Vancouver BC or Bust

In 1991 I graduated from WSU. I moved myself and my belongings to Seattle Washington – more specifically Bellevue.  Since then I’ve moved over 25 times and have traveled and seen the world.

What I have not done is seen my own backyard.

Vancouver BC is just a short 3 hour (with the border stop) from Seattle. And yet, it’s sat allusively up North mocking me. Teasing me for not coming to visit. 

“It’s too far.” I’d say.

“There’s no one to go with” was another excuse.

Until now. Finally.  Vancouver no longer is on my “places to go” list.

I purchased an EXCELLENT deal from GroupOn for the PanPacific Hotel located on the water front in Vancouver. Well, one of the many waterfronts. That town is surrounded by water – not at all different from Seattle.

The GroupOn was for the PanPacific Club and it got us a kickass room on the 23^rd floor with our own private concierge, happy hour every night, HUGE continental breakfast, and our own private visitors every night.

When I bought the GroupOn in February I started planning.  I am of the breed that I MUST know what all my options are for a destination so I can then decide what I’d like to do. Blueberry is of the breed of “wait until you get there.” We travel well together for this reason. She usually just hops on to whatever I have found and recommended. It’s a win-win really. My Control Goddess gets to plan and do what she wants, and her Sit Back and Follow Goddess gets to do fun stuff.

I had a list.  And I was willing to be flexible because I am, after all, older and more relaxed about some things. This was Blueberry’s birthday trip so I had to allow for to add/remove as she wanted to.

We left Lynnwood at 8:30am. Vancouver playlist playing loud, top up cuz it wasn’t quite warm enough yet for Blueberry, coffee in hand and we were off. We hit the border in what felt like no time at all.

Once across and into Canada we stopped at the Visitor center to visit their Canadian bathrooms and to just look around.

That’s when Blueberry stumbled onto this brochure for Capilano Suspension Bridge.

I had seen this in my research and avoided it like the plague. I’m not a heights person and I’m especially not a heights person when there’s a 250ft drop below you.  The tourism folks there were offering a discount and Blueberry really wanted to go. So we signed up.

Once in Vancouver proper we were a bit early to check-in so we hopped on the free shuttle to Capilano.

Now, despite my whining about the height and the vertigo and the absolute certainty that I was going to plunge to my death, this place was pretty damn cool.

The suspension bridge  is 450ft long and was 250ft high.  They “said” it’s the strongest and safest suspension bridge in the country.  I’d like to know how they test the safety part….but I digress.

On the other side of the bridge was this Tree Walk.  It was basically pretending to be a squirrel with no hop and you walk from tree to tree on these mini suspension bridges.  You ooohhh and ahhhh at the scenery and walk to the next tree.  It was pretty cool. And the bridges between trees were only like 2 stories high give or take, so I was okay with that.

 

 

We sauntered around a bit and checked out the other nature around on that side of the bridge and then I, like a drunken sailor, wandered back across. See the bridge is moving from everyone walking on it, so you can’t exactly walk straight.  I have a hard enough time as it is, I certainly didn’t need any more help.

The “newest” attraction out there is the Cliff Walk. It’s a 20inch plank to walk on that is extended 30 feet from the cliff.  I think the idea is to scare the pee out of most people, but to maybe also give them a slightly different view of where they’re going to plunge to their death. (Did I ever tell you drama was my middle name?)

I may look relaxed...but I'm anything but.

The thinks she's so funny!

Gulp!

We were starving by the time we finished this and decided to just grab a quick bite at their “grill”.  Upon seeing that a burger…just a burger, no fries, no drink, no nothing, was $12 we opted to split curly fries.  Puck had to have some too.

Back at the hotel, we checked in and started to wander the city. We didn’t get too far before we were asked if we wanted to buy a Hop-on and Hop-off bus tour.  I LOVE these tours.  They make seeing a city so easy and allow you to decide what you really want to check out.  So we bought a two day pass that we’d start to use on Saturday.

We managed to walk our way up to Robson Street – their major shopping street apparently.  On our way I marveled at their architecture. 

Vancouver is a city of skyscrapers.  Not just business skyscrapers, but apartment skyscrapers too…everywhere.  In their downtown section, there was an abundance of glassy, shiny buildings mixed in with old world brick buildings.

The Marine Building.

This building had a single line poem from a British author all around it. It was very cool.

Saturday morning after stuffing ourselves on the supurb continental breakfast they offered, we hopped on to see Stanley Park.  According to our bus tour guide the park is the “jewel” of Canada.  It’s just 100 acres larger than Central Park and boy was it beautiful.  It offered us some great views of Vancouver as well.

Shakespeare's Garden in Stanley Park

The bus was a little bouncy and I, for whatever reason, was starting to get a little motion sick. I never get motion sick, but this time I was. We “hopped off” and took a little ferry (I mean LITTLE) to Granville Island –which – it turns out – isn’t really an island.

The Granville Island Market was awesome. I wish I had felt a bit better because it’s a photographers heaven. So many things to shoot.  The flavors in the air, the shops, the people, it was just fantastic. 

Picking out chocolates.

Leaving the market we had our maps in hand. Blueberry had the bus tour map and I had just a regular old map I had picked up at the hotel.  We were trying to find where to hop on the blue line. The earlier line we were on was the red line and only did Stanely park. We now needed the blue line to do the rest of the tour of Vancouver. Blueberry and I stared hard at the map from the bus company and couldn’t figure out WHERE we needed to be.  The street names were cut off, or non-existent which made it difficult to figure it out.  We walked a full block circle to determine that where we had started was where we needed to be.  We asked 4 people, we argued with each other, I determined we both read maps very differently and it was raining.  I’m surprised we both survived that.

Finally, the blue bus came along and we were off again.

We drove through Chinatown and got off because Blueberry wanted to see the Police Museum (YAWN).  But it was her birthday weekend so we did it.  Well, she did it, I sat in the lobby and waited. 

After that we walked up to Gastown and found a happenin’ little place called PickinPah – the guide book I had suggested this little bourbon bar for lunch.  We were hungry so we stopped for lunch.  We didn’t want to eat too much because it was late and we had dinner reservations at the Italian Kitchen.  Still, I ordered Mac N Cheese and Blueberry ordered a bowl of chili.  After about half way through, Blueberry noticed the dessert menu on the wall and saw that it said, “Deep Fried Mars Bars.” She turned to me with a goofy smile and announced we HAD to get dessert. 

The most delicious Mac N Cheese.

It doesn't look like much, but it was SOOOO good.

The chewy, gooey inside...

OMG…that’s all I can say about this dessert. It was SOOOO…. DAMN…. Good….
We finished our walk through Gastown and stopped to see the famous Steam Clock.  Apparently this clock operates by steam power. Which is pretty cool.

The Gastown Steam Clock

On our way back to the hotel I noticed the building that was in my guide book that offered an observation deck on the roof. So we went inside and bought tickets to the top. 

Again with the heights.  I’m fine if I’m inside an enclosure and can look out (not down), but the mode of travel to the top was a glass elevator!  I do not need to see the ground beneath me grow smaller. Blueberry, on the other hand, is leaning into the glass door looking down shooting photos. Ugh.

Once on the top, we got a great view of Vancouver from above. 

I survived…barely.  With shaky knees we walked back to the hotel to “freshen up” before dinner. 

The Italian Kitchen inVancouver is by far, one of the BEST restaurants I’ve ever had the pleasure of eating in. Top 10 easily.  The food was delicious, the dessert was AMAZING…and the cosmo…well you see what it was.

In the end, I loved Vancouver.  It’s a beautiful city. Clean, friendly people, lots of little dogs everywhere, and an all-around good time.  I’ll be going back there.  There’s more I need to see and do and photograph.

So glad I did this for Blueberry’s 22 again birthday.  Or as our cousin Kara put it, her 19^th anniversary of her 25^th birthday.

All the photos are here.