DAY 12/240 - Wednesday, July 25, 2007
Today was the second and last day of the 'Rocky Mountaineer' tour. We travelled from Kamloops to Vancouver, and the scenary was as spectacular as was described yesterday. Even though the whole trip was good, I think we were all a little disappointed at how little wildlife we were able to see - we only really say osprey and eagles (and the viewings of even these two were so brief i was unable to get any photos).
Dad was a lot less stressed out today as he snuck a cigarette out the back of the train. We got into Vancouver a little ahead of time which i think was good, as I was happy to be off the train, and walking around. Soon we were in our hotels where we were pleasantly suprised to receive the random room upgrade, from standard to superior. The superior room has a lounge room and a kitchen attached to the bedroombathroom (which is what i assume a standard room would have been).
I decided to go for a run at about 7, as i was amazed to see how quickly i had put on weight since i left home a week and a half ago. One thing that amazed me about Canada is the contrast of the seasons. Winter can get as cold as -40 degrees celsius, when summer can soar to over 35 degrees. Thats more than a 75 degree turnaround. Also there is sunlight in summer from about 6:30am-10pm, (hence me running at 7) and only about 8am-3pm in winter.
I was equally horrified to discover how unfit i've gotten since i hurt my neck - i think that i was in pretty good shape at that time and not being able to do anything made a run that I would usually have no problems with, very tiring. But nevertheless i ran down to 'English Bay' tonight's setting of what I had recently found out was going to be one of the biggest fireworks displays in the world. It was a 4 night competition between Canada, Spain and China (with the 4th night being the grand finale and judging). Tonight was the first night of the competition and it was Spain's turn. Even though the show only started at about 10:30 (when it finally got dark) there was still people absolutely everywhere at 7 o'clock scoring good vantage points. From my first impressions, i really liked Vancouver.
We went for dinner at a place called "Players Chophouse". From the travel brochures on Vancouver that we had been given, we were looking for the biggest advertised steak - which was the restaurant formally on the site of players - but we decided to go there anyway.
Players Chophouse had on offer a 510 gram 'steak', and my gluttenous eyes couldn't read onto the description before i was blurting out to the waitor that that was what i wanted. In the end, the slow cooked steak tasted more like roast beef, which was fine (it was huge and still very nice), but it wasn't as nice as the slightly smaller option mum went for - my craving for steak still hadn't been fulfilled.
The plan was for us all the take the 30 min walk down to English Bay after dinner to watch the fireworks, but after such a massive meal, noone else really seemed up to it - plus it was getting a little late and we didn't think that we'd make it in time. I decided that i would try to make it down there, but only got about a third of the way before they commenced. Now i think that you'll all agree that fireworks are just fireworks, wherever in the world you are and what i was really after was the atmosphere. Because i was never going to make it in time, i just decided to head towards where i'd read was the big nightclubpub district in town.
There were so many night clubs to choose from and i would have liked to do the whole, 1 beer in each to check them out, but they all seemed to have cover charge. So i just decided to go to this one called the cellar bar, which turned out to be a great choice as they had a cover band playing. They also had this erratic asian guy dancing (not with anyone in particular, just all over the place). I went to the toilet and then to get a drink, only to find this asian guy throwing up in a bin at the end of the bar. Needless to say his night didn't last much longer. I ended up staying there till close and then stumbled home, only getting slightly lost, which was a pretty good effort. I'm having a great time in Vancouver - this is certainly a place that i could live.
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