Viva Vancouver

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We left LAX and flew up the western US sea border. The Rockies rose up on our one side as the Pacific stretched out on the other and soon we were on our descent to Vancouver International Airport (also known the catchy code YVR). The head steward started his usual safety announcement and thank yous for flying. “Also I will be coming through the cabin and handing out applications for the new Air Alaska credit card, where you can get air miles every time you shop.” He then went into a 10 minutes sales pitch of the wonders of this credit card and why you simply have to have one. It has to be the first time I’ve been harassed into buying something during a safety message but I guess you are a captive audience so it had to happen sometime.

We landed and queued up to have our passports checked. Having done this quite a few times now we know the drill - a quick glance at the passport, maybe ask why and how long you’re staying and then get waved through. Not in Canada! “What is the purpose of your visit, How long, where are you staying, why, are we meeting someone, do we have family in Canada, are we expecting family to join us, what do you do for a living…..” It went on and on. Actually the only time he showed any hint of emotion in the whole interrogation was when we told him we both worked in HR. I guess the only people that scare immigration a little is their own HR team!

After what seemed like an age he conceded we were probably not trying to evade the immigration rules and let us in and we caught a shuttle bus into the city. It was our first glimpse of Vancouver and I was eager to see it. I have heard so much about how this is the place everyone wants to live that I had developed an idea I might want to live here - an idea I have been boring Lins with for the last 11 months. The ride into the city was smooth and I was glad to see that it was clearly a forward-looking city that had bike racks on their buses like we had seen in Canberra. We checked into our accommodation and turned our attention to finding some more. Not that our hostel was bad but they were booked for the next day and we needed to find somewhere else. Unfortunately this became a major headache. It turns out that this weekend was a bank holiday - Labor Day - and was the last holiday before the school year starts. Of course that meant that the whole of Vancouver’s budget hostels and hotels were booked. In desperation we returned to our current hostel and by some miracle they were able to accommodate us for one more night. The night after though was a no-go. At least we had bought some time so we decided to head out to historic Gastown - also referred to in our guide book as an ‘awful tourist trap’ - for some sight seeing. I like Gastown no matter what the guide book says. Yes it is not authentic. The old Gastown was established to provide the frontier men with the kind of low grade entertainment (liquor and loose women) they wanted and no there isn’t loads of spit and sawdust establishments and drunks in the street. It is a sanitised version of its former glory and I think it is better for it. Who wants to navigate there way through a slum even if that makes it authentic. We strolled the streets, marvelled at the steam clock (just annoy our guide author) and enjoyed the ambiance.

The next day we still needed to find some accommodation and our search for somewhere cheap was still in vain. In desperation we checked out the last minute sites for a standby rate in a more expensive hotel. By the end of our search it seemed our options were to hire a car and leave the city, sleep on a park bench or check into the Hilton. Actually as it was a standby rate it wasn’t actually much more expensive than some of the budget hotels we had looked at and it was only for one night. After that we were able to get low cost accommodation again so we braced ourselves for our most expensive night of the trip and decided to enjoy the luxury instead. As it had taken most of the day to arrange as we had tried every option including bringing forward our trip to Seattle across the border we enjoyed the rest of the evening in the bar.

The next day we headed to the Hilton in Metrotown, a suburb south of the city next to one of North Americas biggest malls. To get there we took the Sky Train - the unmanned light railway that was developed for the Expo here in 96 - which I have to say is amongst the best urban transport system we come across - the only down side being it doesn’t go to many places. After surviving the looks at Hilton check-in (not used to backpackers obviously) and settling into our room that had a private bathroom no less (yes it is the little things you miss) we headed out to do some window shopping - after all we were spending more than we could afford on the accommodation we couldn’t actually afford to buy anything. Having said that the fact that we had a bath in our rrom and there was a branch of Lush in the shopping centre couldn’t be ignored. Though we have to point out our disappointment in this branch of Lush as we could actually see it long before we smelt it which is just wrong. It was the same in Auckland - just wrong. After a day in the mall mingling with Canadians (and deriding their embracing of American style prices-less-tax) we were ready to head back into the city itself.

It was day three in the city and I really felt we hadn’t seen much with all the hassles we had had with accommodation. We had tried to make our arrangements for going to Seattle but even after the Labor Day weekend there just didn’t seem to be any cheap accommodation available. Determined not to waste any more time we ditched the idea of going to Seattle (why would we want to go through that border again so soon anyway!) and instead made arrangements to go to the capital of British Columbia, Victoria, which is on Vancouver Island. We then headed out to take a walking tour of the city following a map of public art. The walk goes around downtown Vancouver taking in the waterfront on both sides of the peninsular. It is a really good walk, though pretty long. The artwork along the way is varied including a steam beer barrel piano, an old gear ring from the now defunct Vancouver Swing Bridge to a tree on top of a sky scraper demonstrating how tall the old trees of the area really were. The walk also enters Stanley Park the biggest open space in the city. It is in fact a huge area of woodland as well and is really peaceful. From the Lost Lagoon you can look back at the city skyline and really relax. Further round the waterfront the sea planes were flying in and out of the harbour on their way to Victoria and other such places. It really is a lovely city.

Our final day before we headed to Victoria we wanted to check out the north shore of Vancouver. We took the sea bus across the harbour and caught a bus up to Grouse Mountain (so called because the first settlers found grouse up there). From the bus stop a cable car takes you up to the top of the mountain where the top of the mountain has been turned into a big tourist attraction. First off we took a scenic chair lift half way back down the mountain. Yeah I know that sounds a bit daft but it gave us some great views of the city on the way down and back up again. We then checked out their two orphan bears that are held behind just a small electric fence - though apparently they are very intelligent so learnt pretty quickly not to try and break out. The whole experiment is looking to find out enough about bears so that future orphan bears might be rehabilitated into the wild. They were pretty amazing and happily playing in the water, keeping away from the last heat of the summer. We also watched a falconry demonstration which was impressive and quite amusing as the birds were determined to show up their keepers. The last big show was the lumberjack show where two lumberjacks competed against each other to prove who was the fastest sawing logs and climbing trees etc. The finale was the log roll which have to say they were very good at - I think I would have fallen off straight away. Right at the end another guy pretending to be a member of the audience climbs the tallest tree and does some pretty scary balancing acts. The funniest part of it though was the woman sitting in front of us who appeared to be convinced he really was a member of the audience and kept shouting at him to get down and drawing in her breath sharply every time he wobbled. She nearly fainted when he finally did fall off and slid down one of the guide ropes. After we had seen all the views we wanted we took the cable car back down the mountain and headed back to the city.

Vancouver with its mountainous backdrop and huge waterfront is undeniably beautiful and this is only the start of our British Columbia experience.

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Photos

Lost Lagoon
The lovely city of Vancouver

Barrels
Music Maestro

Gear Ring
Public Art or star gate?

Tree house
Public Art or very lazy gardener?

Bear
Coolin off in water

Lumberjacks
I'm a lumberjack and I'm OK

Cable Car
The way to Grouse Mountain

Vancouver
The Skyline at sunset