BootsnAll Travel Blogs

well its time to leave the Rockies proper; so Vancouver next.
got a bus to Calgary and then waited 6 hours to get a cheap flight to Vancouver ($99 + taxes = $145/75 quid)
the flight took 1 hr 11 mins and was pretty uneventful until we made the approcah to Vancouver, when I spotted a few whales in the water being followed by a number of boats….first whales I’ve seen..pretty distant but hey! they all count!!
got a couple of buses to the ‘downtown’ area of the city and after some stories from a Canadian fella who knew EVERYTHING (apparently) a swiss girl (Sarah) showed me the way to the hostel
gotto say, I wasnt impressed with the city at first: its BIG, noisy and brash……..and the street I got off the bus at is the gay area!!!!!….guess I wont be there again then!

got up this morning and took a mini ferry boat thingee to Granville island to look at the market there…then ferry back over and a walk through the main drag (no, not the gay one) down to the marina area where I watched a sea plane take off (theres loads of seaplane trips available in the area)
then a walk around Stanley park (kinda like Central Park, in that is a mahoosive park in the middle/edge of a city. As I walked around the park/sea walls I spotted a seal swimming on its back (kinda asleep) but as soon as I go the camera out, it did a runner (swimmer?) The walk around the park is kewl…nice views and a couple of beaches etc.
then I walked around to Chinatown and ate noodles at Hons -very famous apparently…very nice too. then walk thru an authentic chinese gardento Gastown…oh, did I mention getting touted for drugs and then seeing some really screwed up fella trying to ‘shoot-up’ at the corner of one street with 2 hypos in his hand…..shame was he couldnt catch his own arm!…was like watching a dog chase its tail!!! then being harassed by beggars for the next 200m before finding the only steam powered clock on a street corner…plays a steam whistle on the 1/4 hou and was quite good really

more fun and frivolity tomorrow I imagine

I’ll attach pics when I can (cant do it from inside the hostel)

Tags: canada, chuggy, hon's, rockies, stanley, sushi, Travel, vancouver

This entry was posted on Sunday, October 1st, 2006 at 7:20 pm and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.