When we stayed in Vancouver we were in the poorest postal code in Canada. It was a real eye opener for most of us. Our time there provided a look into what people without much hope lived like. These people are the outcasts of society, these are the prostitutes, the drug dealers, the druggies, the street kids, everyone! We stayed at the now legendary "Ivanhoe"; in its glory it may have been a nice hotel, now it is an older building renting out rooms to low-income men and women. The hotel was clean and livable, not the place you'd visit, but definitely safe. We had many interesting conversations with the tenants of the building; these people were incredibly open to us and received us with trust and confidence. One man lent us his three umbrellas; he just said to drop them off at his room that night. It amazed me that he trusted us with them. Main and Hastings is incredibly multicultural. In one place you have Gastown, where the original "Old Spaghetti Factory" is, then two blocks over you have a huge drug culture, five blocks north there is a massive Asian influence. You really see a lot when you walk around for a day.

Nathan Koop