tantramar

Books And Magazines Galore In Vancouver

I think this is my last post from my Canada trip. I lost the pictures so that’s why it’s so late. This book shop in Vancouver needs to be seen to be believed. They had crazy amounts of books and comics and magazines in there.

Upstairs were the books and downstairs were the old magazines. I’ve never seen this many magazines. Stuff from the 1900s onwards. Some titles they had back issues spanning 50 years. Plus it’s not that expensive.

I took five or six items to the till and I was informed it would work out cheaper if I bought two more things. So I got two other books and the whole lot came to less than the total for the five books. I’m not totally sure how they made money out of this! There were also several fat cats sleeping on piles of old 60s magazines, which I always find kinda charming. Why don’t you get that in England?

Calgary Mural

I saw this in Calgary…Crazy. I think there should be more murals this surreal.

Miss Italia Sign

This is from a little restaurant in Jasper in Canada. They do a good breakfast, but if you’re go looking for Miss Italia you’ll be sorely disappointed. Check the painting of the vegetables. Nice.

Cheap Rum Sign

So there you are, driving along (in Calgary) thinking I’m kinda thirsty. Then you see a huge sign by the side of the road advertising cheap rum that you can buy without even getting out of your car.... How is this a good idea? Generally Canadians are quite bright. Nice sign though.

Recordland, Calgary

Recordland scared me. I think it would take me a week to go through it. This is the silliest record shop I’ve been into. It was on the outskirts of Calgary opposite a dodgy Harley Davidson diner that actually had pretty tasty grub. As you can see from the pictures there were sections for bands that really don’t need sections - Foreigner - c’mon. They had multiple copies of albums I’d never even seen before. Sweet but deadly.

Flaky Sign

Another sign. See, I told you I like these. This one from Calgary has past its sell by date. I wondered why ‘The Last Day’ part was so fresh, when the other part had crumbled away so entirely. There’s a certain charm in the way it’s decaying.

The Perfect Seat

Sometimes you see something and just go, ‘that’s just right’. This was one of those occasions. That little cut at the back of the seat is perfect for boys doing a number 1, probably not so good for girls, but then I wouldn’t know about that. I saw this in a home brew pub in Jasper, Canada, and then I saw it again and again and again. Nice Beer.

Canada’s Mobile Drug Unit

There’s quite a public drug problem in Canada.

Crackheads walk around the streets in many of the major cities panhandling for change and generally pissing off anyone who gets within begging distance. They all seem to stay routed to certain streets, so obviously their scores come to them. I spent a good few seconds considering whether some dude serviced the entire neighbourhood and then I saw this bike and everything clicked.