Our first week in Vancouver continued with beautiful and hot weather contradictory to what we had heard about Vancouver. Aparently they were having a particularly hot spell at the moment. Along with this came our first sighting of a squirrel, right outside our apartment.
Monday Bob (the guy who organised the apartment etc) picked us up and took us to get our social insurance number (equivillent to IRD number) and to get a bank account. He also took us for a tour around our area, showed us some tourist things in town and showed us what areas were dodgy in town including where we had been the day before. After this he drove us around Stanley Park, across the Lions Gate bridge and some way up Mt Cypress to look at the view over the city. Unfortunately I had my camera with me, but the battery was still in the charger from the night before, gutted. Oh well I'm sure we will be back up there again.
Tuesday was a rest day and then we were back into the tourist scene again 
on Wednesday. Today we hired a tandem bike and rode around Stanley Park. It was a bit of a shaky start but by about a third of the way around we had it under control. Its so weird being on a bike and not being able to steer, also weird not really being able to see where you are going when you have someone in front of you, scary to begin with. Cam drove all the way, well actually I tried steering about half way around however we nearly ended up in the bush so decided that Cam would continue.
on Wednesday. Today we hired a tandem bike and rode around Stanley Park. It was a bit of a shaky start but by about a third of the way around we had it under control. Its so weird being on a bike and not being able to steer, also weird not really being able to see where you are going when you have someone in front of you, scary to begin with. Cam drove all the way, well actually I tried steering about half way around however we nearly ended up in the bush so decided that Cam would continue.Anyway we started our trip visiting the totem poles. These are the mosted visited tourist attraction in British Columbia. The totem was the B
ritish Columbia Indians coat of arms, they are unique to the North West Coast of British Columbia and Lower Alaska. Each carving tells of a real or mythical event and each carving
on each pole has a meaning. After this we headed along the seawall past the Lions gate bridge and lighthouse, past third beach and second beach to the lost lagoon, the lagoon used to fill with water from Coal Harbour in the early 1900's, then a causeway was built causing the lagoon to be constant fresh water pond.
ritish Columbia Indians coat of arms, they are unique to the North West Coast of British Columbia and Lower Alaska. Each carving tells of a real or mythical event and each carving
on each pole has a meaning. After this we headed along the seawall past the Lions gate bridge and lighthouse, past third beach and second beach to the lost lagoon, the lagoon used to fill with water from Coal Harbour in the early 1900's, then a causeway was built causing the lagoon to be constant fresh water pond.
We returned our bikes and then went back to Stanley park to walk around a little. We ended up finding Brockton Oval where they play cricket and rugby with a beautiful view, yeah who knew. I'm told it doesn't get used too often. We walked down some of the other tracks around the park and then headed home. Have to save the rest of Stanley Park for another day, it is such a huge area, hard to believe it is right by the city.
Thursday we decided to be people that actually lived in the city and 
headed to the movies. We went to see UP 3D. This is a good movie, however quite sad, think I cried about 3-4 times, more than The Lion King and Finding Nemo. It was awesome in 3D, this was the first movie I had ever seen 3D. We also ended up getting free tickets for another movie as the lights came on and the sound stopped for about 5 mins, we did end up missing this part of the movie but it was made worth while at the end. After this we jumped on one of the sky trains to have a look around.
headed to the movies. We went to see UP 3D. This is a good movie, however quite sad, think I cried about 3-4 times, more than The Lion King and Finding Nemo. It was awesome in 3D, this was the first movie I had ever seen 3D. We also ended up getting free tickets for another movie as the lights came on and the sound stopped for about 5 mins, we did end up missing this part of the movie but it was made worth while at the end. After this we jumped on one of the sky trains to have a look around.
Friday was another park walking day. We caught the seabus across to North Vancouver and then the bus to Lynn Canyon. Lynn Canyon is a rainforest area surrounding Lynn Creek. It has a suspension bridge and is 250 hectares. So after reading the warning signs about bears and cougars in the area we headed off for our walk. We crossed the suspension bridge, unfortunately the signs said you couldn't jump or run on the bridge, luckily there were too many v
isitors to tempt us. We headed down to Twin Falls and back to the start, after a stop for lunch and walk around the ecology centre where we found a pamphlet on what to do if you come across a bear (purhaps something we should of had before hand), we were off again on another walk. This time we stayed on this side of the creek and headed toward pipeline bridge. Named this as it had a pipeline running beside it, the bridge was nothing to rave about but was extremely high above the creek. We headed a
cross it anyway and down some more tracks to 30 foot pool, I'm guessing it was called this as at one point it was 30 feet?? Not to sure but there were silly people jumping off the rock into a small area of water. The surrounding area wasn't that deep and it definately wasn't that wide. Finally we headed back and across the suspension bridge again, this time not so crowded so we had some time to take some photos. A really nice setting once again, and the water is so clear. This evening we ended up at the Crepe Cafe for a second dinner as leftovers weren't quite enough, this is yum food and reasonably priced think we'll have to go back here again.Saturday was a cruisy day at Granville Island. Granville Island is underneith the Granville Bridge, and no its not actually an Island, it connects to the land and is mostly surrounded by false creek. Is used to be an industrial penninsular but is now full with restaurants, bars, theatres and artisan businesses. Along with this is the public market full with stalls selling, cheese, bakery stuff, meat, vegies and many other specialty foods. It appears on the weekends in summer it is really busy, we faught our way through the crowds to get out fruit and veges for the next couple of weeks and then attempted to look around, after a while of carrying heavy bags we hung around looking for a table to sit at to eat lunch, this turned out to be quite difficult, but we got one in the end. We decided to come back here another day for a better look around with less people so we knew where to go when it was busy again.
Sunday was another cruisy day, we headed to Metrotown on the sky train. Metrotown is a huge shopping complex, I will definately have to come back here once I get paid and have plenty of money to do some shopping. This place is huge, about the size of silvia park but 2 stores of it. We just wondered round being tourists dreaming about the things we would like to buy, and actually looking for a hair cutter for Cam, what a mission this turned out to be, it was very frustrating, turns out you find them at the London drug store, yes thats right who would have thought. It surprises me how many shops here have drug in there title, like shoppers drug mart, and you can find all sorts of things in these shops. Anyway nothing much else to say about this day.
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