This is my second post with “whale” in the title in as many days. This time, it’s about a grey whale that has headed up the Fraser River and could be in danger.

The young grey whale was spotted three times on Tuesday – once in Langley, B.C., and twice in New Westminster, B.C….

… [Lance] Barrett-Lennard said the whale could be spooked by all the boat traffic on the river, leaving it too disoriented to find its way back to sea.

About nine-metres-long, the young whale was first spotted Monday. If it ends up stranded for any longer than six weeks, the fresh water could damage its skin. For now, Barrett-Lennard is hoping the whale will simply feel its way back to the ocean. [Canada.com]

If spotted, public are asked to call the Vancouver Aquarium. I’m unsure of a specific number or hotline but their main line is (604) 659-3474 and you can also try their website, VanAqua.org

I hear it all the time – if you lost it on a bus, it’s gone forever. But that’s not always the case.

Translink’s got a lost and found deep in the bowels of the Chinatown/Stadium skytrain station, and in it, thousands upon thousands of lonely cell phones, blackberries gloves, hats, umbrellas, dentures and other such artefacts. I’m not entirely sure how many people know about it, but it’s there.

It was there that I went in search of my phone earlier this week, and miraculously enough, found one that was identical, lost on the same day in roughly the same area. Imagine my excitement when the first name in the phonebook was my sister’s.

Unfortunately for me, the second one was someone named Coral and I don’t know anyone at all by that name.

However, it could have just as easily been my phone. I realize that when you lose something like that your chances of ever seeing it again are pretty low, but that doesn’t mean it’s not worth a shot.

Their number is (604) 682-7887 and they don’t bite.

A few months ago the Vancouver Canucks revamped their site. They made it a pretty blue and white, incorporated this years theme ‘we are all Canucks‘ and added several new features. They’ve also ramped up the blogging, which players have been doing for the last 2 years. The ‘fan’ section of the site includes Fan Blog and Player Blog where most anyone can comment.

Something new this month, actually within the last couple of days, is Fin’s Blog. Yes, the team’s mascot, a big orca that blows steam out it’s head is blogging. Just what could a whale possibly blog about? Well his experience at the All Star game, of course.

“I had a busy Tuesday starting in the morning where I was joined with 3 other mascots, Carlton from Toronto, Sparky from New York Islanders, and Howler from Phoenix…”

“…Later in the day all the mascots attended the Red Carpet Ceremony. It was like a page out of Hollywood where the players had to walk through a carpeted plaza outdoors and signed autographs for the fans. Check it out on NHL.com…you will even see me. Roberto even came over and gave me a high fin! I saw Joe Sakic accompanied with his 2 boys. Joe told me his kids had Canuck jerseys at home….COOL!…” [FinsBlog]

rom]. Rentometer takes online listings and compares how much you’re paying to what other apartments are going for around yours.

It shows you a Google map that lets you take a look at places in your area that are both more expensive and far cheaper than where you’re currently living.

Via Metroblogging LA [bla].

photo courtesy of Vera Devera

Buddhist Temple
FREE – 9am – 5pm
9160 Steveston Hwy

This temple has been around for numerous years and is a very common tourist attraction just off of Highway 99 on Steveston Highway in Richmond. They’re open to the public year round and is home to one of Richmond’s most beautiful gardens. In fact it’s been first place for 10 years straight in the Richmond garden and landscape contest.
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photo courtesy of Jenny Spadafora

Dr Sun Yat Sen – Chinese Garden
$7.75 (with coupon) – 10am – 4pm @ 578 Carrall Street

Most people go and see this garden in the summer but it’s definitely pretty interesting to see during the winter as well. With things like “Yin Yang” Chinese painting by Leva Woo and Chinese ceramics by Robin Shaw to see (which ends on the 25th) and garden tours there’s still things to see.
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Hamilton Street Grill

Originally uploaded by mag3737.

Every Year Tourism Vancouver puts on Dine Out Vancouver [tv] which provides an oppertunity for locals and tourists alike to try some of Vancouver’s best resturants at a reasonable price. The event runs from January 19th through to February 4th. On Saturday night my girlfriend Lydia and I went to the Hamilton Street Grill [hsg].

Hamilton Street Grill
1009 Hamilton Street
Vancouver, BC V5N 2K5
Phone: 604.331.1511

Another resturant beside a comic book store? Is that a requirement for all Dine Out Vancouver joints? I’m not going to get into the frustration of trying to park in Yaletown. Had I known I’d waste fifteen minutes and end up spending $11 when Easy Park decided to charge my credit card for a full day instead of two hours I’d have just used the provided valet parking.

In my last review [mbv] I mentioned that I’m not much of a foodie writer. I find it hard to really communicate what I like about food. I don’t however find it hard to communicate what I don’t like about food and unfortunately Hamilton Street Grill wasn’t that good.

Let’s start positive before the jump.

The service was great. Due to Seinfield style mixups we were 45 minutes late for our reservations and despite being packed they were kind enough to re-schedual everything. The waiter was attentive and there was never any point where we started wondering when someone would come and pay attention to us. The wine was excellent.

Below the jump, “I know a good steak, and you sir are no good steak.”
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photo courtesy of Lili Vieira de Carvalho

Vancouver Art Gallery & Museum of Anthropology
By Donation – 5pm – 9pm
VAG @ 750 Hornby Street
MoA @ 6393 N.W. Marine Drive

Time to get cultured! What better way than a double dose. Tuesdays are the happening nights for by donation (or as much as you can afford) admission to two of Vancouver’s best cultural cubbie holes.

The current exhibit going on at the Vancouver Art Gallery is called “PAINT”. Curated by Neil Campbell it’s an exploration into some of British Columbia’s own artists and their take on paint and painting.
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In honour of my own post about Corey Haim from The Lost Boys [mbv] I’m going to present you all with a few ways to pass the time at work on this Monday in Vancouver, and they’re all going to be ’80s style.

* I always enjoyed the old classic arcade game Burger Time.  So the fact that the CBC has a flash game called Sushi Samurai [cbc] that’s an exact copy of Burger Time is super exciting.  Being made with flash it’ll play on pretty much any computer with a fairly recent web browser.  It’s the perfect way to pass sometime while reliving the 1980s’ at the same time.

The Whitecaps, Expo ’86 and some Canucks fun after the jump.
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Originally uploaded by goddess_spiral.

If I were mentioning our Metroblogging Vancouver Flickr group [mbvf] simply because it’s so long since I’ve done so this would be a worthy post. However I’m also mentioning it because I’m always incredibly impressed with the high quality of photographs that people upload to our group. There are some amazing pictures of our great city in there from over 100 different photographers. Sure there’s always my own hack photography, but trust me my efforts are few and far between when compared with some of the great shots.

If you’re someone who takes pictures of Vancouver, and has a Flickr account, why don’t you consider joining? Pictures deposited in the group get featured on our right side sidebar, and if you leave the blogging feature open we might use your picture in a blog post. (If you don’t want us blogging with your photo just close the blogging option).

So check it out. It’s Flick-tastic. Err… photo-riffic…