Tags
bank account, bank discounts, Best Buy, Bowen Island, Capital Coast Savings, CIBC, cinema card, cinema tickets, Craigslist Vancouver, Go2hR, good banks Vancouver, Indeed.com, International calls, job searching, Job searching in Vancouver, Koodo, Living and working in Vancouver, monthly contract, Pacific Centre, phone contract Vancouver, recruitment agencies Vancouver, Scotiabank, St Patrick's Day Parade, TPD, Vancity, Virgin Mobile, Work BC
So I’ve been in Vancouver now for three weeks can you believe?! My first week flew by and despite the first two days of feeling a bit tired and worried with wondering whether I’d done the right thing, the rest of the week was great. I met some lovely people, did some sight seeing, took a ferry over to the beautiful Bowen Island and started to feel really settled. My second week, although still enjoyable, was a lot more sorting out things such as phone contract, flat, bank account and all the joys that go hand in hand with moving to a new place.
For my phone contract I set it up in a shop called Best Buy, located in the Pacific Centre (this is a lovely little shopping centre off Granville Street which does some of the tastiest smoothies I have ever had!). The customer service representative, Dale, was so efficient, friendly and super helpful (the best customer service I have ever received in a phone shop – EE/T mobile could definitely pick up some tips!) At first he tried to set me up with a Virgin contract as you get good benefits with them such as discounts off several stores and 2 for 1 cinema tickets however for some reason because I was on a working holiday visa they wanted a deposit of $500 which we both thought was a bit extreme. I therefore opted to go with Koodo. Koodo offer various different monthly plans and the good thing about them is that, yes they offer a monthly contract, which is unheard of in the UK. The data allowance isn’t wonderful but you can basically pay more for the amount of data you want. I opted for the $40 contract which offers unlimited texts, 500 minutes of calls and 500MB of data. It’s not a huge amount of data but you can get by with using wi fi in most places. To pay, they send you an email at the end of each month with the total amount you need to pay (tax is added on to this too!) and then you can simply pay the amount by debit or credit card. It won’t cost you to text internationally but it is worth checking whether it will charge the receiver. I don’t believe it does buit it would charge them to text or call you back.
It’s been over a week since I took part in this delightful event put on by the 
Before I flew out to Vancouver I read that the Chinese New Year Parade would be taking place on Sunday 22nd February which left me very excited! There had been build up events and stalls spread across town to mark the year of the goat/lamb (this didn’t seem to be clear!) Some signs said it was the year of the goat whereas others said lamb and therefore there was a big display of lambs at one of the exhibition areas and then random posters of goats at other parts. The festival kicked off at 11a.m and if there’s one word to sum it up I would say disappointing. It seemed quite badly organised and was really long that it grew quite tiresome. It didn’t seem extremely professional and at one point there was a worker walking down the parade smoking and just having a general chat on the phone. I do not mean to take this away from some of the beautiful costumes on display as well as the drums and people dressed up as dragons as this was impressive, however the whole thing together did not not flow smoothly and after 20 minutes of watching we grew bored and headed elsewhere.
So I’ve been here just over a week and can safely say I’ve found a room in a good part of town which is a nice room however I wish I had taken a little bit longer to work out prices and best places to live around Vancouver. I’d read a lot about the different places, asked friends also and had a lot of recommendations so I wanted to explore the different options. Here’s a few I looked into but there’s a good site which gives tips on prices and what you can find in each neighbourhood 
My back is killing me! That is one way of describing the last few days but it is all completely worth it. I’m feeling much more settled and am really enjoying being here. The first two days weren’t easy. On Friday night I was messaging people back home to say I’d made the wrong decision and I should just come straight back. However after having a few days exploring, meeting people and discovering places I’d have to say the place is growing on me. Of course, I’m not working yet so everything is going to be painted a bit rosy but I hope that even when I do start my job I will still be able to explore this beautiful city. 
Well it’s been a long time getting here and now I finally am it still doesn’t quite seem real! It’s all quite daunting moving to a new place by yourself but it’s still early days yet so I’ll see how I feel in a couple of days time! The last few days since leaving work went far too quickly, it dawned on me that I had a lot to do and not as much time as I thought to do it in! The weekend was spent with loved ones. I was treated extremely special on Saturday with a full blown 3 course meal by Craig and he also gave me a beautiful travel journal to take with me. 
It’s only 3 days until I fly off to Vancouver and I can definitely say that the last two weeks have been a roller coaster of emotions! Since handing my notice in at work, my head has been backwards and forwards wondering if I’ve made the right decision, questioning why I’ve been wanting to try moving to Vancouver for a period of time and second guessing quite a lot. At the same time 2015 has also been scary but exciting, liberating and full of incredible moments spent with loved ones and friends that i have appreciated more than I think I would’ve done if I did not have this trip planned.
I applied for the visa last year before I started a new job and then found I wasn’t ready to leave, plus I have strong ties here, a great bunch of friends, family and a boyfriend of 3 years who I love. Therefore why go? The truth is going to Canada has been something I’ve wanted to do since I landed back in the UK after 7 months of travelling 5 years go.
TEA and TAKES 