Ashley Chow dot Com

Since I’m such a dedicated volunteer at the Vancouver Aquarium, I (along with thousands of other people working in many other companies and organizations) have had the privilege of participating in the Tourism Challenge 2009. You can read about the challenge on their site; they give a much better explanation than I would any day of the week. The point really is for the employees/volunteers of tourism/hospitality companies and organizations to learn (or re-learn) as much as they can about Vancouver and its surrounding areas.

For 3 days, I was a tourist to my own city, going to 17 different attractions/hotels while earning stamps and lots of awesome photos along the way. The places I went to, you ask?

1. Stanley Park Horse-Drawn Tours
2. Science World
3. Big Bus
4. Vancouver Trolley
5. Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Chinese Garden
6. H.R. MacMillan Space Centre
7. False Creek Ferries
8. Vancouver Lookout
9. Tourism Info Centre
10. Vancouver Convention & Exhibition Centre
11. IMAX Theatre
12. Vancouver Aquarium
13. Living Shangri-La (Hotel)
14. Westin Bayshore (Hotel)
15. Pan Pacific Vancouver (Hotel)
16. The Fairmont Waterfront (Hotel)
17. Hyatt Regency (Hotel)

Now, I can’t say that after 3 days and 17 places that I’m some crazy expert on Vancouver, but I learned more about, well, a lot of things. The best part about the Tourism Challenge? The savings. All in all, I saved over $300 (for 2 people). Worth it much?

Since I spent 3 days doing the Tourism Challenge, I’ll spend 3 days blogging about the different places and posting up photos. Maybe I’ll try my hand at educating you (on the places I actually learned things about; hotels don’t exactly count). Just so you know, these 3 blogging days could be days or weeks or months apart from each other. Depends on the amount of free time I have. School’s quickly ending so there’s a lot going on, but here’s what I’ll be yammering about in Part 1 of my Tourism Challenge experience:

• Westin Bayshore
• Stanley Park Horse-Drawn Tours
• Science World
• Hyatt Regency
• Big Bus
• Living Shangri-La

Here’s a little photo preview:

Do you know what building that is?

Stay tuned!