Blogs from Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, North America - page 2
Advertisement
Vancouver and the road to the Canadian Rockies
Published: January 3rd 2013North America » Canada » British Columbia » VancouverA short flight from Seattle to Vancouver saw my return to Canada. Last time I was here I didn't get to see much other than the ski mountain I lived at (the NBA season was nearly over so I had to get back to the US). When I arrived at immigration in the airport I was greeted with an absolute grilling by the border control woman. She didn't look like a hard-ass but that just made it all the more surprising. She asked a multitude of questions, such as where I'd been, who with, what I did back home, and even going so far as to ask exactly which sights and places I saw in various towns. I mean come on, I'm Australian. I thought we were on good terms with Canada. After surviving that brief ... read more
Vancouver: Bear hunting with the Godfather!
Published: November 14th 2012North America » Canada » British Columbia » VancouverWe arrived in Vancouver after a long day of travelling which had been an emotional one, Lauren gutted to have left Hannah, and even Ben sad, he had grown fond of little Preston! We navigated our way in the cool air from Vancouver train station to the sky train to the stadium station following expert instructions from Nigel. We had included a visit to this beautiful part of Canada in the hope of catching up with Ben's godfather (Nigel) and his wife, Jan. Luckily at our leaving meal some months ago, Jacqui, Ben's auntie and Nigel's ex wife set up the contact and we arranged some time ago that we would stay with them the first few days of November. Ben hadn't seen them in a number of years and Lauren never so we were definitely ... read more
The Adventure Begins...
Published: November 3rd 2012North America » Canada » British Columbia » Vancouver » YVRSo the first leg of our mystery journey was not such a mystery; not so easy to hide Vancouver as a destination. But we did manage a little mystery, as in, will the plane land. Mother Nature, on cue, made sure snow would arrive in time to wish us a farewll and give our nerves a small test before we got into the meat of our journey. The white stuff was coming down fast and furious, but it could not deny Penny's power to will that plane down. So on board we got, a few bumps in the sky, and suddenly we were in YVR, the gateway to the beginning of our adventure. We are now tucked in and waiting for tomorrow to arrive; forget about which will be our first stop once we leave Vancouver, ... read more
I can't believe it!
Published: November 1st 2012North America » Canada » British Columbia » VancouverOk, here is the start of our adventure. Here we sit in our best western hotel room, suitcases all sorted and texting and emailing our farewells to those we love and will miss. oh it's so bitter sweet. This time tomorrow we will be swaying to "da blues" in Nawlins... (Aka New Orleans) I will not be sad to leave the torrential rains that have hit us so hard these past few days. I hope you all get a bit of a reprieve and that this isnt winter settling in already. Our plane leaves at 8:40 am, so will be up around 5am and off to the airport. I am new at blogging so hopefully it will get better as the adventure gets going. Love to all, I&K... read more
Now that I've had a few more days to fully settle in and recover from the flight, Vancouver seems to be growing on me. I have spent the past few days with the others from my BUNAC group. After setting up bank accounts and getting new mobile phone numbers, we've had a bit more spare time to explore Vancouver. The city itself is fairly laid back, with around 2.3 million residents, but you'd never think it because the pace of life here is so chilled. Vancouver has all the things you'd usually associate with a big city - high rise buildings, intricate transport system, diverse shops and shopping centres, but it just doesnt feel busy. You can comfortably walk around and shop in the Pacific Centre on a saturday and not get annoyed by other shoppers. ... read more
Advertisement
Edmonton to Vancouver - October 14-18, 2012
Published: October 20th 2012North America » Canada » British Columbia » VancouverOkay, so I finally made it out to Vancouver. It took me five days and a not-so-straight-forward 1936 kilometers to do it, but I made it. I have to give a big thankyou to the Nickel family for putting me up at their place (again), letting me store my stuff at their place (again), and reminding me of everything I would otherwise forget to do or bring with me (again). So thankyou Nickels! I have decided to name my bike The Red Baron, after a non-existent bar in Lac La Biche. I left Edmonton at around 2:00 on Sunday, thinking I might make it down to Lethbridge that night. Six and half hours later, I rolled into Calgary. Sunday was the first time I had ever loaded up the bike with all my gear so I ... read more
Stanley Park, Granville Island and Justin Bieber...who? Bieber?
Published: October 13th 2012North America » Canada » British Columbia » VancouverIt's amazing how good you can feel after a great sleep! Waking up Thursday morning I felt refreshed and ready to get out and continue exploring this fantastic city. I was really hanging for a nice, hot cuppa and so I headed to one of the many Tim Horton coffee shops that are all over the city (along with the multitude of Subway shops, seriously I have about 6 of them within a three block radius!) and feeling like I had started my day in my normal way I headed off to find a bike rental shop so that I could cycle around Stanley Park. I headed to Coal Harbour to start this adventure and had managed to get about 6 blocks from my hotel when I was stopped by a police motorcade which had pulled ... read more
Grey skies are gonna clear up...or maybe they won't
Published: October 11th 2012North America » Canada » British Columbia » VancouverAfter a comfortable 14hr flight with Air Canada (the plane was half empty which meant I got an entire row of seats to myself!) I arrived in Vancouver at 7.38am local time. Flying in we got to see some pretty amazing scenery of Vancouver Island and the mountains - all exciting places that are still to come. However the closer we got to ground the heavier the fog got and it has stuck around all day (you'll see in the photos I have posted). Always up for a challenge, in the midst of peak hour I made my way into Downtown via the Metro. Peak hour in Vancouver is not as bad as Melbourne peak hour but I still don't think I was the most popular passenger when I eventually had to get off with my ... read more
One of the places we had wanted to visit in Vancouver was Capilano Suspension Bridge (having seen a photo on a website nine months ago). When we got here we found it was around $35 each to get entry, and some people said it wasn't really worthwhile since there was a free suspension bridge nearby at Lynn Canyon. So, when we finally got through the worst of the traffic heading back into Vancouver we went straight over into North Vancouver to Lynn Canyon Park to take a look around. It was pretty beautiful and the suspension bridge was around 50m high and 50m long. We spent a fair bit of time just sitting on rocks in the sun next to a stream. It was really peaceful and gave us time to chat about how we felt ... read more
Vancouver and Whistler
Published: October 6th 2012North America » Canada » British Columbia » VancouverIt was around 10pm when we got in to Vancouver and thankfully our hostel was very close to the bus station. We had to fight our way through a crowd outside the pub next door to the hostel to find our way in. The room was pretty good clean with a comfy bed and a TV which we didn't turn on at all. Chris discovered that his bottle of cooking fuel had leaked a bit and everything in his backpack smelt like fuel. Great. He unpacked everything and stuck the fuel bottle out on the window sill so it didn't stink out the room. Sunday morning and we wandered through Chinatown on our way to a breakfast cafe that had been recommended. It was very popular and there was a bit of a queue outside. It ... read more
Sign In



































