Vancouver, Canada
06-09-07/07-09-07: Bussing It
We spent two days travelling from Banff to Vancouver, with a one night stopover in Kelowna. The first bus was so full, we didn’t get to sit together, but thankfully that didn’t happen again. Sadly, that is the only thing of interest that happened on the buses.
Kelowna was like Osborne Park, or Cannington (at least, where we stayed it was!). We stayed in one of those cheap motels you see in the movies, so that was fun. It was quite nice inside. We ate ribs for dinner at a Lone Star-type restaurant. We shopped at Walmart . We fell asleep watching the Comedy Channel. Exciting, huh? Oh, and there were loads of wild bunnies around!
08-09-07: Vancouvery Goodness
The night before, Jenn had met us at Vancouver bus terminal and brought us back to her house in White Rock, a short commute from Vancouver City.
We could smell dinner cooking as soon as we entered, but were more taken by the loveliness of Jenn and Julian’s house. Their house was an incredible three-storey ‘palace’ two blocks from the beach, and it was just so warm and welcoming. For those who can’t remember my travel adventures from 2005, Jenn is a friend we made while travelling in Laos. Our trauma bond can be read here.
Jenn’s friend, Marina, joined us for a lovely roast beef dinner because Julian wasn’t coming home until late. We drank wine and gossiped and talked until Julian came home, and then we drank and chatted some more.
The next day we headed to Victoria, a town on Vancouver Island. We planned to do an orca tour, and it was a day of incredible near misses with transport. First, we all almost missed the 11am ferry. A man in a buggy gave us a lift, but then the rude ticket lady wouldn’t let us through. We ignored her and went through anyway, ran to the berth, but the passenger doors were closed. They were still loading cars, so we ran down to the vehicle deck, where Jenn convinced them to let us on and let us buy our tickets in the gift shop. They caved, so we enjoyed the hour and a half cruise to Vancouver Island (we saw seals and a bald eagle on the way!). We ran straight onto a bus and rang the orca tour company on the way. We made it to the orca tour with minutes to spare, but found out they’d directed us to the boat tour, not the zodiac tour.
They gave us a discount for the boat, so we jumped on. It turned out to be a blessing, because we only saw one grey whale from afar. We were grateful we were on a comfortable boat and able to enjoy the amazing day.
We ate dinner in an outdoor pub/patio area called The Sticky Wicket, then wandered to Thunderbird Park which had a decent collection of totem poles.
After we saw these, we caught the bus back to the ferry. We were told that we would definitely make it in time for the final ferry, which was at 9pm. At 8:55pm we were still on our way and getting understandably panicked. The bus got to the terminal just after 9 – there was a mad rush for the ticket booths, and then they announced that the ferry was delayed anyway!!
We were ¾ of the way home on the ferry when we noticed the ferry security guards walking around, clearly looking for somebody. Then we noticed that we were actually stopped altogether!!
Jenn and I decided to investigate. We walked outside and asked some security guards what was going on. They couldn’t tell us anything, so we hung back and eavesdropped. We heard a young couple telling the senior security guard that they’d seen an old guy throwing something suspicious overboard. This was obviously the man they were looking for. We couldn’t find out much more than that.
We walked around the ship, and later saw the young couple being led downstairs to identify the man. James also overhead a cleaner telling somebody that it was all over a drunk man who was being abusive (which seems like an extreme reaction from the security team, so I doubt it’s true!). Either way, we finally started moving again. When we docked, there were police cars waiting! We got home an hour and a half late, and drank copious amounts of wine until the wee hours.
09-09-07: Stanley Park & Sushi
We slept in on Sunday after a very late night, and we set off for Stanley Park in the early afternoon.
Stanley Park is an enormous park overlooking the city. We stopped near the totel pole part, where we got to see some wonderful totem poles. We then strolled along the river, trying to spot seals and otters (of which we saw one of each). We also saw a number of lovely statues, and we took a sneak peek at the aquarium, where we saw two seals, a sea lion and some beluga whales (who were performing tricks).
We went from Stanley Park to an all-you-can-eat sushi dinner. Needless to say, we ate until we nearly exploded. Julian’s friend David joined us, which was great (although we were all so busy with panicked all-you-can-eat eating that we didn’t get to talk much!). We came home, watched ‘Blades of Glory’, and then just chilled out a bit before going to bed!
10-09-07: Lazy, Lazy Monday
Monday was one of our laziest days so far. We rose around 10:30am, wrote some postcards, checked the Internet, etc. Julian left for work at 12pm, so he dropped us at the post office and we walked home along the beach (after having fish and chips for lunch). We walked along the pier and saw lots of little fishies and some crabs. It was such a hot day, but because James had his camera we didn’t want to leave it on the beach, so we decided to go home and spend the afternoon keeping the ferrets company, doing some writing and reading. Divine!
We waited for Jenn to come home, went to the beach for a swim, and then spent the evening being entertained by ferrets, drinking, smoking shisha, and talking. Wonderful!