Vancouver - First Weekend

So arriving in Vancouver was sooooo relaxing after the crap departure we had from LAX. The easiest part surprisingly was security, give me this any day over dealing with United airlines. This was the most frustrating and long experience I have ever had at an airport, mix this with not enough staff, people running late for flights and stress and you get Chaos. Anyway so you wait ages for a lady (only nice person here) to talk you through the system which prints off your bag tags, then you wait another 10mins for someone to come and tag your bag, at this point he tells you they are too heavy saying each needed to be 50Lbs contradictory to the several times you had checked with the travel agent that it could be a combined weight. So after repacking to get within the weights we stood in the cue again that was 3 times as long now, finally got our bags tagged but then had to wait 15mins for a different person to check your passport, then you could precede to security. Moral of the story, don't fly with United airlines they are rubbish.

Once getting through the friendly, smiling security that welcomed you with a good attempt of Kia ora, it felt like we were in a different place, the people over this side were so relaxed, friendly and helpful it was amazing. We sat down with half an hour before boarding and had a well earned coffee (semi real coffee also). You would not believe how good this felt after an early 4.30am start and extremely stressful check in.

We managed to get the exit seats in our small jet plane which was awesome as we had extra leg room. We had to read the safety booklet and verbally say that yes we could do all of the things the safety booklet wanted from us in an emergency, weird had never had to do this before. Turns out we didn't have to use it thankfully. We were very lucky with the weather this day, the view from the plane and into Vancouver was beautiful on this clear, sunny day. I didn't get to quite see it all as I slept for some of it, luckily Cam was there.


Arriving at Vancouver airport we had to head to the immigration area to collect our visas, we were at the front of the line and only 2 of 3 people here, according to the one other person behind us, this is very rare. What a change from LAX the people here were very friendly and joking around. Only one hick up, the officer couldn't find one of my papers on the system, wasn't quite sure why she wouldn't look for 6ordan, pretty close to my surname I thought, it appeared they had spelt my name wrong. So after collecting our visas we headed to collect our luggage, this appeared to be an easy step as our luggage was the only stuff going around on the conveyor belt very unusual. Outside we were meet by Bob who had arranged our apartment and took us there. We were given a few groceries and shown around the apartment, before being left to ourselves. Today we had a short walk around the area, checked out our apartment and caught up on a few emails as we were too tired for anything else.


View from our apartment to the East.

Our second day in Vancouver was a 12km walk around Vancouver city and surrounding areas. First we headed along False Creek toward the East side of the city. I still can't believe how many parks and grassed areas there are in this city, it just looks beautiful everywhere you go. Well especially the weather we have had the past 2 days, sunny both days and about 25-30 degrees. Anyway we headed along False Creek, across the Cambie Street bridge and toward BC and GM place. BC place is home to the BC Lions, Vancouver's Football team and GM place is home to the Canucks, Vancouver's Ice Hockey team. Also good places to find as these are where most of the concerts are held. I can't believe how much will power I have had, from now to August there are about 6 concerts I would see, including: ACDC, Greenday, Aerosmith, Blink 182 with supporting guests All American Rejects and Coldplay. Lucky we don't have enough money to buy all of these.

After this we walked through town to find Robson Street one of Vancouver's famous shopping streets. Unfortunately we managed to find one of the most dodgy areas of Vancouver on our way, it was amazing how you could be walking along in a nice area and then cross a road be on the same street and there were people crowded round in alleyways doing who knows what and weird people talking to themselves and asking for money, I wanted to get out of there and quick. So we made it to Robson street walked down here just window shopping of course, till we start work and have money to spend, on our way to Stanley Park. Stanley Park park is just a short walk from downtown and is 1000 acres of walkways, picnic spots, sports parks, cafes and forest areas. From Stanley park on your way round you have views to the city centre, across to North and West Vancouver, out across the harbour, and across to the west of Vancouver. We only walked a short way around here today as it was, hot and we had been walking for a while. We headed back along the waterfront to Canada Place, where the convention centre is and where cruise ships dock. After this we headed home via bus this time, to finally sit down and relax.