Vancouver Days 1 & 2

Sep 6, 2011 by Joel

It is more or less the way that all good things must come to an end. Today is one of those days, where my time with friends is Seattle is over and I move on to the next stop. Which today is heading north from Seattle via train to Vancouver.

The train from Seattle to Vancouver is the Amtrak Cascades service. A nice 4 hour coastal train service, which at times runs right on the water. This is considerably slower then flying, however works out much more economial. Maybe even less hassle, when you consider the time it takes to get to the airport, checkin, find your way through security and wait for luggage at the other end.

By the time that I was of the train, through customs, and found my way to the hotel is was well after midday. So I took a little walk around the city, before heading down to Canada Place at 4pm to see the two cruise ships that were in port today. The first ship was Celebrity Century, which I have previously seen, The second ship was Holland America Line, MS Zaandam. I had been hoping to see both ships sail, hoever by 6.30pm, the MS Zaandam was still tied along side the pier, and I was getting a little hungry.

While waiting to see the cruise ships depart, I also found two interesting slightly creative photo opportunities. The first was what looks like a Giant Rain drop near the waterside at the Convention Center. While the second is just how the clouds choose to pass by on this afternoon.

Day 2 – Monday 5 September 2011

Today as it would turn out here in Vancouver is Labour Day. This meant two things really, some places were on reduced operating hours, and there was a lot of people around the more interesting spots. However this did not stop me getting out and seeing some of these places.

First I walked straight down Hornby Street, a little over 1.5km. At the Southern end of Hornby St is one of a number of ferry docks, which make it easier to get around the waterfront area of the False Creek area. The first stop is directly across the river to granville island, however there is 6 other stops going right up to Telus Science World. I choose to go on the Aquabus, however there are two ferry options that have slightly different stops along the way.

The first stop today I travelled right up False Creek to the stop just before Telus Science World, this stop is relatively close to the first place I wanted to visit. Dr. Sun Yat-San Classical Chinese Garden, which was one thing that I had missed on my last visit to Vancouver. The gardens were nice, although the area which you pay for entry to was rather small. There was a tour which I started on, however it was somewhat lengthy, and really might have been better for people who wanted to know a lot more history then appreciating the gardens.

On the Walk between the gardens and the stop for the ferry at Telus Science World, I found these two wooden statue’s carved out of old tree stumps. Quite interesting, they appearedto depict fisherman with their catch.

I headed back to Granville Island on the ferry, to get lunch and I thought maybe have a look around. However this was one place that was very busy with people due to the Labour Day oublic holiday. In the end I had lunch and headed back to the first stop for the ferry at Hornby Street. For the afternoon I just wandered around a little and did a small bit of shopping for some supplies for the cruise, which leaves Wednesday.

I had thought about getting some evening/night shots down around Canada Place, however I did not really know just how much would get shown up. So I took a walk later in the evening as a combination to get dinner and to see what is lit up at night and surprisingly it is quite a interesting place to get some night shots, and I think it turned out pretty well.

Enjoying Vancouver again with just one more day before I depart on my cruise, the first part of my trip in the USA and Canada has been a lot of fun but I am ready to be on the cruise now.