Blogs from Stanley Park, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, North America - page 2

October 22, 2013 Our final days in Vancouver. What to do that a) we haven’t already done or b) really want to do again? Steve and Sam head out on roller blades while Matthew and I stick to walking. The trees that line the downtown streets are gorgeous at the moment, especially the Japanese Maple with its beautiful, delicate red leaves. Matthew and I spend a while selecting a handful of samples before we meet up with Steve and Sam at the Mongolian BBQ on Denman for their fantastic lunch. How we’ll miss the delicious Mongolian BBQ! Our hunger well and truly sated with a huge bowl of stir-fry, small bowl of rice and one of soup, not forgetting the most delicious spring roll I’ve ever tasted (for just $7.95), we head off to the Vancouver ... read more

July 27th, 2013 It’s 4pm on the afternoon of Saturday 27th and right now the boys are stood out on the balcony looking down on a mass of teenage girls waiting for the One Direction concert about to start in the Rogers Arena. I say about to start – they have another 3 ½ hours to go. Every now and again a girly scream rises up to our level. Whether they think they’ve seen one of the group I don’t know but I daresay most of them don’t know why they’re screaming. Or maybe they’ve heard that there are free Oreo Sundaes to be had. Sam and Matthew have now managed to acquire the grand total of 9. Apparently I have more children “at home” than I previously thought. We too are going out later but ... read more

July 4th Green city Vancouver boasts world-class parks, from the 404 hectares (1,000 acres) of prime downtown land that forms Stanley Park, to the many smaller parks that host recreational facilities, community centres, and specialty amenities such as off-leash dog areas and skate parks. Vancouver has close to 300 City-run parks, beaches, and gardens. Vancouver is the only municipality in Canada with an elected park board, the Vancouver Board of Parks and Recreation. The Board's mandate is to nurture, maintain, and develop Vancouver’s urban parks and recreation system. This system includes the delivery of sports and recreational programs, social and cultural activities, educational programming and special events, through the many community and cultural centres, pools, rinks, golf courses, and specialty parks. Enjoy Vancouver's great outdoors... read more

Be warned this is a long post!!...Since last week Jade and me have moved on again and we're now back in lively Downtown Vancouver. We left Victoria on friday morning and headed by coach, 2 hours a bit further up the coast on Vancouver Island to a small town called Nanaimo, now when i say small it was actually tiny and had very little to do. But as one of the main ferry points was not too far away we decided to stay a couple of nights. We ended up at the Hosteling International place, which i think was the only hostel there and pretty much just chilled out and thought we would try and get ourselves some veiwings for appartments for when we got back to main Vancouver.The Hostel itself was really nice (a lot ... read more

I can't believe we've actually done it!! Final preparations were made on Monday of packing bags and saying our goodbyes to family and friends, and then began a long sleepless night (i think we only slept around an hour at the most just from the excitement of leaving!) before the taxi came to pick us up at around 5am on Tuesday morning. The flight itself was ok, we flew with Air Transat, a non stop flight so in the end the flight took around 9 1/5 hours, long i know! but we got to Vancouver eventually at around 11:30 am and then began the longest wait I've ever had going through border control. With around 200 people waiting in line and only one desk open it took us an hour just to get past the first ... read more