What Makes Calgary One of Canada’s Most Exciting Cities?

Stephen Avenue Mall right here in the downtown core of Calgary, Alberta, Canada. It is a Thursday afternoon in late June 2022. The weather outside is currently 54 degrees. This is what would be considered winter-like weather in most places in the world. It is summer in Calgary, known for being the base camp for the Canadian Rockies, which are world-renowned. But let's keep cruising. Yeah, so the population of Calgary is 1.4 million people. It's the largest city in the interior and in Alberta. Second is Edmonton, which is to the north. But yeah, we're going to head over here to this Calgary Tower. In case you're wondering, the nickname of Calgary is Cowtown. But it is mostly known for the oil industry, as well as the gauss. They have a big festival here called the Stampede. Some of you are probably watching this video because of the Stampede in Calgary. In the wintertime, if you came here January, December, February, you would likely be in a snowstorm. Lots of snow during those times. It'll warm up in the summer, beautiful mild summers here. Let's go inside here to the Calgary Tower. Okay, Calgary Tower. Oh, the door just flies open. 360 check-in. How does this work? Just one adult? Just one adult, $22. Oh my, how would you like to pay? I'll pay with card. Here's the elevator. Hello. Okay. Yes, sir. 626 feet. Built in 1968. That took about a minute and 60 seconds. So it's $22 to get up here. Built in 1968. You get 360 degree views around here. It's actually pretty high up. Facing west. It's going down. There we go. All right. Thank you. All right. Sky360. What's Sky360? Where's that? Oh, how do you go there? Just, oh, got it. Okay. Thank you. That's where we were. That's the Sky360 restaurant there. All right. Well, we're on Ninth Avenue and First Street, right in front of the Fairmont Hotel. We're going to head down First Street a little bit. There's the old Canadian Pacific Railway. What do you guys think of Calgary so far? We've got a lot of exploring to do. We're going to actually head over towards the Olympic Park. Hopefully it doesn't rain too hard. It's calling for some rain on the forecast though. So we'll see. All right. So after about two to three hours of rain, it is now four in the afternoon. So we're headed out through the Home Oil Tower to the other side where the Olympic Park is. There's plenty of opportunities to go indoors out here in Alberta, Calgary. 35 degrees below zero is common here. They have a lot of these indoor malls like we're seeing here. Just kind of cruising through one of these indoor mall settings, which are in most of the plazas or indoor areas. I mean, could you imagine 35 degrees below zero for like three months straight? That's what happens in Calgary. So you probably spend a lot of time indoors. So they had to build like indoor cities. But in the summer, it's just absolutely gorgeous weather. Me, I come from Phoenix, Arizona. So being able to go out to a cooler place like this in the summer is great. It's 115 in Phoenix right now and 54 in Calgary. I mean, go figure. All right. Anyway, we're headed towards the Olympic Park. I think the Olympics in Calgary were in the 80s. It was the Winter Olympics and a lot of the activities were done in the Canadian Rockies. Banff is nearby here. That's a really popular place. I think I hear the streetcar. Here we go. It's an efficient way to get around. Well, at least downtown. Calgary Transit. You can see these indoor paths that go over the city here. Every street. That's so that you basically don't have to go outside if you don't want to. Yeah. So we're just going to cruise this third street here. Seems like a really popular place. Head over to the Olympic Plaza and then down to Chinatown and the riverfront. I think they have a island park down there that's worth checking out. But man, dude, these things are super active. Super active. Like, every minute there's a new tram. I could probably take this tram, actually. Let's see how to do this. That's what I'm going to do. I'm going to take this tram to Olympic Park just to ride it. See what it's like. All right, so I'm just going to get an all-day pass. See how this works. Okay, so I'm going to put my credit card in here. Okay, card is in. Please remove card. Okay, single ticket. Let's ride it. Let's see what's up. All right, we're going to ride this bad boy to Olympic Plaza. Let's see what's up. I'm going to sit over here. All right, well, that was a short ride. I'm literally just at Center Street Station. I like Calgary. Calgary is like super cool considering it's a very far high altitude city. It's cool. And they got some big buildings down here. There's the Hyatt, but look at that thing. Condominium? I would live there. Real high building. Well, to be honest, there's not much to see at the Olympic Park, but that building's cool. Anyways, we're headed down towards Chinatown now. I was excited to see Olympic Park, but I realize it's probably no better than the one in Atlanta or even Vancouver. By the way, if you haven't already seen our video on Vancouver, you can easily click the link below and watch it. Heck, you can even watch the Atlanta video that we've done. Get around. That's why you want to subscribe to this channel. Show you all the different cities. It's like a big video library, places. The world is much bigger than your town or city that you live in right now, and it could be better or worse depending on what you like. For me, I like to see new places, but some people like to find and discover new places to live because they're stagnant or bored. More of those over the road, indoor pathways. Man, they got some big buildings down here. Canadian oil. It's got some value. I think it's the Canadian oil sands. I don't know where they get all the oil. It's like Houston. In Houston, they have an underground city. We also did a travel guide for Houston, and we even went to the underground city. They actually do these pathways where you walk over the road in a path contained. It's air-conditioned and everything. It's not a lot of that in Minnesota, Minneapolis. All right, first tower. We're getting close to Chinatown. I'm going to probably stop and get some dim sum if I can. We'll see. Sometimes I tell you guys I'm going to do something, and then I get there, and I'm like, oh, well, that didn't quite work out. But hey, Dragon City Mall. I'm going to go inside there. I love Chinese food. I love dim sum. Cantonese, Mandarin, you name it. I love it all, so let's see what's in there. All these big buildings. Let's go in here. It says Regency Palace Seafood Restaurant and Lounge. Dim sum daily third floor. Third floor? That's so high up. Why so high? I feel like I'm in Hong Kong. One of my favorite cities in the world is Hong Kong, but I also like going to Kowloon, Shenzhen, Shanghai. So many great places in China to visit. Let's see here. What is this? Where's the restaurants? I guess third floor, but I only see second floor, and I don't even know. Maybe you got to take a elevator. I'm just here for the dim sum because I love me some dim sum. Shumai. Shumai is good. My grandfather used to take us to dim sum when we were kids, so we grew up eating dim sum. Well, I ended up getting Korean food, which is actually one of my favorite cuisines, so this is a total win. I love Korean food also. I actually probably need to go back to South Korea. I've been to Incheon and Seoul. Edamame. Okay, look at that. The side dishes with the short rib. Sizzling pork or beef fried rib actually. Short rib. Gorgeous. All right. Well, some delicious food. Let's see. I'm just amazed at the size of these buildings down here in Calgary. That one especially. Smiling the sun is coming out. It's not all clouds, but look at that stairwell. I've never seen a stairwell like that. Okay, so we're gonna keep cruising through Chinatown here, and we're gonna actually head towards Center Street, and that will take us to some parks along the waterfront. We haven't yet seen the waterfront here in Calgary. All right, we are on Center Street and Third Avenue. Trying to go all around Calgary and show you guys all the goods, so we'll see if I can get around to everything. All right, we're coming up to Second Avenue. Seen our first street yeller. Someone who just stands on the side of the street and yells. I didn't show it on camera, but I've seen those all across North America. Probably other places, but I see them way more in North America, especially the U.S. Not so much in Canada, but U.S. really gets them. All right, we are headed to the park. A lot more peaceful down here on the waterfront, but definitely just like a big city. I mean, it still reminds me very much of Denver. It's obviously not exactly the same as Denver, but similar. All right, here we are on Jaipur Bridge. We're going over to the Prince Island Park. This is the waterfront. Gotta watch out for cyclists out here. Look at this waterfront here. Looks great. So we're coming up to Prince Island Park. Very lush, evergreen park. Great views of the city and some ducks. Lots of ducks. Smells good here too. Very fragrant with green. Well, here we have the beautiful skyline. Now we are walking off the Prince Island Park here. It's just an outdoor environment to find some relaxation in the city. So this area here is the Bow River. All right, so we're now on the other side. We've left downtown. Let's see what else there is to do around here. You can see you could ride this bike here. Got some people coming. So you got downtown over here, and then the rest of the world over here. All right, so I have this ticket to take me to the mall. That's $3.50 each time I go one way. Almost seems like it's getting an A pass for $11.50. It'd be the best way to get around, the most affordable way per person. I guess the train's coming in three minutes. Just gotta make sure you know which side of the track. And here comes the train. Comes in hot. Coming in real hot, huh? Man, that's a crowded train. Wow, they even have a subway here. Got off at the Lions Park station. There's a mall over here, so we're gonna check that out. Had a lot of reviews. It might be the biggest in town. I don't know. I'm just kind of exploring at this point. But that train, it is jam-packed. They're probably gonna have to get a bigger train at some point. Might even have to do a little bit more than just a tram and do like an actual train. This is the North Hill Center. That mall area I was telling you about. I like Calgary though. Trying to visualize myself here when it's 35 below though. I think it even gets colder than that. Just amazed how many plants can handle 35 below and then just come back to green. We're in the mall. Alright, so they've got a big mall. Not quite the Mall of America big, but it's big. New York Fries. I'm sure you can get some pudding in there. Actually, I don't even see pudding on there. A place like this, I'd imagine the malls are very important. But in the summertime, everyone's outside. So it looks like an old mall though. Super old. It's like any mall you would see anywhere else. So we'll keep cruising. And you know, being that it's late and there's another storm rolling in, possibly even tornadoes, I guess we'll cruise out of here and head back to the hotel. Oh, before I go, I wanted to say that 17th Avenue is where I was told to go. They have a casino there and like a bunch of bars and stuff. I'm not going out tonight, but 17th Avenue, add that to your list when you come to Calgary. Alright guys, that's going to conclude this episode of Island Hopper TV. When you come to Calgary, have fun. See you guys in Canada.