Vancouver "Holiday": 15/06/09-21/06/09

Monday we ventured back to Granville Island to find our way around and learn about the place without the crowds, turns out its a bigger area than I thought. There are some really cool shops around here, ideal for gifts and souvenirs. Also ideal if you would like to spend $55,000 on a rock sculpture, this was the most expensive however for a bargain you could get a smaller one. Its very green in this city, we stopped for a cold drink and most things you find are organic, also our smoothies were served in a cup with a straw made out of corn, which I thought was quite interesting, making them both biodegradable. Keep and eye out in most places you go for recycle bins. Granville Island also tends to have many buskers, the guy today could do a particularly cool trick of putting a partially blown up animal balloon down his nose and out his mouth, actually quite yuck if you ask me.

Tuesday was yet another park visit, this time to Queen Elizabeth Park, we had been told you could get beautiful views of the city from here, apparently that is correct. This park has 2 quarry gardens whatever that means, one bigger than the other. We walked around admiring the gardens, bridges and water feature before taking some nice pictures of the city, unfortunately today was a bit overcast and hazy therefore the photos aren't as good as they could be. After this we headed to the golf course for a little pitch and putt, I remember now why I haven't played that often, its really hard to get a pitching wedge to actually pitch, so I decided to putt from the rough. Cam however didn't seem to find this as difficult. Plus you can only do 18 holes so can get frustrating if your not very good, still fun though.

Wednesday was a quiet day can't really remember what happened this day, I know I did some baking, boring really.

Thursday was quite exciting really, we decided to go on another walk, this time to Seymour Conservation Reserve, there were just bears at this place apparently. This is out near Lynn Valley one of our other walks however slightly further, and once again another park you could not explore in one day. I think the furthest you could walk was about 12kms one way and that was from one end to the other. Not including all the side trails you could do. We walked about 13kms this day, to view our walk click here.

After stopping by the trout fishing lake (where they periodically release new catchable trout into the lake from the hatchery up the road), we headed on our walk along a traffic like road, however no cars drive on this. It is only for walkers, cyclists, strollers and roller bladers. It was really quiet and weird, an empty road winding through the forest with random people on it every now and then. This road kept going for about another 6kms and we had already walked 6kms so if we went all the way we would have had to walk 24kms, we decided 12kms would be enough for today. We headed off on another path and back along the Seymour River to the start.

We spend over a week in LA and don't see anything even slightly related to stardom, and then we go walking way out in the bush in Vancouver and stumble across filming on one of the public tracks. We're yet to figure out what they were filming for, apparently they were filming US coastguard (this is what they tell us) but we have googled that and can't find it anywhere, so who knows. We'll keep you posted. They even asked us to hang out with them until they had shot a small section and showed us what they were doing on their screens. It was all very exciting, however a little bit of a blur now. I guess they call it North Hollywood for a reason. It appears they have shot a few things out there such as X-files, MacGyver and RV just to name a few.

After our brush with fame we stumbled across an amazing view where we stopped for a snack, why would they not want to film movies here. This area was also where the film base was, unfortunately we didn't see anyone famous we knew. We headed along the river in the bushes and then finished off our walk with an extremely steep climb for about 1km, I think probably the steepest you could go without stairs, I guess we had, had it easy the rest of the walk. Overall a really nice day and walk.

Friday was a cruisy day really, we had a well earned sleep in and then headed into town to visit Gastown. Quite a well known tourist area in Vancouver, not sure why it took us this long to get here, I think it may have had something to do with the fact it is right next to the dodgy area and not being familiar with the area we didn't want to venture near it. Turns out Gastown and Chinatown are near the dodgy area but if you stay away from Hastings street and visit them in the day you will be fine. Gastown became the first "town" area, after the arrival of alcohol bought here by "Gassy Jack", well this is the short story, to see more click the link above. The main attraction in this area is the steam clock. Built by Raymond Saunders, steam winds the weights and blows the whistlers. For more information on this click here (too hard for me to write it all here).

After this we went for another walk through the city, this time to a new area along Denman street and up Davie Street, this area is the west end and has a substantial gay population living in this area. One particular pub had a guy wearing a cowboy hat and then I noticed that there were actually only guys in this pub. Seems like a nice area though, friendly people and really busy. We had been recommended the Cambie pub by Sarah so decided to check it out, I must admit we saw the place from the outside and were just about to leave, it just looked a little dodgy and not quite the place I would like to go. I don't think I would have ever considered it, if it hadn't been recommended. Apparently first impressions aren't always correct it was like a real mans pub inside and did seem a little rough but the place definitely grew on us. Loud music, pool, TV's with sport on everywhere and a lively feel to the place. Think we will prob go back here at some point.

A few drinks later we headed home for dinner, however the first dinner I made was crap and I think the first time I have ever thrown a dinner out. So we had second dinner which was so much better. After this it was time for Cheesecake, there is an awesome shop down the road that just sells homemade cheesecake, hot drinks and cold drinks called cheesecake etc., and its non baked cheesecake, even better! (something for you Jacki). Its a really cute little shop that only opens late at night, its purely candle lit (except for the fridge) and they have music playing. I think live music normally as they have a piano there but no one played for us this night. I'm sure we will be back though. Finally we talk a walk along Granville Bridge to take a photo of the city at night, it looks really beautiful with all the lights and water around.

We couldn't decide what to do today, tossed up between the Scandinavian day or dragon boat racing, however ended up buying tickets to the Canadians (Vancouver) baseball game against the Everett Aquasox from Washington for that night instead. We decided to give these other 2 things a miss and do boring grocery shopping instead. For those of you who have done grocery shopping and then had to carry all your bags on the bus home, its a bitch and I think we have now found out you don't do this on a Saturday. May have to get one of those nanna bags that you pull along on wheels but just don't know if I can bring myself to use one hehe. Unfortunately our nearest grocery store is 4 normal blocks North and 2 Tobi blocks East (about 4-5 large blocks normal people size). From the bus to our apartment is about the only time I wish I have a car.

Anyway enough boring grocery talk and on to the exciting stuff. Our FIRST Baseball game at Nat Bailey Stadium, and to make it better it turned out to be a sold out game and the first of the season. The stadium holds 5182 people, it is a smaller than others as the Vancouver team is in the minor league, but still just as fun and just like the movies. There was a brass band playing outside, people in the isles offering beer and hotdogs, mascots, singing of the national anthems by a 5 year old (which we didn't know), and chants through the crowd. Half way through the mascot and some kids stood on the side of the field and made the crowd get up and sing the Baseball game song and do exercises it was funny, but the crowd participation was amazing just about everyone got involved. Unfortunately the Canadians didn't win this day but did win the other 2 games against the Everett Aquasox. Still a very fun evening for us. Oh also being the first game of the season they had fireworks at the end, turns out they do this every Saturday game. They were very good but after Disneyland not quite the same, as this time we had a streaker who ran across the field with the fireworks in the background and did a running dive across the plate, it was awesome!! Definately think I could become a fan of this sport, very entertaining.

Sunday was a cruisy day walking down the street for Greek Day. Another blocking of the street from cars and enjoying music, shopping and the most of all food. It was a shame we had already had lunch this day as the food looked and smelt beautiful. Basically chicken and beef on sticks, bread and these dough balls deep fried and drizzled with honey and cinnamon called loukoumades (they looked good). Really good turn out here also, was hard to make your way through the crowds. We entered in a draw to win a trip to Greece but unfortunately didn't win, oh well maybe next competition. Anyway weather was getting a bit crap, yes our first cold day here which actually looked like it was going to rain, so we headed home for hot chocolates and a movie marathon. Nothing like watching several movies in a row on a crap day and going to bed at 2am on a Sunday night has you have no work tomorrow. Sorry guys I'll be working soon so won't be able to gloat. The end of another action packed week in Vancouver.