So we planned to wake up and get out the hotel for 9:30am to get the sightseeing trolley, well not that I'm complaining one bit but travelling with someone else (especially a female) is a lot different to travelling alone,lol!
It was pretty chilly out and we walked round to the trolley stop to get the trolley at 11am! Kami went to get a coffee at Starbucks(which by the way did you know there are 200 Starbucks in Vancouver!!) 15 minutes later the trolley arrived and we were the only people on even though we got on at stop number 7. it was one of those “Hop On, Hop Off” type things and had over 25 stops and went all over the city and took approximately two hours for the complete tour without getting off.
We decided to stay on the trolley the whole two hour trip without getting off and then going the extra 3 or 4 stops and getting off in Chinatown for lunch. Its the second largest Chinatown in North America after San Francisco and Kami’s love for anything china and Chinese food just wasn't worth me arguing with!
After 4 or 5 stops they changed drivers which was great as the first driver was so hard to understand, his voice want too clear over the microphone and he talked with some type of lisp! We passed lots of interesting places that were all pointed out to us along the way and fortunately we were able to understand the new driver! he was pretty good and informative. We passes a huge building that had five elevators inside and outside the building was a sculpture type thing that had five boxes on poles. The boxes moved up and down in relation to the elevators inside the building! We also passed a bank that was the most robbed bank in north America! originally it was a concrete building but they had re designed the whole building and built all the walls out of glass and since then they hadn't had a single robbery!
Elevator boxes
Its a beautiful city and one this i noticed was how clean the streets were, it was spotless! id certainly like to go back and see it over a few days and have more time to see things.
We headed up towards a huge park called Stanley ark that's across the river from Vancouver city itself and you get some great views of the city.
The gun in the cage below is fired every hour, on the hour every day of the week every day of the year.
Gas station for the boats! Bridge back over Sulphur mine
As we headed round the park we saw a couple of bald headed eagles up in the trees, i think this is the first time I've actually seen some in the wild!
We also saw several huge tree including a large hollow one that had been saved and “restored” at a cost of $100,000 plus a huge tree trunk that has two types of tree growing out of the same trunk.
We headed back towards the city stopping at a few places on the way with a few people getting on and off and an hour or so later we were back where we started. Chinatown was 3 more stops after so we stayed on the trolley till we got there and headed out to look for a restaurant to eat at.
Took a few pictures in a Chinese style park that we passed and just wandered around Chinatown for 20 minutes before finding a restaurant.
Kami is very particular in where and what type of Chinese food she eats, it has to be as authentic as possible and not really western style. it was actually harder than you might think to find a restaurant to eat at! there were lots of stores and supermarkets selling produce but not many restaurants at all! Kami speaks fluent Chinese and Japanese so we stopped at a supermarket and she asked an old Chinese lady if she knew where a good cheap place to eat was. I think the Chinese lady presumed we wanted Western style as she directed us to an expensive place a couple of blocks away. We did however find a small Chinese shopping mall that was full of Chinese people and had a few fast food type but authentic food.
To be continued……
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