Day 8-10 - Vancouver

Monday 26 July 2004, CWST (GMT-7, Hawaii +3hrs, Perth -15hrs)

As we enjoyed a wonderful Air Canada breakfast, I got to chat with a guy from Victoria BC who explained some of the cultural nuances to me and some of the things I might come to expect in Canada. After a spectacular overview of Tofino, central Vancouver Island and finally Vancouver itself (which is, confusingly, neither the capital of British Columbia despite being Canada's third-largest city, nor is it on Vancouver Island), we landed. As we walked onto the gate, the guy from the plane said to me "Welcome to Canada". Some incredible First Nations wood carvings and a "Welcome to Vancouver/Bienvenue a Vancouver" sign later, I was at Canada Customs, which took literally 5 minutes before I was off looking for more spring water and the Airporter bus (C$12 one way) to get me to the city. The Airporter basically went straight up Granville Street and over the Granville Bridge, then wove and wound around the city dropping people off at hotels.

This is a beautiful city - well-maintained roads, lots of green around the place, trolley-buses running on electric cables overhead, two beautiful harbours - False Creek (south) and Burrard Inlet (north) - and mountains just behind the northern suburbs providing an amazing backdrop. For those not familiar with Vancouver's geography, the shape of the city (on the west coast of Canada) is not unlike an outstretched hand with the Vancouver CBD being the thumb and North/West Vancouver, Vancouver midtown, Richmond (and the airport) and White Rock being fingers. Each is separated by a river or waterway and there is some amazing bridges, including the Burrard and Granville bridges to the south, Annacis Bridge further south, Pattullo Bridge near New Westminster (about 8km SE and the former provincial capital), and of course the Lions Gate Bridge which crosses from Stanley Park to West Vancouver and is probably the most famous. Vancouver itself has 600,000 people and is one of the most densely populated areas in North America, but the Greater Vancouver region has 1.8 million. Not far away to the west is Vancouver Island, a mountainous island about 450km NW-SE x 100km wide, running parallel to the coast. The provincial capital, Victoria, a city of about 300,000, is on the south coast, and is 1.5 hours from Vancouver by ferry (which costs about $10). To the north and east of Vancouver are the Coast Mountains (the Rockies are another 600km inland). These mountains have spectacular peaks and lakes, hot springs, and Whistler and its ski slopes, about 100km north of Vancouver, which will be the the home of the 2010 Winter Olympics.

The Vancouver Downtown hostel is my accommodation for this 2-week stay, and it is definitely a much nicer place than I expected, and is centrally located, has full facilities, friendly staff, and is in a nice part of the prestigious West End district only 200-300m from the False Creek beaches. My only complaint is that the dorms are a bit stuffy so you wouldn't want to use them for much more than sleeping.

After walking around the city and getting my mobile prepaid SIM card (apparently a novelty in Canada) and a beautiful Persian meal for under C$12, and meeting my friend Daniel who was a large part of the reason why I came here, I ended up sleeping for most of the day, exhausted after 3 days with basically no meaningful sleep or good food.

Tuesday 27 July 2004, CWST (GMT-7)

Woke up just after midnight and walked up Davie Street looking for lunch. This is the heart of the gay district in town (evidenced by the pride flags on every - and I mean every - window) and I was amazed to find a range of supermarkets and cafes open. I ended up getting a tuna subway and water (I was still dehydrated from Hawaii!)

Came back to the hostel then went out again to explore the city. I saw the harbour by night, Granville Street (well and truly happening even at 3am) and spent part of the morning with two homeless people who were telling jokes to earn quarters from the public. (Canada has the same denominations and coin sizes as the US for 1c, 5c, 10c and 25c, but has a $1 coin shaped approximately like the Aus 50c coin, and a bimetallic $2 which looks really cool)

After we parted ways, I walked over the Granville Bridge and into the inner southern suburbs of Fairview and Kitsilano. Houses around here are really nice and elaborate, and the streets look quiet and well-landscaped. Saw in sunrise at Hadden Park, with some awesome views over the city, and then decided to go properly exploring on the SkyTrain. The SkyTrain is a Vancouver institution built for the 1986 World Expo, and more information can be found here. They're actually really cute (at least I think so :) - much smaller than Perth trains, but way more frequent as well.

Saw a green area on the map near Lougheed station in the Burnaby region so decided to get off and explore it. To get there, catch the Millennium line to Lougheed, then catch a 101 bus about 5 stops and get off on Cariboo Road, and walk down Avalon Avenue. About 400m later you should come to an info kiosk with brochures and information. Burnaby Lake took up the rest of my morning, with its flat walkways and stunning forest smells and views. It's weird seeing really green vegetation again - you see it in Tasmania and in some parts of Victoria, but Australia generally doesn't have deep greens, more blue/aqua and brownish greens.

Although I bushwalk whenever I can in Australia, I'd never been in a northern forest before and the trees are very different - generally quite straight trees such as conifers, maples, firs and oaks, with a lot of interesting ferns and other vegetation with names like red huckleberries, butterfly weed, policemen's helmets, etc. I do warn you, though - if you go there, there are plenty of mosquitos. I was unprepared, so got a few bites. Towards the end of the walk, I saw some Canada geese rather humorously arranged on a sports field almost as if they were going to play ball.

Found my exit onto Kensington Avenue and, together with a little guy from the Netherlands Antilles who asked me for directions, walked up to the nearest SkyTrain station. As I said before, one thing I love about travelling is the interesting people I get to meet.

Hungry and tired, I went on the prowl for food in central Vancouver, and soon discovered Samba's Brazilian restaurant on Burrard and Alberni. The way this place works - you have an all you can eat salad bar (with items like mushrooms cooked in wine, cauliflower, broccoli, chickpeas, caesar salads sans-bacon, etc) for $6.95, but if you want to, you pay an additional $6 and they give you a green card. While the green card (Sim! Por Favor with a bull on it) is up, the Brazilian meat chefs, looking somewhat like toreadors with their red napkins, cut off bits of meat from a skewer in front of you. When you're full (I was staggering out of the place), you turn the green card over to display a red card which says "I Give Up!" and a sad-looking bull on it. I have never been so full for $13 in my life before.

Not needing dinner, I continued my wanderings around the city, looking at the steam clock in Gastown (something of a tourist trap with myopic old people trying to hug the thing, etc) and then heading off to North Vancouver aboard the Seabus, part of Translink BC's public transport system. Came back to the hostel at sunset and met up with Daniel again, who has just moved into the hostel so I can see him a bit more.

Wednesday 28 July 2004, CWST (GMT-7)

Got up early and had breakfast at The Dish ($4.37 for a full breakfast - not bad! - discount with YHA/HI membership) on Davie St (Burrard/Thurlow), then went out to buy some DEET-containing mosquito repellent before going up to Stanley Park for a free tour (public transport charges apply to get there with the group though) with HI-Vancouver Central's expert guide Walter and about 15 others, most of whom were British and Australian. Stanley Park is a huge park which juts out on a peninsula into the ocean immediately north-west of the city centre - we spent about 3 hours amongst its rainforest trails and being educated on northern-style temperate rainforest ecology. It was a great opportunity for me to learn about some of the stuff I'd seen at Burnaby Lake, and if you're staying at either Downtown or Central this tour is pretty much a must given its short duration and its cost (or lack thereof).

After the tour I went into the city for a bit and did some more exploring (I've touched barely one-quarter of the city centre - it's huge!) before heading off to Pacific Central Station to buy my Greyhound tickets for later in my trip (you get a discount on some of them for buying in advance, and a 10% discount for YHA/HI membership). On the way back, I went to Chinatown and spent most of the evening at Dr Sun Yat-sen's Classical Chinese Garden and the adjoining Sun Yat-sen Park on Carrall Street with Daniel. This was the first Chinese garden of its type built outside China, and was completed just in time for the 1986 Expo with help from the Chinese government and 52 local artisans. The Chinese are very holistic in their approach to everything, and this Ming Dynasty styled garden, usually found in the houses of civil servants and town mayors and the like, was fascinating in its yin-yang contrasts and the fact that, despite being only 80m x 100m, there was design features which made it look much larger, such as an artificial mountain with a "ting" pagoda on it, sharp bends, Chinese/Japanese trees creatively placed to block views on one side and enhance them on the other, etc. It is free to enter the park, and $8.95 to enter the garden - and if you get in at the right time you get a free tour of the garden, which explains a lot of the subtleties you'd otherwise miss. It was a great experience to behold - a little oasis of calm in the middle of this very busy city.

Afterwards I walked back to the hostel, mostly to clean up my mosquito bites and get my newly-charged camera batteries before going off to watch the 10pm fireworks which had all but stopped the city with security and police from as early as 8pm. These fireworks are the first of four being held over two weeks, a kind of mini-Olympics for pyrotechnicians from China, Sweden and Spain to strut their stuff from English Bay on the southern coast of the city centre. Tonight it was China's turn, and they turned it on in style - I got to watch it from the beach down the bottom of Thurlow Street near my hostel. I did manage to take a video of a couple of mins of it (15mb, so dunno how I'll post it), but the above site has some good-quality stills.

Came back to Davie Street, got a kebab for $2.99 (yes, you heard right) in this awesome place called Casablanca that was playing Arabic techno music, and then found the cheap net cafe next door and downloaded my shots (from Hawaii and here) and movies.

This morning has been a bit boring to report, but I finally have time today to spend with Daniel rather than running off doing or exploring something. It'll be my only quiet day in the itinerary most probably - I have a heap of plans and you'll get to hear of them as I do the things on there. :)

Hope all my readers are doing well and I look forward to your feedback!