Vancouver in a Flash

Several months ago a trip popped up in the schedule that I was hoping for. I don’t have the luxury of being able to cherry pick assignments so when I saw Vancouver come up on the list, I was really hoping it was going to stick. There are times when I get assigned a trip somewhere and then for reasons unknown it disappears. In this case, I was hoping it would stick.

After riding the “I hope so” line for a month or so, it finally got confirmed and I knew I would be heading back to Vancouver. This excited me for a couple of reasons.

Vancouver isn’t a town I have spent much time in. In fact, the first time I visited the city was in 1997 when I literally drove through it on my way to Edmonton, Alberta from Victoria. But many years later I would visit for a work assignment but work was the last thing on my mind then, just as it was this time around.

FLASHBACK! It’s the fall of 1988. I’ve been in grade 10 at Harrison Trimble for a little more than a month and know no one. All of my friends go to other schools so I am anxious to get home and hang out with them instead. My long time friend J.C. calls me up after school and invites me over to go hang out. I make the walk over to Dominion street, walk around back and go downstairs to the tiny little apartment he lives in with his dad. It was that afternoon that I met my even longer time friend, Jason.

Some friends come in and out of your life like busboys in a restaurant (taken from the movie Stand By Me, my all time favorite flick). Some friendships fade over time just by the nature of how life moves forward for most of us. There are those friends who you were very close with years ago but now feel a bit awkward talking to despite how close you were at one time. And then there are friends that despite how much time has passed, or how many kilometers separate you, when you get a chance to hang out again, it’s like no time has passed at all.

My relationship with Jason is one of those kinds of friendships.

He’s been living in Langley, B.C. for 15 years or more now and I only ever get to see him once in awhile. So when I knew I was coming to Vancouver, I reached out and made plans immediately.

Getting to Vancouver from Moncton is actually pretty easy but it was somewhere in the vicinity of about 8hrs of total travel time. By the time I landed, I was already beat, but had made specific plans for what I wanted to do on my arrival day.

In the good days of Syfy, there was a trio of shows I loved: Warehouse 13, Eureka, and Haven. I’ve had a chance to meet some of the cast from WH13 and Haven as well as see the locations and even shoots of Haven, but never got to see any part of Eureka or meet the cast. The “Main St” of Eureka, including the exteriors for Cafe Diem were all shot in BC in a town called Chilliwack.

Since I had a car for only that one day, and I knew that I was going to be heading over to Langley anyway, I drove a bit further east and hit up Chilliwack to say I had been there.

It certainly wasn’t the town of Eureka and nothing there even remotely resembled what I had remembered from the s how, but none the less, I had made it there so I snapped a photo or two then kept on trucking.

After having some lunch, I headed back west and made my stop to visit my old friend. And just as it was 4 years ago when I had seen him last, it was a mere minutes and it felt like we had just seen each other the other day.

Between a coffee at Tim’s, and a bit of a tour around the general area, Jay gave me the lowdown on what he’d been up to. Pointed out some pretty wicked and high end real estate developments in the area and before I knew it, it was time for me to head back to Vancouver. I dropped him off at his place, we said our goodbyes and as I drove away, I felt my heart sink just a little bit.

I am grateful for what I have in my life but to paraphrase the movie “Stand By Me” again, “I never had any friends later on like the ones I had when I was 17”. (Gordy said 12 but mine is closer to 17). Friendships like that are really hard to come by so I’m always glad to visit but always a bit saddened when I leave.

Dropped the car off back at the airport and then made my way to the hotel. Because of the timing and costs, I had left home a day early which meant that tomorrow was going to be a free day.

For my morning, the plan was twofold: go geocaching and spot some notable filming locations.

I started my journey from the Seawall Water Walk and essentially followed the river walkway east until I had to take a detour to make my way down to the Gastown district.

The views from the area were amazing and I had a chance to spot one of the Disney cruiseliners docked right there downtown. Having never been on a cruise myself, I smiled and wondered if I would ever get the chance to try one of them out. The entire area where the docks are located was also a really nice view but for me I was really focused on trying to find the geocaches I had set out for.

After completing that section I made a detour up Burrard St to the corner of Hastings to find the exterior building for “CC Jitters” from The Flash. The former Elephant & Castle pub was actually used for this but has now been permanently closed. I snapped a photo or two and then made my way to Gastown, and then back to the hotel.

That was essentially it for me and my sight-seeing of Vancouver on this trip. For the rest of the week, I was pretty beat at the end of the day of each class so I had not much energy to go out exploring in the evenings. However, I did manage to do one more excursion which did fetch me this photo.

If you don’t watch The Flash, then you probably have no idea who this is. But if you do, you know it’s Grant Gustin who plays the DC character Flash from the CW show, The Flash. This was not the photo I was going for that night but it was definitely one I was more than happy about.

As a longtime geek, I follow most of the comic-book shows on TV these days. The whole Marvel movie thing has had an influence on me as I was never a comic book hero guy, but I have found myself wrapped up in the DC shows on the CW and Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD.

All of the “Arrowverse” shows (Arrow, Supergirl, The Flash, DC’s Legends of Tomorrow, and Batwoman) all shoot in Vancouver. When I found out I was going to be there during filming season, I did a little digging and found out that Supergirl would be shooting scenes outside not far from my hotel. As soon as class was done on Wednesday, I went back to the hotel, changed my clothes and grabbed my good camera and made my way down to David Lam Park.

Upon arriving on the park, I start to see trailers, filming equipment and a ton of people in the area. I wandered around for awhile and did catch a glimpse of Nicole Maines who plays Dreamer in Supergirl. From what I could tell, they must have been on break because filming had stopped and people were fanning out. But the information I had found online said they would be shooting almost until midnight so I opted to stick around.

It’s hard to see in this picture, but there’s a large lighting rig just off to my right hanging in the sky. In fact, it kind of looked like a giant space heater hanging there.

What you don’t see in the photo is back further, about 100′ up or so is a massive lighting rig at the end of the street. When it finally got dark, it came on and lit the street up pretty well. It was also interesting to see how they kept having a water truck spray the street every so often to create a reflection from the lights. I suspect it helped with the lighting they were looking for.

I didn’t know what the protocol was for something like this. I mean they are shooting in the public but what are you allowed or not allowed to do. The police had the street blocked off so I walked over to an officer and asked what I can and can’t do. He was very polite and simply explained that I am free to be in the area all I want, just don’t get in their way.

So I hung around for awhile and then eventually went for a walk down the block and found the food catering truck. A ton of extras were being fed and I was tempted to just walk up and help myself to some dinner but opted to skip it.

At one point while hanging around, I spotted this person on set. I immediately thought it was Melissa Benoist who plays Supergirl and was hoping to get a chance to see her in action and maybe get a photo. But alas, after waiting for awhile, I found out the girl in the photo was actually just a fan hoping to see the real one on set. After talking to a production assistant, I learned that 1) They were shooting Supergirl episode 9 which is part of the upcoming crossover event, and 2) Melissa was not shooting that day.

That did not however stop me from hanging out a bit longer to finally stumble upon this:

As night came down, this guy in a red suit came out and started doing some “slides” along the pavement. It was in fact Flash’s stand-in/stunt double and so I didn’t think much of it until not long after, on the sidelines I spotted two Flashes together. One of them was the stand-in and the other was the “real” one.

They finally started shooting a very small scene and I managed to capture this on camera.

When they finally finished with the scene, I caught Grant leaving the set heading towards the trailers and opted to follow and ask for the photo seen earlier in this post. I’m not normally the type to do something like that but it seemed like the only chance, and it had been a bit surreal since I had been watching The Flash literally the night before.

I shook his hand, took a photo, smiled and thanked him for his time and was a happy camper. I may not have had a chance to meet Supergirl but The Flash was pretty awesome.

That concluded my trip to Vancouver. The following night I stayed in and slept a bit extra and then on Friday I headed to Edmonton for personal reasons.

It was a good visit for both seeing my old friend from ages ago and watching a show I see every week be filmed in front of me. It’s not too often that happens.