Day 20 - Vancouver

Sunday 8th August 2004, Vancouver time (GMT-7, Perth-15)

This was the day that wasn't meant to be in Vancouver, but just as well it was - it probably ranks alongside Burnaby Lake as my best day in Vancouver, aided somewhat by the 28°C, fairly non-humid fine weather. Daniel took me to all his favourite spots around the City of Vancouver (I should explain that the City is just one part of Greater Vancouver and includes the downtown and a fair slab of land south and east from it).

Firstly, the grand tour of UBC, where I got to see a very nice campus that is twice the size of the downtown, and is actually a really nice place. Not too many campuses in the world that have their own rainforest - and a naturally-growing one at that. He took me down the perilously steep path to Wreck Beach, Vancouver's clothing-optional beach. It was an experience trying not to see exactly the sort of people you would never want to see naked flashing their bits at the world at large. I did manage to get some good photos though (not of the people, of the scenery.)

Then it was to Granville Island, which Daniel assured me was nothing special and was all hype, so we decided to eat at a sushi place just outside it that he sometimes goes to, then walk through the middle and catch the ferry at the end back to the city. This was all done in roughly that order - Granville Island was sort of like a cross between Fremantle and Sorrento Quay, but busier than both.

Then finally around the city itself and back out to Queen Elizabeth Park. He showed me his favourite view there and I got a picture from it. Some Swedish ladies saw us in the bushes and decided to join it, and after we left we enjoyed a bottle of delightfully expensive French lemonade which we got at 60% off in a bookshop.

Finally, we went to Trout Lake - we went separately as Daniel wanted me to meet Cass again before I left. We went to the lake but some sort of children's sports event was happening but we still had a great sunset there before returning by car to the city. It's funny how when you catch the bus all the time you just don't see a lot of the stuff out the windows yet you do when in a car.

Packing was of the essence, though, as we had to be at Pacific Central station at 6:30am, which meant waking up at 5am. (In the end this proved unachievable but for my mother who managed to get me woken up about 5:15am) - but not before downloading my pictures at the net cafe and visiting Casablanca Kebabs on Davie Street for one last time.

I realised I was really going to miss Vancouver. Four people who had lived elsewhere had talked to me about how they came to stay in Vancouver as it was the most beautiful city they had seen, and I knew Perth, Melbourne and Vancouver have repeatedly been rated most livable cities in the world, so I realised a high point was kind of over.

Reflecting on Vancouver after 2 weeks there, here are my observations. Vancouver is an excellent city with the best transport system I've seen anywhere, although I would hate to own a car here (although traffic is orderly here, it is very slow) or live in the City, as double-digit-floor apartment living just isn't me. There's plenty of green here and many attractive and colourful distractions from the lifestyle though, and the cafes provide cheap and fresh authentic food from all over the world. Vancouver reminds me a lot of Melbourne and is not unlike Auckland as well in some ways.

Canada has transformed the way I think about my own country, and I have no doubt when I see Eastern Europe and Turkey that I'll look back and say it was the first stage in a process. I have realised how good we do have it. I have realised that for all we complain about problems in our cities, with crime, traffic, etc, we really don't have problems in the way other countries - even this one - do. We need to work on race relations, and on reconciling with the Aboriginal people as a nation, and there's never too much that can be done to help reduce the gap between rich and poor and on trying to harm the environment less, but apart from that, we have done amazingly well in creating a country for people to live and work in peaceably. And we need to stop whinging and putting ourselves down.