Whispers from the Edge of the Rainforest: More Olympic Photos

Thursday, February 11, 2010

More Olympic Photos

Well, as you can see by the countdown clock above there is only a day and a bit to go before the Olympics are here. Lots of pics from Wednesday for you. It was the 2nd Dress Rehearsal today for the Opening Ceremonies and Vancouver did not disappoint as it pissed rain on the attendees.

As you can see in this next photo, the Olympics are most certainly grouped according to class. There are the entrances for the common folk. Then the Olympic 'Family' (meaning VIPs) have their own private entrances.

This next photo was taken on Tuesday and shows one of the Live City sites. These are free celebrations put on by the City of Vancouver. This first one is by the near the Vancouver Post office...

And the second one is down on the water in Yaletown. There will be some evening pictures of this in a moment...

Inside Live City Yaletown is the Samsung Pavilion which opened Wednesday...

Numerous dignitaries were on hand. Here the Premier of British Columbia, Gordon Campbell, is shown (scarf and silver hair).

In this next pic, on the far left is the head of the Vancouver Organizing Committee John Furlong. Next to him is Jacques Rogge, head of the International Olympic Committee...

Even Wayne Gretzky made an appearance...

The entrances to all the outdoor celebrations have their own stringent security too. Here, at the Live City Yaletown entrance you can see the airport style metal detectors everyone must pass though - even for free events...

At night, Live City Yaletown has it's own set of spotlights to compete with the Vector Lightshow by the Burrard Bridge I showed you the other day...

Speaking of the Vector Lightshow, the cloudy night (the rain had mercifully stopped) made a spooky canvas for the spotlights above the downtown hi-rises...

There is a ton of the world's media on hand. You can't walk very far without seeing media somewhere. It's not a great picture, but this is Bob Costas from NBC Sports...

Not sure who this dude is, but I was walking past the Opus hotel's Elixir Restaurant and I spied him doing a broadcast...

Stopped to chat with this pair just above the Robson Street outdoor ice rink. They are from San Francisco...

At the other end of Robson Street is where Global TV is set up. That's local sportscaster Squire Barnes getting ready for his airtime...

And as if traffic wasn't f*cked up enough, CTV has got their local onsite broadcast booth set up in two west bound lanes of traffic on Robson Street just before Burrard...

Stopped and chatted with this crew. They are from South Korea...

A portent of things to come? This is the new Canada Line Skytrain station in Yaletown after the Dress Rehearsal ended. Normally people would enter the station in the front. There are so many people at this one station that staff is blocking the entrance and having the people loop around the station and enter on the side. The line up will snake down Davie towards Pacific Boulevard. And this after only a rehearsal with 30,000 attendees...

It's awesome to see the city getting swept up in the excitement. Here one balcony has the rings on display (wonder if VANOC will be knocking on their door soon?). Restaurants all over are also festooned with Canadian flags...

This is Irish House...

And the Art Gallery is draped with these oddly Hawaiian canvases. A subliminal message about all the warm rain in the Spring... er... Winter Olympics perhaps?

The steps of Robson Square have these neat stickers which form a mural from a distance...

Now... had to show you this. Enlarge the pic and read the writing on the window and you will see that some clown is apparently going to live in the Urban Barn 24/7 and be on display during the Olympics. I wonder if he likes to lounge around in the nude after store hours?

The entertainment district on Granville street is finished it's makeover and is decorated with lighted poles. It looks impressive...

Granville Street north of Robson has been taken over by a collection of bizzare street art including lantern trees, lighted totem poles and generally weird stuff...