More Visitors 7th Sept - 12th Sept

With Rach working on Sunday night we made Monday morning a quiet day. Jacki, Katie and I headed up the Vancouver Lookout. The weather forecast was bad the entire time we had visitors so unfortunately there was a bit of cloud around. After about an hour of me playing tourist guide up the lookout we headed for a nice walk around the waterfront to Stanley Park.

Like we were when we first arrived, Jacki wanted to get a photo of a squirrel. In Stanley Park that's usually an easy task... for some reason it wasn't this day. What was weird was that Raccoons were suddenly more common. We managed to get some good photos of them instead and had to abandon finding a squirrel. Rach had got up while we were 'going on a squirrel hunt' so we headed back to regroup.






It was still relatively early in the day so we decided to squeeze a visit to Granville Island in. Its always nice wandering around doing a bit of window shopping. We also grabbed a quick bite while we were there and watched a couple of the buskers. Once we had explored all the Island streets and had enough on the swings we headed home for some dinner. Rach, Jacki and Katie went back up the lookout after dinner to see the city at night since the tickets were still valid.






On Tuesday we we caught the seabus over to the north shore to go up Grouse Mountain. If you remember back to our post on June 28th, Rach and I had already been up here and its great cheap fun. Its really cheap if you do the Grouse Grind but none of us had the energy or desire to do that. We got the cable car up this time which I found rather over priced - but I'm comparing to a free walk up there. There is a good amount of entertainment up the top for free so I guess its not so bad.

Up the top it was a lot busier than last time, not with people it was animals. The bears were roaming around their enclosure giving everyone a good look. There was a family of Black Tailed Deer and we even saw a Grouse up Grouse Mountain. There was also a bit of wild Black Bear activity up there this day. We didn't see them but did find a fresh looking foot print - I honed all my tracking skills to identify it. We watched the lumberjack show again, for Rach and I it was our third time now. Its a little different when you know all the secrets but its still a good show. We got the chair lift up to the very top peak which we didn't do last time we were up here. There were spectacular views of Vancouver from up there, you could see right down into Washington too.








It was a long day and we were all exhausted, too exhausted to cook so we went out for dinner at The Keg. Its a chain restaurant but like most chains here the food is fantastic. We then walked around the corner from home to visit one of Katie's friends and her spoiled dog. Had a quick drink there before heading home a collapsing in bed.

We were finding it exhausting being tourists so took it easy on Wednesday morning - all we had planned for the day was heading to Vancouver Island. I got some good news (and bad timing) that morning; UBC wanted me back for a second interview... this week, when I was meant to be at Vancouver Island. I couldn't really reschedule too much so made a time Friday afternoon so I could have a day on the Island still. It was about 2pm when we headed off for the Ferry. It was a bit of a trek, but also surprising how far we could get for only $18. We first got the Canada Line to Brighouse Staton where we caught a bus to Tsawwassen where we got the Ferry over to Swartz Bay. It was funny that we were able to use a train, bus and ferry all in a couple of hours to get over to the island. Jacki's uncle, Bruce, picked us up from the ferry terminals and took us round to their place in Sidney. They have an amazing place right on the water, we were so spoilt there. Bruce had been out fishing that morning so we had fresh Salmon for dinner that night, just like real Canadians.




Thursday was now my only full day on Vancouver Island so we packed as much touring of Victoria as we could. Bruce gave us the scenic route down to Victoria and did a good job as a tour guide to get us started. Bruce eventually had to head off and do some work so we were on our own. We started with a short walk around the waterfront past the Legislative Buildings and the Empress Hotel. We didn't get far before deciding to catch one of the water taxis for a quick tour around the harbour. The first boat we got on to was great, the driver offered a great commentary. We were told it was a hop-on hop-off type thing so we got off at Fisherman's Wharf. It was a dock full of house boats and one local Seal. The poor old seal looked like it had bad cataracts and would surely be dead if had to fend for itself. It survives now on fish that people feed it at the wharf. It was unusual to have a seal follow you while you walk around. When we jumped back on the water taxi it was more of a taxi on the water, we just travelled straight back to the main dock where we'd started without any commentary at all - it was a little disappointing.

With limited time we decided it'd be best to plan the rest of our Victoria tour so we headed to the information center. We grabbed pamphlets and got some information on buses and headed up Government Street to grab some lunch. We ended up eating at Irish Times Pub - we seem to love the Irish pubs in Canada. While sitting in the pub we had a look through the pamphlets we grabbed and found one of the maps included an Alley Tour and we happened to be sitting at the start of it so we decided to follow it. It took us down some great back alleyways, my favourite had to be the last one, Fan Tan Alley. It was no wider then two people and about four stories high on both sides. There were a few quirky shops down the way and when we came out we were in Chinatown. We headed back down Government Street toward the harbour stopping at a couple of places to try and find a shirt for my job interview tomorrow. I really didn't enjoy my Victoria shopping experience, I felt like I was in a mini 'Queer Eye for Me' episode, and I really didn't like it. We eventually found a polite way to get out of that shop and found a shirt in Tip Top Tailors, they had the right level of helpfulness there.

After that stress we needed ice cream so we all grabbed sundaes and sat around the harbour eating them. We were then ready to continue our tour. We headed up and explored The Empress Hotel and then the Legislative buildings. Unfortunately we were 5 minutes too late to go inside the legislative builds so we wandered around the grounds and stumbled upon horse and carriage tours - between the four of us we couldn't come up with a reason not to. We took a 15 minute tour around Beacon Hill area looking at all the old houses - it was very romantic :-). It was almost 6 when we got back so we found a bus stop and got a ride back to Bruce and Debbie's place in Sidney.







Friday I had to get up early and catch the 8am ferry back so I could be ready from my interview at 3pm. The interview went ok, it was a practical test this time and I got the impression it had gone well - even with a few answers that I was disappointed with. The guy interviewing me basically said at the end of it that I knew what I was doing and he was just concerned about my work permit and me being over qualified - not in those words of course. It was good to hear that after three months of disappointing job hunting.

Meanwhile - on The Island Rach, Jacki and Katie had a quiet day in Sidney. Checking out the museum there and walking along the beach. They then left Jacki behind and headed back to Vancouver. On their ferry ride home they were lucky enough to see Orca's breaching - that was disappointing because I really wanted to and had been looking hard for them on both rides. Rach was also loaded up on frozen Salmon before leaving so we now have a freezer full, we're so stoked about that but need to learn some recipes - we've never cooked Salmon before.

Katie had an early flight home on Saturday morning and Rach was working again. I gave Katie a hand getting to the airport and watched some more planes before heading home and back to reality.

It was so nice seeing familiar faces again and it was fun being tourists again - the budget hadn't allowed us to do that for a while. It was also tough going back to reality.