The 2010 Olympic Torch Relay

This morning we went to see the Olympic Torch relay in Sechelt, BC about 30 KM out of Vancouver.   The weather was  high overcast but in BC that often means rain and we were prepared with our umbrella and the jackets we bought when we were in Alaska last year.

We bought a house here about 7 years ago.  The area has a great small town feel to it  and the atmosphere was electric.  The schools from all around the area bused their kids in to see what was going on.  There was a huge mobile stage almost made you feel like you were at a Yellow or Red rally where they had numerous well known and local entertainment. There was probably close to 6,000 not bad for a small town that has few more than that in the whole area.

They  were giving away Coke Olympic Game aluminum collectible bottles, we scored 2, posters, flags and pins (more on the pin a bit later).   My son, who is 4, had a blast with all the things they had to do.  He recorded a message in English and Thai to be shown on some website, I proceeded to misplace the URL.  He even got to hold the Olympic Torch but it was very heavy and the girl at the booth had to help him hold it up.

I had a great visit with an old friend, Pauline, who is the owner and publisher of the "The Local" newspaper while we waited on the main street outside their office for the Torch procession to start up again.  My son had a snack with some kids from a preschool nearby sitting on the rock wall and having a great time.  Then the relay started up again.  There were sound trucks, buses and  dozens of police cars.

It took only a couple of minutes and the relay passed us in a flash.  Poof it was all over and we were off to the noodle shop for lunch.   We have 2 noodle places one Vietnamese and one Chinese.   For a small town there is a huge Asian community here My wife even bumped into some Thai friends who had married Canadian guys and Sechelt is home to a huge Filipino community.  For anyone that has not been to Vancouver there are areas that are almost exclusively Chinese, or Indian, or Pakistani or Japanese, it is a very culturally diverse area  Where Cantonese is the unofficial second language way surpassing French. 

Now "THE PIN" While we were collecting stuff I thought it might be nice to have a bit of a contest for our listeners who can't get to the Olympics.  I'll write a complete blog on where you can send your entry and also put it on our website.  As soon as I setup an email address that you can use and I take some pictures of the Pin.