Day 9 - July 18, 2010 11:59 PM

July 18, 2010
11:59 PM

Vancouver, you bent us, but didn't break us.

We got up early as we had much to see. After a ridiculously large but tasty breakfast in the hotel (kids eat free), we were off.

First stop Lynn Canyon suspension bridge. According to our hosts R and D this bridge has all the attributes of the Capilano with none of the expense. We have been on suspension bridges before, many of them more swingy but without the waterfall view. Many ghosts inhabit Lyn Canyon as there are many memorials to those who died at that place.

Next, off to Capilano salmon hatchery. He you get to see many species of salmon from freshly hatched eggs to 30 pound salmon. The damn is set up so that you can watch the fish jump from pool to pool. This is a breeding program to increase the number of salmon that are being introduced to the rivers.

Off to Stanley Park. Everyone in Vancouver was their biking, jogging or roller blading. We saw people playing tennis, lawn bowling and cricket. We visited the totem poles but missed the aquarium. We spent some time on the beach and S and J rescued a fish from a Seagull.

A quick refreshing drink and we were off to our next stop, the Olympic Caldron. With S directing using a paper map (since this was not in our GPS, we took a long way round including twice around Stanley Park before finding the site. During our stop we saw 3 planes land on the bay directly in front of us.

We then texted R and D and agreed to meet them at their condo (a 10 block distance away) before continuing on to Granville Island. Well, we got a little lost with one way streets etc, so the 10 block distance took 45 minutes via an unplanned yet short visit to West Vancouver. Frazzled and needing a break we After a refreshing fresh fruit break we decided to visit Granville Island before going out to supper.

Things are smaller in Vancouver than they are billed. We arrived on Granville Island and got caught up in some high end car dealerships and immediately drove off the island. We then backtracked and parked and instead of Granville Island ended up at Kitsalano beach. The clothing optional billing of Kitsalano was not apparent in the area we were, but we didn’t make it all the way to the ocean. We decided to try one more time.


Third time lucky, we parked an walked about. The area reminded us of The Forks in Winnipeg which makes sense since The Forks was based on Granville Island.

R and D then took us to one of their favourite local Chinese restaurants, Hons. The food was excellent and R and D were great hosts for our weary troop.

Refreshed from supper, we decided to visit the Night Market in Richmond. This is where you can barter for cheap knock offs of products all in the atmosphere of streets bordered by warehouses and abandoned railway lines. The market was smaller than we thought it would be. S bought a radio controlled helicopter, I bought a patch cord to fit iPods into the car stereo and J bought a samari sword. B, P and D being the smart ones didn’t buy anything.

We left the market and made our way back to the hotel with everyone very tired from the day's activities.