#I guess my mo is taking scenery shots to show setting changes

[novapark]

[brokelings]

Vancouver : Finding my Heroes

My journey in the Pacific Northwest began in Seattle. Leaving from Seattle at 8 in the evening, I caught the Amtrak Cascades train that runs along the seaside all the way into Canada. I arrived into Vancouver at 1am and cleared immigration and walked to my hostel. Read about my hostel experience here.

Stanley Park

View of Stanley Park from Lion's Gate Bridge The Stanley Park is a gigantic park in Vancouver (405 hectares to be precise - that’s even bigger than Central Park in NYC!!) that has evolved from a forest into the urban landscape. Coming here first thing in the morning is just magical, experience the fresh earthen smell of the forest. But before that….. Go to Spokes bicycle rentals at the entrance of Stanley Park (W Georgia St.) and rent a bicycle of your choice. Vancouver is one of the most beautiful cities of the world to cycle around, and you’ll be able to cover significantly more distance as well. (Their bikes are very affordable and are well maintained, you’ll have a great time cruising, trust me - my posts below prove it). https://www.instagram.com/p/BfhwvKkBRAU/?taken-by=adigollakota Make your way through the park till you hit the Seawall. The Seawall was built in 1931 and is a 9km long track around Stanley Park along the waterfront. It takes about 3 hours to walk this stretch and an hour to cycle. The views you get here are absolutely gorgeous as you see from my photos below. Quick fact: Vancouver has the world’s longest uninterrupted waterfront path lasting for 28 KILOMETERS!!!

Walking along Vancouver's waterfront

The Lion’s Gate Bridge

The Lion's Gate Bridge as seen from the Stanley Park Seawall The Lion’s Gate Bridge is a suspension bridge connecting the City of Vancouver with North and West Vancouver and is one of the best places to take pictures of the city. One of the most unique features I encountered on this bridge is the use of 3 reversible lanes which can dynamically change according to traffic density. You would have heard of Lionsgate films - the production company, which has been named after this bridge. Remember the closing sequence of TRON : Legacy? (I love that movie!!) It was shot on this bridge and inspired me to see the sunrise whilst cycling.

Kitsilano Beach

Kitsilano Beach The Kitsilano beach is one of the most popular beaches in Vancouver especially in the warm summer months. Come by to play some beach volleyball or even tennis or pickup basketball. It’s a great place to socialize or even get your dose of calm. https://www.instagram.com/p/Bfh0bpFB2c8/?taken-by=adigollakota

Granville Island Market

https://www.instagram.com/p/BfhyWJsB9VN/?taken-by=adigollakota The island features a farmer’s market with amazing produce as well as artists selling local crafts and goods. I bought my Canadian maple syrup over here and it was an amazing selection.

Robson Street

Robson Street is the anti-broke neighborhood to do your shopping, but be prepared to splurge some money as the biggest designer labels all have their stores here. Do check out the Pacific Centre Mall for its unique structure, it spans almost 3 blocks with some sections of the mall passing underneath the street. I also found some stores to buy my souvenirs in this area so do look around closely.

Gastown

Gastown Steam Clock Gastown is the first neighborhood of Vancouver that expanded to become the metropolis it is today. The most iconic landmark is the Steam Clock, run by a steam engine that operates the mechanical parts of the clock.

Canada Place

Canada Place is also where all the Pacific cruise ships come and dock. It is one of Vancouver’s most important commercial centers, and also the place where you get FREE shuttle services to Grouse Mountain and Capilano Suspension Bridge Park.

Grouse Mountain

Entry fee: $75 I woke up first thing in the morning, finished my breakfast at the hostel and walked to Canada Place. Had to wait for about 30 minutes to in the Grouse Mountain shuttle queue to board the bus. The mountain is one of the mountains located in North Vancouver and is one of the most important tourist destinations. Buy your ticket below and take the gondola up the mountain. The view of the city is absolutely beautiful, don’t forget to look out! Be prepared with appropriate warm clothing as its absolutely freezing on top! (even in the summer) In the summer, the Grouse Mountain Resort features a Lumberjack show (world famous in fact - it’s amazingly funny and is an edge of the seat entertainer), a birds of prey demonstration (a very educational program - you'll enjoy every  bit, do capture in slo-mo - check out our Instagram for more), and nature in its untouched form in the mountains. See below.    

Capilano Suspension Bridge Park

Entry fee: $45 The Capilano Suspension Bridge Park is centered around the bridge crossing the Capilano river, there are some great nature trails and ecotours at this park celebrating the diversity of the forest. Don’t miss out on this, the scenery is absolutely beautiful.        

The Best Part

Vancouver is also known as Hollywood of the north due to the number of TV and film productions in the city. Being a DC comics fan I went in search of the Green Arrow, the Flash, Supergirl (I'm going back to Vancouver to meet Melissa Benoist - she is an angel incarnate) and the Legends of Tomorrow (sorry to those who wanted me to search for Christian Grey). Guess who I stumbled upon? Wade Wilson aka Deadpool himself!!! (sorry not Ryan Reynolds) I managed to get onto the set and spend some time watching the production crew design the stunt and I’m really looking forward to the release in a few months. https://www.instagram.com/p/Bfh0AnFhryW/?taken-by=adigollakota Overall, this trip taught me a lot about living alone, frugally and trying to do touristy things while absorbing all the information on offer. Most importantly, I got a ton of exercise by not using a personal vehicle, and I was able to enjoy the mix between nature and sprawling urban spaces in the Pacific Northwest. I'm going to go back soon to experience some of the things I didn't get to. Adi continued his trip in the North Americas for a more self discovering experience. We'd love to see you guys travel more and travel the way we do. Trust us, it's a great experience.  Give us a shout if you have a great American story (and any other story), we'd love to feature it while we're busy with our academic and professional lives.  Till then, like, share, subscribe please? Featured Image Credit: Vince Chow Read the full article

[thetrickisnotmindingthatith-blog]

Thor Ragnarok Review.

I’d give it a 6/10. My interest in the Superhero genre has slowly faded more and more since Days of Future Past set the bar so high for me. Not to say any of these movies are undeserving of attention by anyone. they’ll never get close to a 3/10 for me since they’re all tentpole movies so that will always garner a flood of respect for the hundreds and thousands of hours of work put into these movies by everyone to the special effects crew, set designers, costume designers, marketing department and editors. With respect even being thrown in the direction of the ambitious runner or tea maker who just wants to get noticed. Anyway the flaws of the movie really revolve around the Marvel ingredients that we will sadly never get a chance to say farewell to since they work so well with the majority of audiences. It’s tonally inconsistent, everything up until Thor steps foot on Planet Goldblum is rushed to the point where I feel like the writers vision weren’t fully formed. Even when we’re strapped into the adventure with Thor the run time really doesn’t agree with the movie. The CGI is amazing for a 2001 movie. It really gives Philosophers Stones Troll a run for its money just kidding this movie was actually released arrived in 2017 and some shots are frankly embarrassing. Granted I respect the hundreds of hours of effort put into the CGI, those people are deserving of respect but some shots do not look good at all. Jesus Christ this post is long, I respect anyone who actually takes home to read it. The tonal inconsistencies make it so the emotions in the movie aren’t felt nearly as much as they should be. The use of Zed Leplin doesn’t really make a whole lot of sense..in fact it makes no sense at all….in fact even that’s an understatement.

But you’ve got some very nice sectors of humour here and there, the villain has a great attitude and as a major Middle Earth fan it was pretty awesome to see. While the closer CGI shots are pretty bad there are some gorgeous wides here and there. There’s a great transition that uses the stars to fade into a sugarcoated advertisement for Goldblum and that really flowed well. There’s a legitimately excellent scene where Heimdall discovers a secret sanctuary on Asgard, The gorgeous scenery, the costumes, music and sound design all come together really well in that short scene. The exact same goes for other scenes which means that overall the movie is elevated in quality due to that. All the performances in the film are good it’s always great to see Anthony Hopkins even if he’s been pulling a bit of a Marlon Brando recently. Hemsworth is your every day leading man, Mark Ruffalo is very good-ish….I dunno he just always seems to be constipated in these movies like Mark Wahlberg just without the accent. Tessa Thompson does a nice job with what she has to work with, I especially like how the director let her keep the accent. Tom Hiddleston also does a good job portraying arguably the most morally flexible character in history of any medium, okay that’s not 100% true but he’s up there. Cate Blanchett does a great job, she is almost like a female version of Tim Curry in Legend complete with some positively memorable costume design. Also Taika gives a nice motion capture performance the “piss off ghost” scene was hilarious. I’m not entirely sure about Hulk, I know that Ruffalo does some Mo Cap but Hulks most substantial scenes are full CGI but I imagine Mark Ruffalo does a good job walking around in the white black and grey mo cap costume. And everyone else is good. It was also nice to see some 300 Snyder style imagery in the Valkyrie vs Hela scene, since I always adore when a directors visual style can be seen influencing other movies. Next time I’ll remind my self that it’s only a MCU movie and like every single other consistently made franchise they’ll always revolve around the same positives and negatives unless the money starts getting lesser.

Also there’s a major missed opportunity to explore Asgard more in the MCU. The scenery of Asgard means you could really get some truly epic shots hearkening back to scenery of the 80s fantasy movies like the Dark Crystal and Willow but especially Peter Jacksons epic and unmatched way of filming New Zealand for the Middle Earth franchise. Also I would’ve loved to have a scene of Valkyrie at night sitting in her ship to show a bit more of her character because not only could the landscape of Sakaar make for some great midnight scenery but you also have a great set to work with and any opportunity to have great visuals and to develop a character simultaneously should always be seized.

I guess X-Men: Days of Future Past just felt special to me since I’ve never connected with the MCU like others have so saying goodbye to the original X-Men cast who I grew up watching was almost like my last real connection to the genre after the prestigious Dark Knight trilogy ended (the only real highbrow franchise of the genre). All superhero movies released recently have adopted a very convener belt mentality and they range from utterly repulsive, terrifyingly, hauntingly production problem plagued business decisions like Fantastic Four, Suicide Squad and Justice League where it makes film buffs like me doubt their ideals since this is an industry that film buffs want to get into, the pillars of their adult life are built on the idea of making a tentpole blockbuster one day and then we see stuff like those films it’s quite terrifying thinking about being in a situation like that. Anyway they also range from your usual bad Hollywood movie to a nice popcorn flick. Stuff like GOTG, Wonder Woman and Black Panther are especially great since they’re like escape routes, a little path way for genres that wouldn’t usually deliver quality projects, these genres include Fantasy Adventure (Wonder Woman and Black Panther) and Space Opera (GOTG) to give film audiences something good from those genres for a change. Because on the surface/shell these movies are about superheros and that’s the reason mainstream audiences go to watch them, but inside we’re treated to gorgeous, socially groundbreaking swashbuckling adventures and glossy, nostalgia filled, colourful and hyper stylised space adventures. It’ll also be interesting to see what the directors of these movies does with their ancillary market money (like if they’ll make their own small independent projects) and how well they’ll spend their capitol. Spending capitol is basically what projects actors, writers and directors chose after their tent pole blockbuster….granted they usually pick some small indie movie or TV show that they’ve been wanting to get off the ground for some time. 

But those CW Superhero shows, they’re the real stuff.