Vancouver, Canada
Trip Start
Mar 25, 2008
1
11
12
Trip End
Jun 13, 2008
Where I stayed
Vancouver,
British Columbia,
Canada
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Well my first day here was spent just wandering around the city, something i do in every new place, to get the feel, where is best to grab a bite to eat or whats is there to see. However, unlike most places, the exception being Auckland, i didn't get the feeling that i really liked Vancouver. Sure it was peaceful with cyclists and joggers everywhere but something wasn't quite right and i still don't know why. I'd walked around most of downtown, been to visitors centre to pick up money off coupons, never again will i judge those people who sit at home cutting them out of magazines. I then went to downtowns biggest shopping centre which was absolutely rubbish. Not one shop worth looking in and then downstairs looking for something to eat in the food court everything was closed except for KFC and i was refusing to eat there after i'd had a chicken twister and then thrown up constantly on the train from Manchester. So, hungry i returned to the hostel, but not before dipping into a supermarket to pick up a couple packs of 2 minute noodles, because i really was that hungry. Now the noodles became something of a regualr meal, as for some reasons in vancouver i became very concious of the money i was spending and at 49cents i wasn't complaining, apart form the fact that on my last day i found out the noodles online provided me with 97 calories, so for a whole week i've been effectivily eating 2 meals a day.
The next morning, prompted by my Aussie roommate i ventured downstairs early enough for the hostels free breakfast which consisted of fruit bread, muffins, bagels and slices of oranges, not really enough to sustain me until lunch. So once again i was under-eating, something of a first for me. Rapidly losing body mass, i headed out to the Science World, partly because the building looked interesting, like a giant golf ball and partly because i'm a geek. I was now pleased to learn that canadians considered youths to be from 11-18, so there i was asking for a youth ticket, being told i didn't look like a youth, showing the high school dropout my driving license, the high school dropout shutting up, so far the day was looking good. Now why its called just Science World i'll never know because the whole of the first floor had puzzles on, like can you get this ring of of these chains, or can you use these 4 shapes to make a square, i think the appropriate name would be the Amazing world of Puzzles and upstairs and to your left Science!!!!!!!
It is a bit disheartening to try and complete a puzzle only to give up in disappointment then a 12 year old appear 5 seconds later completing it. Its like in Vegas where you spend several hours at a slot machine putting money into it and nothing, then some little old lady appears, plays one coin and wins the jackpot, but i guess that is life. Part of it i found really cool was the giant looking golf ball actually has a purpose. Its actually a cinema, but an awesome one at that. When your seated the screen isn't just infront of you but appears on half of the dome, and the movie is so real looking that they actually announce it saying the images look so realistic you might get dizzy. The only downside was that the movie i arrived in time for was a piece of crock about the Colorado River and how its drying up because we are using the water, yet i wanted to point out that millions need the river water to live!!!
Now given that i managed to go a whole week in Seattle, the RAINY city, without any rain, it was only fitting that Karma would get me back. So anticipating rain over the next 2 days, i used my last day of cloudy, non raininess to go to the Capilano suspension bridge, the largest suspension bridge in the world. It only takes half and hour to get there including a ferry ride for $2. Now it was nice to get out into the countryside, something Vancouver is sort of famous for i guess, and the change is so different. It was like a little rural escape, these tall trees everywhere, wood cabins on either side of the road, this is how i had imagined Canada, all i needed now was for a mounty to appear of a house telling me he'd just saved a little boy from being eaten by a bear, but he'd used non violence to subdue the bear because mountys love nature!!!
When you first enter this area, its sort of a wildlife - natural park. you learn a little about the bridges construction, how they get the cables from one side to the other, and there are also lots of references to native indians, including totem poles, now i'm sure i'm missing something as there were totem poles in seattle and now here in vancouver, but i thought native indians belonged in the central and southern states, with cowboys and the wild west?? I finally got to the suspension bridge and you can actually watch it moving in the wind, so much that a couple of asian women took one step onto it, walked 5 paces then came running back holding onto the hand rails. Now when i say its swaying i don't want to conjure the image of an Alton Towers ride, these women were just being women ;) Oh and steph, i don't suggest you come here, the bridge can only hold 2 boeing 747s without breaking and it would takes months to repair if you came....love you really.
On the bridge i took my time, asking people to take photos of me, taking photos of others, watching the river running below and despite all of the people it really was peaceful standing there. On the other side there is tree top trails to follow, sort of Ant and Dec austrailian jungle style, minus the snakes, monkeys, spiders and annoying washed up celebrities. I spent half an hour guiding my way through the tree tops, looking out at the river and the bridge, people trying to hold the camera still while taking pictures of the families. After my tree top adventure i got to wander around on the ground, passing by the salmon pond, where as they were being fed they zipped around, darting to the surface for a second and then disappearing. Then onto the 3 sisters, a set of lakes, which made me think back to Austrailia when i went out to the blue mountains and saw the 3 sisters, a set of rock pillars, and how long ago it was and how quickly time has gone.
Well my second from last day in Vancouver and i saved the best till last, the Vancouver Aquarium. Today it was raining, raining heavily, raining like a giant super dog had just had a bath and was shaking itself dry. Yet this was the day i had decided to visit the aquarium and that meant walking all the way there to Stanley Park. Now i have my anorak that mum made sure i packed, but the real problem was my trainers. I had planned to buy a new pair but at the moment i still had my really old one, made out of, i'm sad to say, something of a un-water resistant material. By the time i got tot he Aquarium you could hear me coming by the squelching of my socks. but who cares, because once again i qualified for a youth ticket and had a $1 off coupon...things were looking up.
Now i really loved this aquarium, because it had the animals that aren't what you would call generic aquarium animals. Beluga whales, haven't seen them anywhere yet here they were, probably because they are native here and not to Sydney, Australia but i don't care. These whales were awesome, especially from the underwater viewing window, they just kept on swimming past so lazily, without a care in the world, and there was none of that free willy nonsense with trying to break the glass, i mean who did that whale think he was, he had it made, fame and free food, but no he had to escape and then what does he go and do gets trapped in an oil slick and almost starves to death. The rest of the aquariums was very good aswell, there was a whole floor for tropical frogs, all these colourful critters to see, bright blues, reds, oranges, greens, the types you'd never imagin seeing.
Its fair to say this Aquarium ranks as one of the best i've been too, i'd have Sydney and Vancouver on par with each other, then Seattle, with Auckland last just because there excuse for an aquarium was some cheap knock off where you see pengiuns.
Well my last day i'm ashamed to say i did nothing. I sat in the t.v room eating junk food after living off of 49cent noodles for a week and watching something of a CSI marathon, i eventually packed my bag which is becoming harder each time, i don't know why, i haven't bought anything new....maybe its my clothes expanding from absorbing sweat or something i don't know but mum is going to have a fun time washing them when i get back haha, peace out!!!
