified as a full sized sedan. It’s also a six seater! In the end I really enjoyed it for the long drives that we had to endure. Who would’ve guessed?

We decided to take the long way to Vancouver by going through Calgary and Banff. I lived in Calgary for eight months but this was the first time that I had been by Olympic Park. Did you know you can ride a luge there?!

Somewhere along the way we spotted a small group of deer out on a dried out riverbed. Of course we had to pull over so that I could quickly snap some pictures. There also happened to what appeared to be a Chinese tour group that had also stopped to pull out their cameras. They also apparently had no idea who they were traveling with as a few of them had thought that I was in their group. Before anyone says it, no we do not all look alike!

During a quick pit stop, we ran into a lady who had both her dogs out for a short walk.

This poor little guy was found in a dumpster with only three legs, so they’re not entirely sure what the story is behind him. In any case they decided to give the pup a home. Faith in humanity restored!

Her other dog had a little trick where he would stand straight up on his hind legs and stay standing for quite some time. I can’t help but wonder if he ever does this to mock the other dog.

Unfortunately a bone stock Mazda 5 doesn’t really make a whole lot of noise when you step on the gas. So much for tunnel blasting.

Earlier this year, BC government had decided to finally raise the speed limits on a number of their highways up to 120KMPH. Hurray BC government!

One thing to note however is that they did not lower the speed limit at all when you reached the mountain roads. I may have to make the long drive out in my Integra to do some legal touge one of these days!

Green and blue Domo’s? Not sure if legit…

…but look there’s purple and orange ones too, and even a yellow one peeking out in the corner!

Don’t you hate it when the capsule machines have something on display but not available for purchase?

While visiting some relatives, we happen to come across a very ancient cash register, and I mean like ancient!

Apparently they bought it just for fun and now it’s just been sitting on their balcony for forever.

I wouldn’t even know where to begin, but nevertheless still pretty cool!

I’m not even sure what to say about this.

The folks over at Gacha Hobbies always have the coolest things.

It’s really too bad that 3DSXL’s are region locked these days, unlike the original DS.

They have way cooler looking versions over in Japan! Not entirely useless over here in North America though.

Over at Aberdeen Center they had some crazy Godzilla sized gigantic bug display.

Pretty neat but wow am I ever glad that bugs aren’t actually this big. Starship Troopers anyone?

A few of the enormous bugs even moved as well!

Oh and if you haven’t lost your appetite yet then you could also fill up on some, er, bugs. Not ones that have been trapped inside a colorful lollipop for you to suck on all day, but rather just straight up living bugs.

Holy awesome!

While we’re at Aberdeen Center, I’d like to show you all a few questionable design flaws that I happen to run into, such as this short staircase that leads to absolutely nowhere.

On the fourth floor of the parkade is this one way door that, if you’re coming from the parking lot, will leave you trapped inside the stairwell.

“That’s okay, I wanted to go inside the mall anyways!” you might say to yourself. Nope! Your only choice from here is to go down the stairs until you find a door that you can actually open and start again on a different level.

Like seriously, whose genius idea was this?!

As cool as Nano Blocks look, it is incredibly difficult to build then unless you have fingers the size of ants. Actually come to think of it, ants would probably have an easier time building these than most people.

I’m sure League Of Legends fans will appreciate this. Boom Boom baby!

Of course I couldn’t go to Vancouver without at least stopping by one of my favourite spots.

Seems legit.

Over at Crescent Rock Naturalist Beach, you can find lots of tiny little crabs roaming the beach!

This is my first time seeing starfish here however.

Sadly there was no intricate graffiti this time along.

Holy crap there’s an IGA out here!

I didn’t take a whole lot of pictures at White Rock this time as I wanted to just enjoy a nice relaxing walk along the shore. I also had some of the biggest fish and chips in my life here.

A super shaggy but happy looking dog.

The “L” Stands For Value!

I spotted this notebook in a store and really enjoyed its simple yet effective design.

China Town has dragons on their lampposts. Awesome.

I don’t know the name of the area I was in, but there was some interesting graffiti plastered in various spots.

You can’t tell from this pic because of the way I shot it, but this little devil is actually pretty hard to see initially in person. It’s painted in a tiny little hole almost so that it spends most of the day in the shade. Very cool.

Another one of my favourite places to visit, Granville Island!

There’s always lots neat little things to find here, and it’s difficult to not spend all your money on every cute little thing you see either.

Macaroon phone charms!

Some more phone charms, this time in the shape of some hand-made Totoro ones!

That’s deep.

This is just another one of those things that I regret not buying. Oh well, maybe next time.

It’s a little hard to see, but these are pencil crayons with multiple colors on a single lead!

More shopping continues at the Richmond Night Market!

For the most part, the majority of the vendors were the same as last here, but there were still a few new things that I found pretty cool…

…such as this corkboard with a robot on it!

I have never seen so many different variations of the Fuji Instax Mini film before.

For those who haven’t heard, Sanrio (spoiler alert) has recently announced that Hello Kitty is not actually a cat. Mind = blown.

On a slightly related note, I absolutely loved these shirts.

And it just kept going…

…and going!

As always, there were some gigantic plushies to be won at the games such as this rather large Ultraman…

…and this rather soft looking Pooh! Oh the alien from Toy Story and Rikkuman were there too.

Okay as a photographer I must say, this is pretty awesome!

That’s all for now folks, but stay tuned as I will have many more posts on the way. Make sure to check out the Flickr link below for more photos!

-brandon.

Click HERE to view the full photo set on Flickr.