Candy Town in Yaletown 2013

Once again, Candy Town came upon Yaletown in mid November.  If you remember from last year, I volunteered for this event with the Yaletown BIA in it's inaugural season.  I had so much fun last year, I decided to do it again this year.  Besides, my friends co-ordinate the event.  Always fun to work with friends.  

My duties this year was to work the Info Booth on the corner of Mainland and Hamilton.  Right next to the horse carriage rides.  I got my friend, Nadine to volunteer with me since she also really enjoyed it last year too.  It was a very cold day but it was fun.  I, unfortunately, was feeling under the weather but put on some hand and toes warmers in my mitts and shoes and stayed warm.  It also helped that we had a heat lamp in our tent to aid in the warmth.

So I had received this name tag at our orientation session held at a pub called Killjoy.  It was dark inside and it was hard to see but I was given this badge to wear and so I wrote my name on it. I was the Candy Town Naughty/Nice List Keeper.

 This was where I worked.  The lollipop decorations were a hit with the crowds.  They kept taking one out and posing with them for the camera.  It was a really creative idea to use swim noodles to create the lollipops.  Just wish the bucket they in, would have been weighted as it kept falling over when someone walked by and bumped it.  Btw, these lollipops were not made by us or the BIA.  They were made by a group of individuals of special needs who work on creative designs in arts and crafts.  I can't remember which institute they were with but they did a great job on them!

 

This year, the BIA decided against the reindeer and skating rink.  Instead, we had Santa, sleigh rides, a Christmas tree lot and many new and different vendors from last year.  My friend, Carmen, who coordinated the event, sewed all the costumes herself.  They looked amazing.

 

This was Gabriella, Carmen's sister, visiting from the States.  She really got into it.

In this pic, you can see a Reindeer in the back.  People were taking pics with him all the time.  He was really popular, as was our dancing gingerbread men.  Yes, they actually break danced.
 

There were also stilts people, cause who doesn't like really tall people?  Am I right?

From the time I started my shift, til the end of it, I could tell that people were really enjoying themselves.  We even had several bands playing throughout.  They were amazing.  I saw the guy dressed like a peppermint candy jamming to the steel drums and having a great time. This band here was part of the festivities from last year and they are really great people and an awesome band. 

We had about 15.000 people come through our event last year but this year it looked substantially more. I would say double that.  It started at 12pm and went on until 9pm.  The cocktail drinks at selected bars were serving specialty drinks for the night.  Most people took advantage of it and it was appreciated by those bars that took part.  On my break, I had walked around a bit and was drawn to a bag of White Truffle Chips.  After sampling some, my friend Nadine, was nice enough to get me a pack since I had no cash on me.  But they were wonderful.

We had our volunteer party at the same place again this year.  Nadine and I went together on the Canada Line and walked to our destination.  It was cold and dark but it was still beautiful out. We had wine, appies, lasagna, salad and some wonderful dessert.  The YaleTown BIA (Annette, Gary, Jill and Bert)  always know how to treat their volunteers right.  After all the fun of sitting around talking and enjoying the food and company, it was almost time to go.  We were told to pick up a little tree ornament from the table.  They were all numbered on the tags.  Once the called out your number, you would come up and receive a gift in appreciation.

My number was #11.  It was a small white polar bear with a hat on and holding a present.  This little bear got me a $20 gift certificate for Honjin Sushi in Yaletown and a $10 gift certificate for DD Mau, a Vietnamese Sandwich shop also located in Yaletown.  We were also given a gift from our sponsors, Urban Thai.  They had so generously donated Urban Thai sauce mixes to everyone. Yellow, Green and Red Curry sauce mixes.  Just add the meat or fish.  So thank you, Yaletown BIA for another wonderful event and for your generosity.  Its always fun volunteering with friends and I'll be back again next year!