A tour of some of the Pavilions Feb 17, 2010

I joined my friends and former work mates Tom and Victor yesterday for a little pavilion hopping - I walked down to Science World - nee Russian Pavilion where I met them and after a short lineup wait proceeded to enter the Sochi Games display - they are the holders of the next Winter and ParaWinter Games in 2014 - Sochi is located on the Black Sea so like Vancouver it is also a Seaport - the third seaport to hold the Games after Oslo and ourselves. It is a City of around 350,000 - it is building an entire new complex of sporting facilities and it's ski area is about 45 KM away and will be connected by light speed rail - while construction has started on some of the venues they won't know the costs until after everything is finished - where have I heard that before.

After spending some time there we headed over towards the Saskatchewan, Quebec, Ontario houses - the first had a rather long line-up so we by-passed it - both the Quebec and Ontario are giant beer halls with the latter also having a 4-d display - I remember getting dizzy with 3-D at Expo so we voted to by-pass that line-up.

From there we heading over to the Edgewater Casino where we rested and had a soda and Tom contributed to the Casino's profits on the slots.

A quick tour of the food court and the shopping bazaar on the grounds of the Plaza of Nations - put on by the Casino and it was time to say goodbye - while Tom and Victor headed for Skytrain I walked up to Granville and then home.

The crowds for a week day were large and with the sunny but brisk weather a great day to get out.

Entrance to the 4-D part of the Ontario Pavilion.

Le Belle Province pavilion.

Guess who overlooking some of the pavilion from the park by Science World,

A model of the planned site in Sochi

Russia House - nee Science World and the line-up waiting to get it - it moved quickly - they only scanned our packs for forbidden items.

Today is suppose to be a bike ride but the body and mind are fighting each other so I think I will listen to the body - just take a short walk down to the Gym and relax in the steam bath - then take in the Cauldron and a couple of other houses - recheck on the Netherlands merchandise.

Cheers

Dennis