VancouverShow.com Review: 2003 Alcan Dragon Boat Festival in Vancouver
June 13 to June 15, 2003.

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Introduction and Regatta Prelude 

Prior to the official opening of the Alcan Dragon Boat Festival in June 2003, I went to the Regatta which took place on May 24th and 25th, 2003.  It takes place in Vancouver by the Plaza of Nations near BC Place Stadium.  This Dragon Boat Regatta is more of a meeting and practice session for the official  dragon boat festival.

The good thing about the Regatta is that you can see the races comfortably as there were no crowds blocking your view.  For enthusiasts who want to get into the dragon boat sport, this is a great way to learn more about the event.  I attended the main event of the Alcan Dragon Boat Festival on June 13th and June 15th, 2003.  Friday, June 13th is important to me because I want to capture the opening ceremony and the performances.  Sunday, June 15th was when all the exciting final races took place.

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The Dragon Boat Regatta took place in May, 2003.  Consider it a practice session in preparation for the main festival in June.  There are no crowds and you get a great view of the action.

I was trekking and driving around the entire site to become more familiar with the nooks and cranny of the area such as the Vancouver Indy track area, Science World, the southern shore area of False Creek and Cambie Street Bridge.  I enjoy looking around for more interesting angles to photograph and try to think of every possible perspective when doing things.

This is the opening ceremony of the 2003 Alcan Dragon Boat Festival.  A new dragon boat stamp was unveiled to commemorate this event.

Speeches were given by the dragon boat organization and sponsors.  To add an epic touch to the event, there was a symphony orchestra playing.  Canada Post was unveiling a new dragon boat stamp to commemorate this festival.  I was anticipating this photographic moment and reserved the best physical spot ahead of all the other photographers.  The presenters lifted the cover and...

Voila!  The new Dragon Boat Stamp from Canada Post

Happy 15th Anniversary - Let's Party!

A milestone for the Alcan Dragon Boat Festival in Vancouver is reached for this 15th anniversary event.  To celebrate, Canada Post commemorates this festival and community with their stamp of approval.  During the opening ceremony, a large and framed version of this dragon boat stamp was shown.  I like the design and picture because it captures a splendid view of the dragon boat racing action and festival site.

Spectators gather to view the races and visit the outdoor booths in this area

After the speeches, the entertainment and live performances started.  One of the big attractions was the Doug and the Slugs concert.  Even though this band is not really from my era, their songs are entertaining and it's probably nostalgic for members of the audience in their late 30's and older who grew up listening to this band while their songs were in heavier rotation.  Many people from the audience seem to be die-hard fans and it was well received.  I haven't seen this volume of people dancing during any of the other performances.  The floor was very lively and packed with audience dancers ready to boogie-woogie.

Doug and the Slugs had a concert on Friday night.  Doug gave the audience a good musical performance and comedic show.  His audience was dancing, laughing and having a ball.

Doug was a funny guy making blunt remarks with an adult theme.  For instance, he would see someone older and comment that they're passed their sexual prime.  Or else he would see someone with a funny hairstyle, point it out, and make fun of it.  Haha.  Doug constantly headed down the stage to interact with the audience.

In the beginning, he walked along the first row of seats and picked on almost everybody, one by one, in a joking manner.  I was one of the members of the first row.  However, I noticed him looking at me with an expression that came off as, "I'd better not offend this Asian guy with all this camera gear since he's covering my show and photographing me."  Am I right or am I right, Doug?  ;)  Anyhow, Doug was really hilarious throughout his concert and the audience had a blast.

Dancing and Partying to the Performances

Throughout the festival, I was busy taking photographs and a few videos of things that caught my interest.  While I was standing on a seat to shoot over the crowd, this young lady came up to me and asked me what type of camera I had.  I was a little busy shooting.  That Doug and the Slugs music concert was loud and it was difficult to have a conversation.  Yet, I stopped for a while and showed her my digital camera.  She smiles and says she has a digital camera too, then she waves it at me.  I smile and then resumed capturing the show.  Another man came up to me and showed me his camera too.  He had the same digital camera as I did and says, "Nice camera."  Ditto to you, sir!  I like your speedlight aka flash unit.

To anyone who came up to me to have a conversation, sorry if I couldn't chat too much.  I was occupied and focused on my assignment.  Please don't take that the wrong way.  I'm sure most of you understand and can see I was concentrating on my photography.  You are free to ask questions by sending me an email.

I managed to get video footage of some highlights at the festival.  The first video has to do with Doug and the Slugs "bum drums" where people are drumming on someone's buttocks.  It's funny and entertaining.  The second video is a "do the twist" contest on stage, I thought the twisting birthday girl was the best twister.

Click here to download the video	You will need the free multimedia player Quicktime 5.0 or newer to view these video files.	Click here to download the video
Note: these video files are fairly large at 18 MB each so it's only recommended if you have a faster Internet connection (cable, ADSL, T1, T3, etc.)

Also, I watched an aerial dancing group called Arioso Dance which consists of two pairs of dancers.  They strapped on ropes while prancing along the beams of the Plaza of Nations.  Think of them as Spider-Men and Spider-Women dancing in a ballet-like and acrobatic fashion along with their music.  It was a unique and delicately executed performance.

After the show, some people from the audience went up to the dancers to praise them on their performance and display.  It was well deserved.  Performing this aerial dance would take talent, coordination, physical and mental conditioning, guts and a lot of practice.  The show was artistic, different and skillful.  Hanging on a wire like that up at dangerous altitudes and making it look so simple is not an easy task.  Kudos to the Arioso Dancers!  :)

Dragon Den, 2010 Vancouver/Whistler Olympics and Cooking Competition

This year, they added a new food cooking competition called "The Aluminum Chef" which is a parody of "The Iron Chef."  On Sunday's festival tour, I was in the Dragon Den browsing around prior to seeing the cooking competition at 12:00pm.  The Spirit of 2010 Village was the theme for the Dragon Den this year.  It's wonderful that Vancouver won the bid to host the 2010 Vancouver/Whistler Winter Olympics and I was very excited when I heard the announcement that Vancouver won.  

I'm a big fan of the games and Whistler is one of my favourite places in the world, especially for skiing and snowboarding.  My saying is, "If you haven't tried skiing or snowboarding in Whistler, you haven't really tried skiing or snowboarding."  People who have not been to Whistler yet, you don't know what you're missing.

Whistler and Blackcomb Mountain is heaven on earth in the winter with all the powdery, soft snow on gorgeous, gigantic mountains.  The village is fun, people are friendly and customer service is top-notch.  If all people, companies and corporations in this world were like the ones in Whistler, the world would be a better place.  There are usually no line-ups on the all the ski runs and lifts because Whistler's facilities can handle large volumes of people and the terrain is seemingly endless and vast.  It's a world-class mountain with a great community.

The Dragon Den's new attraction this year was the Aluminum Chef cooking competition and the Spirit of 2010 Village.

The dragon den had activities catered mostly to the younger crowd.  There were arts and craft booths for the kids.  You could spin a wheel to win prizes such as water bottles, aluminum foil and other items.  There was a mock curling rink.  Kids could construct Alka-Seltzer rockets as a fun science experiment.  You could build boats out of plywood and paper.  I even saw some of these little boats floating around in False Creek.

While walking around the site, I was getting hungry as I visited most of the booths and looked at all the food vendors available.  Hot Dog Johnny's intrigued me because they were voted, "Best hot dogs in Vancouver-2002 and 2003" by the Georgia Straight and Vancouver Sun newspapers.  Therefore, I wanted to see what all the commotion was about.  Their menu and description was "A gourmet twist on the world's favourite food" with an assorted selection such as fat Bison hot dog, duck, venison, lamb, and pheasant sausages.  However, it didn't taste much different than most of the other barbequed hot dogs I've had before.  Also, I had a few assorted beverages to wash the food down and bought some ice cream.

"Haha!  This cooking stuff is too easy!"  Aluminum Chefs were singing Chinese opera and having a jolly time