One more reason to visit Gibsons, B.C.

Okay, I'll admit that part of the reason I was excited about visiting Gibsons, British Columbia, was the chance to check out the place where a hoary old CBC-TV series called "The Beachcombers" was filmed. Weirdly, I didn't even like the show when it aired from 1972 to 1990. It's just that Canada has precious few famous TV sites, so it was kind of cool to see one.

And yes, indeed, you can still visit some of the sites made famous by the 1970s show, including a revamped version of a restaurant called Molly's Reach. But there are many more reasons to visit Gibsons: it has lovely art galleries and craft shops, some unpretentious restaurants (we checked out a highly recommended one called Smitty's Oyster House, but didn't have time to eat there) and one of the most gorgeous little harbours you're likely to see anywhere.

This week, Gibsons gained one new claim to fame: it was just judged the world's most liveable city (population 20,000 or under) in the International Awards for Liveable Communities (LivCom), held in Pilsen, Czech Republic.

The city of 4,000 on B.C.'s Sunshine Coast, about 45 minutes from West Vancouver, had to excel in six criteria: Enhancement of the Landscape, Heritage Management, Environmentally Sensitive Practices, Community Sustainability, Healthy Lifestyles and Planning for the Future.

I don't know much about the deep details of Gibsons' municipal environmental management, to be honest, aside from the fact that a waterfront condo development proposal recently ignited a firestorm of debate (see my article about the Sunshine Coast for Legion magazine). But I do know that it's a mighty pleasant place to roam around--even though you won't run into the late actor Bruno Gerussi.

Disclosure: I travelled to the Sunshine Coast as a guest of the Vancouver Coast & Mountains Tourism Region.

Many forms of worship in Richmond, B.C.

I'm sure most of you who have been to Europe have done some part of the "famous old churches" circuit. Westminster Abbey? Been there. Notre-Dame? Seen it. Lovely as they are, once you've seen 10 of them, they all start to blur together a bit.

Another problem with some of Europe's historic churches is that they seem more like museums than places of worship. You get the sense that much of the life bled out of them centuries ago.

Not so in the temples, mosques and gurdwaras of Richmond, British Columbia, a booming Vancouver suburb. Since 60 per cent of the city's residents come from Asia, Richmond is awash in places of worship of every description. Many of these buildings--some quite grandiose--are far from museums. And, best of all, many are open to the public. On a recent trip to Richmond, I visited four of them with a group of other writers.

The most sedate of the four structures was the first stop, the Richmond Jamia Mosque. Signs all over the very plain building urge worshippers to turn off their cell phones, control their children and whisper. Quiet is clearly a high priority--not a bad idea at all in these noisy times.

There are also many signs urging mosque members not to bring old clothes and Korans and leave them at the mosque. I'm still trying to figure out the reason behind those notices. Is donating articles to mosques a Muslim custom? If anyone knows, please leave a comment below.



The next building on the agenda was the exuberant Nanaksar Gurdwara Gursikh Temple, a giant wedding cake of a place complete with an elephant statue out front.

Inside the richly adorned main hall, at least one worshipper reads from Sikhism's most holy book around the clock.

This stop included a tasty vegetarian lunch in the gurdwara's cavernous cafeteria, which serves food to any and all who come by (I met a dreadlocked man who stops by a couple of times a week just for the warm meal and the company).



The third and fourth stops were both enormous Buddhist temples. The highlights of our visit to the International Buddhist Temple--at least for me--were the chance to meditate quietly in the main Worship Hall and to stroll quietly through the magnificent courtyard.









And at the Lingyen Mountain Temple, stunning gardens were a restful way to end a whirlwind tour--a tour that gave me the most superficial of tastes, I know, of three rich traditions.




If you'd like to follow in my footsteps, a guide to Richmond's places of worship--Faith Communities, by Jon Henderson--is available from the Richmond Archives for C$18.

And if you're headed to Asia, check out this interesting guide to the temples of Macau.

Disclosure: My trip was partially subsidized by Tourism Richmond.

World's top 10 ferry rides

I've long been a fan of B.C. Ferries' scenic routes, ever since I took my first trip from Vancouver to Victoria (well, from Tsawwassen to Swartz Bay, if you want to get technical) over two decades ago. And my enthusiasm was rekindled earlier this month when I had the chance to hop aboard several ferries on British Columbia's Sunshine Coast. The scenery rivalled almost anything you'd see from the deck of a pricey cruise ship. Just check out this view along the route from Earl's Cove to Saltery Bay.

It turns out my fellow members of the Society of American Travel Writers (SATW) agree with me. The B.C. Ferries made SATW's new list of the world's top 10 ferry rides. Here's the whole list, in order of popularity.

1. Star Ferry in Hong Kong
2. Ferries from Sausalito to San Francisco, California
3. Staten Island Ferry, New York Harbour
4. Washington State Ferries, Puget Sound to the San Juan Islands
5. British Columbia Ferry System, including Vancouver to Victoria
6. Ferry from Sydney Harbour to Manly, Australia
This is the only other ferry on the list I've had the chance to try, and SATW was spot on with this choice. Here's a shot I snapped en route to Manly in late 2007.


And here's the gorgeous beach I found in Manly.



7. The Ferry System of the Greek Isles
8. The “Blue Canoes” of the Alaska State Ferry System
9. “Norway in a Nutshell” tour and ferry ride
10. Ferry from Mallaig to Isle of Skye, Scotland

I love ferries because they let you see much of the same scenery you'd pass on a tourist boat cruise, at a fraction of the cost and without the stupefyingly dull taped commentary. ("And on your right you'll see the [words lost due to static on ancient P.A. system], where local magnate Horace P. Bogardus once raised prize guinea fowl.") You also get the chance to rub shoulders with locals, backpackers and all sorts of other fun people. On some ferries, you might even find yourself camping on deck overnight. You can't travel much more like a local than that.

Disclosure: I travelled to Sydney courtesy of Tourism Australia and to British Columbia's Sunshine Coast courtesy of the Vancouver Coast & Mountains Tourism Region.

Curry udon soup perfect welcome to Richmond, B.C.

I arrived in Richmond, B.C., this morning for a conference jet lagged and hungry. So after checking into the conference hotel, the River Rock Casino Resort, I asked the concierge in the casino where I could find some good Asian food within a short walk.

Even though the hotel lies on the edge of Richmond's "Golden Village"--the modern Chinatown that's a focal point for the 60 percent of Richmond's residents who trace their roots back to Asia--the concierge pointed me to one of the casino's restaurants. The last thing I wanted after five hours on an airplane was to sit in a windowless casino. I needed air, preferably with a side helping of local flavour.

No matter. As usual, Mapquest was a godsend. I found out that the Aberdeen Centre, a big Asian mall I'd glimpsed from my airplane window earlier that day, was just 1.6 kilometres away. I put on my walking shoes and headed out.

My route wasn't particularly scenic--much of it led under the newly constructed Canada Line (an elevated train), past car rental agencies and a huge Canadian Tire outlet. But within 20 minutes I reached the Aberdeen Centre, a bright, airy outpost of Asia in the shadow of Vancouver International Airport.

It looked like any other upscale Canadian mall, with its splashing fountains and three-storey atria, but few of the stores were familiar. There was Daiso, a popular Japanese discount store stuffed with Hello Kitty thermoses, plastic laundry baskets and colourful finger puppets. There was a huge selection of exotic-looking rice steamers at Pacific Houseware. There were two dried food stores selling ingredients I couldn't begin to identify.

But I was on a quest: to find a warm bowl of udon, the comforting Japanese soup filled with fat noodles. I'd had udon on the brain ever since I'd read a lovely article in The Globe and Mail last week about writer Laura Madokoro's search, on a recent visit to Japan, to find udon like her father used to make.

I followed my nose to the third-floor food court and there, amid joints selling congee and lemongrass chicken submarines and bubble tea, I found the object of my affection at Ajijiman: a huge, fragrant bowl of curry udon, rich with carrots, potatoes and onions, for the princely sum of $4. I even managed to eat most of it with chopsticks--not a bad feat for someone who has barely slept in the last few days. Too bad the one thing I forgot was my camera.

Disclosure: My trip was partially subsidized by Tourism Richmond.