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Published: September 9th 2011
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Continuing from the last blog:
Tues 6th Sept - a nondescript travel day. We caught the Greyhound bus from Whistler back to Vancouver and arrived around 1 p.m. All we really did was return to the Coast Coal Harbour and another lovely room, wander to the Pacific Centre to buy the five finger shoes since they're about half the price in Canada compared to NZ, and eat dinner at the Thai House on Robson Street. We had the set menu for two and it was delicious and perfectly spicy: spring rolls and chicken satay to start, chicken red curry served in a young coconut, garlic and pepper king prawns and Thai jasmine rice cooked in coconut milk, plus ice cream. Mmmmm!
Wed 7th Sept - we're really winding down now as we've done most of the things we came to do. So today it was a late start and off to the Vancouver Police Museum after the usual Tim Horton's hot chocolate/coffee and grain muffins to start the day. The museum is just in the Eastside, not the most desirable area to be in and certainly one to be avoided after dark. Even mid morning police sirens were predominant
and two ambulances were rushing to some incident close by.
The museum is situated in the former coroner's office and morgue. It was fascinating, macabre really. Exhibits included, amongst other things, photos of real crime scenes, forensic equipment, actual mortuary drawers and autopsy tables, confiscated weapons, drug paraphenalia, real and replica police weapons. Errol Flynn's autopsy was conducted here. In the autopsy room, there are slices of human tissue such as brains with bullet or knife wounds and tissues where death has been caused naturally. Totally fascinating, completely real.
We walked back through Chinatown and saw the Sam Kee building, famous and in the Guiness Book of Records for being the world's narrowest office building. It is attached to a larger building and so just looks part of it, but it isn't - it's only 1.8 m wide. The land was bought in 1906; in 1926 the city expropriated all but this 1.8 m wide strip to widen Pender Street, since the Sam Kee Co owner would not give it up. So the building was built anyway and the creative use of bay windows give it a larger then actual appearance.
In the evening we ate dinner
at Tropika on Robson Street - turned out to be one of those rare extremely disappointing meals so we won't be going back there. The roti canai was miniscule; the satay sticks were tasty enough (but with an average peanut sauce); the nasi goreng was very greasy and very dark in colour, certainly not the colour of nasi goreng either of us have ever eaten in the past. It didn't taste of much either, just had a heat to it minus the flavour and the prawn crackers that accompanied it were soggy with grease too. On a positive note, the beef rendang was OK, nicely cooked anyway. But overall this wasn't a patch on the Thai from last night.
Went back to the room and shared a litre bottle of Howe Sound King Hefe - very nive indeed!
Thurs 8th Sept - what we thought would be an excellent last full day in Vancouver turned out to be the opposite! Well, almost. First we went to the Capilano Suspension Bridge Park in North Vancouver - free shuttle there and back from right outside the hotel, which was convenient, then $36 each to get in. The highlight of the
Sam Kee Building
The width is that of the lower section, not the whole building. park is a 140m-long suspension bridge 70m above the capilano canyon, plus there's a series of smaller suspension bridges through the treetops and a "cliff walk" which is actually another suspended walkway jutting out of the cliffs with a couple of glass sections. There's some other boarded walkways and nature trails through the douglas firs and other trees too. I think the reason we were disappointed with it all was that not only was it so touristy and full of people even just after the park opened, it paled into insignificance compared to the suspension bridges in Borneo, which were higher and longer. To give it some credit, it was a pleasant enough place, just not as good as we'd expected.
So as we were back much earlier than planned, we thought that we'd head over to Commercial Drive in the afternoon, hailed in the Lonely Planet as being "Robson Street's far more interesting evil twin". The book gave impressions of alternative and interesting shopping - I think not! As Mac put it, it's more interesting watching the same news item on BBC World News three times in an hour. I'd describe "the drive" as a fusion of cheap
eateries and dollar stores. It was poor and certainly not worth the sky train trip it took to get there.
Evening - dinner at Thai House again - totally excellent!
So to summarise I think we saw the best of the city in the 4 days we were here earlier. Tomorrow's the last day, we fly back to Christchurch tomorrow evening, and other than the contemporary art gallery which only reopens tonight (due to changing exhibits, we'll go there tomorrow), I think we've seen all we want to.
Fri 9th - the internet is once again preventing me from uploading all the photos I want to and we are leaving our room very soon, so no more photos!
This marks the end of our 4-month trip - it would be great to have another 4 months to continue but sadly it's not going to happen just now! Looking forward to seeing everyone in Christchurch really soon!
Caz and Mac
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