Visiting Vancouver

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As our airplane landed at Vancouver international aiport it became very clear that our European leg of our big trip is now well and truly over. Although we were sad about no longer travelling Europe we were very excited to be going to Canada.

Peter has family who live in Vancouver, and his cousin nicely agreed to take us into her home with her family for our time there. It was great staying with them especially becuase we got to play with there kids; a 4 year old girl and a 6 year old boy. We felt like we got to experince some of the things that you associate with North America such as carving pumpkins for halloween and having a thanksgiving meal. We really did feel like we were at home.

Vancouver itself is a beautiful city set next to a harbour surrounded by mountains. The weather is always sunny even though the locals try to convince you that it is usually rainy and we are very lucky to have such great weather. A large part of the harbour area in the centre of town is an old growth forest called Stanley Park. It boasts the worlds best located cricket feild, native American totem poles and superb walking and bike riding tracks through the forest and along the waterfront. We took advantage of the bike track and hired a bike for a few hours. It was a gorgeous ride and allowed us to see some great views of Vancouver including some of Vancouvers wildlife such as squirrels and even a seal.

Although we thought that Vancouver was an amazing city and we felt very at home there; its not a good idea to walk to far down the wrong street.... We found this out when we decided to try and find a particular shop and we ran into Vancouvers homeless population. In fact we somehow ran into Vancouvers homeless popluations market day where they took over some of the street, sat down and proceded to sell things to each other from there shopping carts. I am not sure how dangerous these people are but after nearly 2 years of travelling, including travelling to some fairly dangerous places- I was unnerved by this spectacle. The homeless popluation in Vancouver is a big problem; a lot of this popluation have drug addictions or are mentally disabled (or both). The local government is trying a lot of different ways to combat this issue and from what I could tell via the news, it is of a great concern to the local people in Vancouver.

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Photos

Playing cricket
Perhaps one of the best located cricket fields in the world. It is located in Stanley park with a great view over Vancouver

Preparing pumpkins
Carving pumpkins is a lot of fun!!

Comments

[Jen H.]

Vancouver B.C.
Great post! I appreciated all the info. I plan on visiting Vancouver B.C. next month and your post was truly helpful. I have been watching some videos on youtube on Vancouver bc which brought me to this site VancouverBC.com which is apparently launching with many videos, forums, blogs and articles on Vancouver bc. Thanks again for the post, those totem poles are beautiful!