I've lived in Toronto now for 4 months and love it. More metropolitan of a city, always something to do, night or day. Like another poster said, Vancouver is dead as soon as it gets dark out.

Sure I miss my fam, the mild weather and the abundance of seafood, but as a city itself, I really enjoy living in Toronto.

If I was to move away from the lower mainland it would be into the interior, not to another city/country

The clown quotient gets smaller the further away you go it seems until you hit kelowna at least :p
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I've been living in Japan for 6-8 months for the last 2 years and coming back to Vancouver for the summer months. This year though I'm probably going to spend a year down in Australia. Can't wait to be able to surf just in a pair of shorts and have summer weather all year long.

I love living in Vancouver but so far I'm loving Japan waay more. Pretty stoked for Australia too.

cayman islands here. fuck tax lol

How do you expats make friends in new cities, etc? It seems like you pretty much have to start from square 1.

Wondering how you guys find jobs in other countries. I'd like to live somewhere else for a while but can't figure out how to get started.

If you are in your 20s, there is a lot that you are missing out by "staying" in. Just saying.
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^Cartierwearer's a troll that got kicked out of SFU and lives in his parent's basement wearing a Cartier watch bought from some street vendor on Ap Liu St.

Pros of Vancouver:
-Clean air, laid-back pace, lots of oriental food at very cheap prices.

Cons of Vancouver:
-Aforementioned laid-back pace = very, very little higher career options compared to bigger cities.
-Laid-back pace = (usually) also makes you slower/less driven on self-improvement etc. When you're in a huge city, just by looking at the people around you on the street/subway, everyone is stressed and you can tell they have 10+ things on their to-do list. In Van everyone moves at a snail's pace.
-Housing costs -- because Van is so gorgeous, the richest people in the world who've made their money in said "faster cities" come here and buy it up. To them, Vancouver is still hella cheap as the property on the other is still far more expensive. Thus, unless you have a great paying job, your own business, or you stand to get hella help from family, you're truly screwed regarding buying a detached house.
-Taxes. In Vancouver I'd be paying 40% effective tax. In the US I'll be paying about 25%.

RE: expats in other cities.
-I went to UBC, and after graduation, about 3/4ths of my graduating friends left Van immediately. Some to Asia, London, States, etc. So when you're going to that city, you tell your friends and somehow someone always knows some Van person who headed there as well. Since we're foreigners in another city, there's always that loose network in case something happens.
EDIT: In support of below statement -- Van people are NOT friendly -- not just the women. This coming from a Vancouverite.

Its probably easier in other cities than here. As someone new to this city, I find people very cliquey - while most cities in Ontario, Quebec and the Maritimes are far friendlier.

Join a sports team, I find that the easiest way to make friends.

I live in Germany right now. I love it here, but Vancouver will always be home. Can't imaging living anywhere else permantley. However, I am very happy I did this trip because it's opened my eyes bigtime to the rest of the world and EU in specific. The whole mentality of life in general here is way more laid back and much more progressive than North America.

By personality, I'm an expat.

I've done exchange in South Korea, lived in Ottawa for a year. And I'm heading to Australia (Sydney) with a one way ticket in a couple months.

I was born and raised in Vancouver but I've always yearned to live in other cities since I was really young. After living out east for a year, I realized I missed a lot of things about Vancouver. However, despite my greater appreciation for its beauty and the fact that all my family and friends are here, I know that I won't feel content living in Vancouver, at least at this point of my life.

I've been in Holland for the last 3 years.
I visit Vancouver twice a year, and I'm counting the seconds until my 4 year contract here runs out and I can go home.

From Holland, it's really easy to travel anywhere in Europe. I never imagined I could I have dinner in Paris and be home before 12. But considering everything, Vancouver is a great place to live, especially when you consider the kind of life your kids will have. Asia is fun as hell and when you're there, you can live above your class at home. But I don't want my kids going to school for 16 hours a day, only to graduate from a good university and work for 18 hours a day!

RS ex-pat meet? Paris. Miss friends and family but I know I can come back to Vancouver anytime.

im planning on moving to seoul in 2 years after getting my commerical pilots license and such. take a long break away from vancouver, teach english, travel etc etc.

no matter where you guys are around the world, you still got revscene! =D

You seem to hate on everyone that is richer than you. Can't join them, so hate them?

Did you started reading any books after I told u? Or are you gonna work the same shit job everyday and do the same shit hobbies everyday, while complaining and assuming a ton of shit about other people all day? At least I don't judge people based on wealth or hate poor people. I just hate dumb people.

By the way I just bought a cartier watch as well, I hope that will make you even more pissed off.

i left because there are way better money and opportunity for growth elsewhere for what I do. Vancouver is great if you are wealthy and looking for a comfortable place to settle down, but if you are young and looking to reach great heights rather than a comfortable salary and mediocre title in your desired career, Vancouver is not really the place to be. Of course there are exceptions but I'm speaking from my personal and the experiences of the people around me.

I sometimes miss the beauty and convenience of Vancouver.

I moved/worked in Taipei after SFU in 2005, moved to Shanghai for work in 08 right before Beijing Olympics, moved back to Vancouver in Sept of 11 :)

Vancouver is definite not where you make big bucks, it's where you spend money and enjoy life.

Every post you make is an attempt to turn a thread into shit. Fuck off and don't come back.

^^This. I took Operations Management at BCIT and found that there were a pile of shit jobs. Yay! I can take 10 years to become middle management of a crap company that I can outsource the whole f'ing thing to Thai-Chi-Singa-wan for 10 cents on the dollar.

Whats better is the people that I went to school with would get all excited when they could network with the said middle manager of the said crap company and get all weak in the knees. Like, you are kissing the wrong ass.

It is too bad that you'll never see my response, but I will still post one.

I truly feel sorry for you that you need to use your parent's wealth to acquire material possessions to help offset your vulnerability and your insecurity. I guess you needed that BMW M3 more than anyone else when you graduated from highschool. How else are you going to be able to 'attract' friends in your pathetic circle of life?

"Cartier_Wear" used to be called "SFUDropout" and he was the biggest resident troll. I personally think he stoops below "Hyde" but I will leave that for another discussion.

To answer your question from a few months ago, my car is paid for by my work. I could have "leased" a 323/328i like every other poseur in Vancouver, but this car provides everything that I need, and still provides a net +ve difference to my earnings. I can be pathetic and sad like you and live in your parent's "midtown flat", but I prefer to live on my own and to pursue other endeavors such as having a life and spending time with 'real' friends. :) :nyan::nyan:

BTW, I noticed quite a few people are moving to Sydney!
I will be visiting there in April/May, and then I will move there permanently in November.

Are you guys there for grad-school/work? Have you guys decided on where about to live? I heard finding a place to rent can be a b*tch. A lot of the condo leases are handled by a realtor, and they only do showings like once a week. I heard that the housing situation is so dire that people would line up 2 hours before the showing time, and the unit would be gone on the same day.

My family immigrated to Vancouver more than a decade ago, and honestly I could never imagine living anywhere else. Maybe I'm just conservative, but after the first initial few years, I started preferring Canada over Asia more and more.

I'm out here in Melbourne on a working holiday. I could have sworn I posted in this thread a while back, did posts get deleted?