Every summer, I take the kids to visit my parents for a few weeks. Last year, they were down in Taiwan. Kids got to use the  Taipei’s Metro system and walking so much under 90 something degree heat.

This year, they are back in Vancouver, British Columbia, one of the 15 green cities as Grist listed, where I had lived for a while 12 years ago. Much nicer weather this time.

It’s always a treat to visit Vancouver for all the great restaurants and the mountain and ocean view.   This time, I’m looking on the streetaround to find what’s GREEN about the city.

On my first day, as a loyal shopper, I had to go visit the new Wholefoods Market on 8th and Cambie. It was just opened in April. Very good size! So many different yummy prepared food, baked goods, perfect for grabbing a quick lunch. Too bad I’m not allowed to take picture in the store.

See the dark color exterior wall? (Sorry about the bad photo. Sun was at the other side) It’s a “Living Wall” full of plants.  It looked really nice. I’m sure we will start seeing green living wall popping up on a lot of new buildings.

Looking for where to recycle your STUFF?

People in San Francisco, if you have an iPhone (iPod touch, too!), check out Eco Finder!

When Apple iPhone commercials said: “There is an App for that!“, they are not kidding! For the Eco Techie out in the Bay Area, Eco Finder App can help you find where to recycle just about anything you can think of right on your phone!!

How about us? People in Indiana?

This application is designed and produced by Haku Wale.  Any company in Indian would like to team up with him to bring the App to our area?

Still not quite switch back from the vacation mode…

OK, follow up with what I was talking about in part one:

With Chevy Chase emceeing the celebration, several great music bands in the lined up, there were thousands of people from all age groups gathered in front of the stage.

I listened to the speech that Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis gave passionately about the Green Jobs, the proposals and budgets that the administration had layout, and other speakers expressing the importance of being part of the Green Generation to bring the change and find the global solution.  That really gave me a sense of hope that we finally are moving in the right direction.

Unfortunately, with too many unconsidered smokers in the crowd, I had to get out of there. Walked towards the Capital building, I found the National Sustainable Design Expo’s tents. Now, we are talking. It featured EPA’s P3 (People, Prosperity and the Planet) Award, which brings together students, nonprofit organizations, and government agencies working to create a sustainable future. There were all sorts of designs using alternative ways to create energy: from Coffee wastes to solar, ingenious way to reuse waste water, to biofeul from microalgae, and much more!

It’s so exciting! So many solutions and inventions are out there to solve the global climate issue and the mess we had created for mother Earth. As long as we can put all the differences aside and work together, I believe the future will be bright, clean, and Green!

I took a trip on my own to Washington DC the past weekend. I picked the nicest spring day to see the nation’s capital.

Earth Day Network held the Earth Day celebration on the Ntaional Mall, right in front of the Capital building on Sunday, April 19, to officially launch of The Green Generation^TM.

When I read about it online couple months ago, I said to myself: “I’d like to witness that!” Since I collected quite a bit frequent flyer miles from all my past business trips, I decided to fly to the Capital for the experience!

I got there on Saturday, did a lot of sightseeing just like all the other tourists in town. Saw the White House, the Washington Monument, walked into several Museums to cool down a bit from the Sun.

But what I really enjoyed was able to take the Metro to places. I got a day pass for $7.80 at the Airport, then it only took my 10 minutes to get to the Convention Center downtown from the Reagan Airport. I found where the Whole Foods located, took the Orange train to Arlington Virginia (just across the river), after 7 stop, within 15 minutes, I was there from Smithsonian. I got to see a lot more areas by train than I ever could for just $7.80 all day!

Sunday, weather cool down a little bit, but still plenty of people showed up on the National Mall. This year, Earth Day Network had “NO PAPER” policy, so there was no hand-out at the exhibitor’s booths.  Not even a printed program! I like that! No waste! But now I’m having trouble remembering who I had seen/heard on stages…

I convenced my husband today that we should drive all the way downtown Indy for the Earth Hour, because the Green Piece Indy girls planned an event at the South Bend Chocolate Cafe. IPL would be turning off their lights with a count down.

We power off everything in the house and went downtown. It was nice to see all the people coming out at the Chocolate cafe for the event. It started to rain pretty hard right around 8:30pm. We went out and stood in the rain to see the “Change” at Earth Hour. All we saw was IPL building turned off their color lights. Not the spotlight on the roof, not the bright lights in their lobby, of course, not any lights around the Circle.

Our capital building was as bright lit as usual on a Saturday night.

Southbend Chocolate Cafe turned down all their lights and Green Piece Indy event enjoyed their treats with candle lights. But somehow I still feel disappointed. It’s a small step, but a little too small for me.

It’s that time of the year again!

EarthHour 2009 is coming up. Even though I really think we should do it once a month at least.

Anybody interested organizing a event in Indiana?

$700,000,000,000 bailout.

This is all we hear about every day in the last two weeks.

I was just wondering what we could do this HUGE amount of money if we could put it towards improving the environment, then I found this article by Jennifer Lance:

If $700 billion was distributed to every US household for green technologies, each household could buy:

• 75 solar panels that produce 200 watts each
• 3 Toyota Prius
• 25 wind turbines that produce 3.4 kWh per day

Well, you get the idea.  Rather than dividing the money up among households, the investment could turn our economy green on a larger scale.

Imagine how great would it be!!!

When can PEOPLE actually have the power, instead allowing those big coporations running the country into the ground?

It works now!!

After last night’s big storm, my rain barrel is full to the top!

I guess the wood had been dry too long, so it took a while to expend to fill the gaps.

I was kicking myself during the storm: why didn’t I have the other 3 barrels ready?!!  I could have enough rain water for my garden for the rest of the summer!!