The Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic games is only 8 days away. I don’t feel particularly exciting about the Olympic although I am living in the hosting city. Here are my top ten reasons why I don’t like Vancouver hosting the Olympic.
- None of the Winter Olympic events is interesting, except Ice Hockey
- I could not get any Olympic tickets, so it makes no difference to me whether or not it is in Vancouver. I am watching it on TV anways
- Millions of tourists comes to town disturb my normal life. It is a lot harder to make restaurant reservations and everything cost more during the Olympic
- The road closure in the city makes rush hour traffic across the city a nightmare.
- The Canadian team uniform really ugly. Roots definitely have better designers than The Bay.
- The Olympic will blow a black hole in the city’s budget. Prepare for tax raise after the Games
- Most of the Olympic events are held during the day when I am at work. My productivity would greatly suffer during that two weeks
- The Olympic mascots does not make sense and there are four of them. Why don’t they simply use a beaver or a Canadian moose
- The Sea to Sky Highway only got a half-ass upgrade. It should have 4 lanes all the way from Vancouver to Whistler and bypass all the traffic lights in Squamish
- The Sea to Sky Highway is closed during the Games and no one can drive to Whistler. Olympic interrupts my ski season!
and most important of all,
how come you can’t get tickets? don’t locals always get cheap tics?? it’s not like all the events are going to be full anyway……
Local has to go through a stupid lottery system to buy tickets. The hockey tickets are too expensive (CAD$1000+) and the rest of the events are boring or you will have to stand in the snow for the whole day.
All these interruption to your daily life due to Olympics give you a good reason to sit back, relax and take it easy during the games. Do less and recharge.
But my project is taping out at the end of this month. 🙁
I guess that we are a weird couple of urban Vancouver, because I also have my own reasons saying ‘NO’ to Olympics related to socio-economic issues.
If you travel here in Vancouver, you would notice the big difference of prices in transportation, accommodation, food, etc compared to regular seasons.
If you want tickets to watch Olympic games, you’d better affiliate with any big companies or government officials who can afford expensive tickets, like the ones that Obama sits.
If you want to buy souvenirs for friends, you’d better wait until Olympics is over because Quatchi is waving BYE to you.
It only justifies for us to attend cultural Olympiads because most of them are free and you make donations to contribute to the costs for these little booths over Vancouver and Richmond. We aren’t playing ‘cheap’, but it is important to always listen to the voice from the other side of the argument to reach a conclusion. Thanks for listening! =)