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Published: September 6th 2010
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Short weekend trip to Vancouver, BC from Sept 3 to Sept 6, 2010.
Day 1 - Arrived in Vancouver around 10:30 pm Labor Day weekend. Skipping the taxi cabs, we headed straight for the Canada Line train which was an easy ride to within a few blocks of our hotel. We like to try to use public transportation when possible to better learn how the city works. After getting checked in, we walked around the city for about an hour before heading back to the hotel.
Day 2 - Despite the rainy reputation Vancouver has, today was sunny and cool. We walked from the hotel to the Waterfront area. We then continued our walk up the seawall to Stanley Park. Vancouver is a really beutiful city. It seems one part Canadian, one part Asian (mostly Twainees), and one part European tourist. Or perhaps it just seems very European because French is so widely spoken here. The place is really clean with the mountains, the parks, the greenery, the fresh clean air... Very back-to-nature. And then there is the whole northern exposure element with totem poles, the water... And then there is a very modern, sleek city in the middle
of all this. Very nice place.
We rented some bikes at the entrance of Stanley Park and biked around the park. Wow - it is much bigger than Balboa Park in San Diego. Then main bike path folows the water around the entire peninsula. We then continued our ride around False Creek to Granville Island. All in all, it took us about 2 1/2 hours to get to Granville island. Such a pleasant experience. Vancouver has so many park areas and the bike trails cover much of the downtown area. We really like this city.
Granville island was a fun place to visit. The Public Market was very happening and had a good energy about it. Lots of fresh fruit, bakeries, etc. We then headed back using a different bike route. All the bike trails are well marked and are usually separate from both traffic and from even foot traffic. We were tired once we got back to the hotel.
Day 3 - Visited the Waterfront and Gastown areas. Nice tree-lined streets in Gastown. We then took a quick walk over to Chinatown. Steven wanted to have lunch there and look through some of the shops. I
found fresh mangosteen so I was happy. Haven't seen fresh mangosteen outside of southeast Asia. Once we were done with Chinatown, we decided to take a different route back to Gastown since I wanted to see some other areas. Big mistake! We walked right through the heart of Vancouver's skid row! It reminded me of the movie dawn of the dead. Half dead drug addicts, homeless and prostitutes were everywhere. We just tried to walk with a purpose as fast as we could to get out of there. Quite an amazing sceen in an odd way but definitely not for the faint of heart. Wow - that area is right next to a very high-end area and stands in such sharp contrast to what you otherwise see in Vancouver.
During yesterday's bike ride, we saw an Inuit statue along the water that Steven wanted to get a picture of. We weren't sure exactly where it was in Stanley Park so we started at the end of Davie Street and stated walking....and walking...and walking... I kept thinking it was just one more corner away. After over an hour of walking, we asked some fellow walkers where the statue was. They
said it was all the way back at the beginning. So we walked all the way back and found the statue about 100 farther down the path than where we stated. Clearly in view of where we stared. Oh well. It was a very relaxing few hours of walking anyway - among the bikers, bladers, etc. Really a top notch park.
Day 4 - Ok - our first and only rainy day in Vancouver. It's ok though as this is our departure day anyway. Walked around the city a bit and stopped in a coffee shop to wait until we head to the airport.
Until next time!
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