The apartment is beautiful, modern and clean with a comfortable bed, good airflow with operable windows from front to back, and deploys an electronic combination lock entry system that obviates the need for a key. Upon my arrival I found some homemade muffins and fruit and some useful items in the fridge- milk, apple juice. These are the positive things I'd note.

On the less-positive side, the apartment is on a residential street with no commercial amenities for blocks in any direction. To get to anything worth visiting- a cafe, restaurant, grocery, anything- entails at least a 15 minute walk. East Van is simply not built for pedestrians the way Vancouver's West End is, and the lack of a proper neighbourhood hangout like a nice corner cafe is really not what I was expecting in that lovely city. Once I got back to the apartment in the evening I had no desire to head back out- even getting to a bus stop on Broadway was a seven block walk. The unit was perfectly comfortable, as I say, but I wish it had been a few blocks west towards Main or east towards Commercial.

The owners and their children live upstairs. Nights were mercifully quiet, very very quiet, but early mornings, there is a lot of activity and the unavoidable sound of footsteps will wake you up if like me you're a light sleeper.