Alison DELETE Appelbe - Secret Vancouver 2010. The Unique Guidebook to Vancouvers Hidden Sites, Sounds, and Tastes

Some time ago, a Canadian journalist working in Hong Kong told me that Asians viewed Vancouver as little more than a puddle on the far side of the North Pacific. Also quiet, and boring, he added for my abdication. Then this city's co-director of planning described Vancouver as a postage stamp of a city when it comes to the larger scheme of things.

They are both right. Vancouver is small by global standards roughly 2.2 million people if you include the entire metropolitan area. And it's a fair distance from the hot political and cultural centers of the world. This may be a disadvantage, but it also works in our favor. The same planner also sees Vancouver as a sanctuary city, and I think that just about sums it up. Vancouver is peaceable, lush, clean, affluent, and relatively safe.

A strength is obviously its natural setting. The city is shaped around a gorgeous inlet with mountains to the north, and a tremendous river to the south. And while admittedly it rains a lot, the climate is temperate enough to make it ideal for year-round outdoor activity. Hey, mountain biking (covered in this guide) was practically born on the North Shore.

Another plus is the people who've settled here in the past quarter century. Building on a largely (though not exclusively) European population, hundreds of thousands of Asian immigrants particularly Chinese-speakers from Southeast Asia, but also a large contingent from the Indian subcontinent have added a dimension that can't be undervalued or underestimated; they've made this city an immensely more attractive and interesting place.

Finally, Vancouver is shaping up to be one of the best examples

of New Urbanism in North America. This movement aims to make inner cities livable again, and attract at least some suburbanites back to the denser, richer atmosphere of the central city. It's happening. Residential growth on Vancouver's downtown peninsula from False Creek through the Downtown South to Coal Harbour is far exceeding expectations.

This guide is intended to help you explore these and other lesser-known facets of this city deliberately omitting the clichs and tourist traps such as the Capilano Suspension Bridge (wonderful though the canyon is), overpriced Robson Street, and the Gastown Steam Clock. In short, it's meant to get you off the tourist track, below the surface, and into the places and cultures that make Vancouver really livable. Travel (by electric trolley bus or passenger ferry), dig deep, walk, explore, talk to the locals dance with them, for that matter. Above all, enjoy yourself. There's more to this city than its good bones.