This was my first time in the far west coast, and it was great! We left first thing Sunday morning and flew into Abbotsford instead of Vancouver. We were renting a car anyway and it was much cheaper than flying direct to Vancouver. We touched down around 8:30am in Abbotsford so we had the whole day in BC, and hardly lost any time to 'travel'. Smart planning on Amy's part! After collecting the keys to the car and exiting the airport I was instantly reminded of home in the valley. For there was a distinct aroma of cow shit in the air. We later found out that good ol Abbotsford smells like that all the time!
We collected the car and headed north to Vancouver. We were equipped with an atlas of the states and provinces and a map of downtown Van. We couldn't check into our hotel right away so we thought we would drive into the city, park and explore downtown (Gastown & Chinatown) by foot. Upon entering the hustle and bustle of down town, despite our map (that may have been slightly outdated) and planned route, we realized you can hardly ever make a left hand turn in Vancouver. Every intersection we came to had a no left turn sign! In an instant I, as the navigator, had to think quicker than my eyes could read a map while several lanes of traffic zipped by us in amongst the high rises. I felt like a three legged dog chasing its tail leaning to the right trying to get where we wanted. Eventually we found a parkade and after amputating our left arm and feeding it into the parking machine we set out on foot to Gastown. Despite the name, Gastown is a trendy touristy area in Vancouver's downtown. The streets are made of stone bricks and are lined with over priced authentic Vancouver artwork, jewelery etc. They also had pretty authentic prices too. It was very nice looking though and it was nice just to take in the scenery. After exploring Gastown a bit we decided to head up to Chinatown. We had accidentally left our map of downtown in the car but there were little information signs around that gave general directions so we were confident in winging it. We started up a street after following an arrow pointing towards Chinatown in search of an Asian invasion. As we neared the top of the hill we noticed an abundance of vagrants and 'street dwellers' passing us on the street. As we reached the top of the hill and were waiting to cross the street it became very apparent that we had stumbled upon somewhere we hadn't intended to. As we waited for the light to change and cross I looked at Amy and with a confused and frightened look on my face I said, "Where are we??" To which she replied, " I don't think we are supposed to be here, I think this is the homeless shelter." The light changed and we crossed the street. I had briefly noticed that the road we were crossing to was closed to traffic and there was an obvious crowd of people. We kept walking and found ourselves shuffled into the crowd of people, shopping carts, garbage bags etc. The people around us may have had a collective set of teeth amongst them, and had hard worn looking faces. Evidently we had stumbled across, what appeared to be an episode of Binners Roadshow, only without cameras or appraisers. The people there had blankets and bags spread out with their 'wares' spread out for sale or trade. It was a gathering of vagrants hocking their stolen and found items. If we had bothered to have a look around I am sure we would have found some 'interesting' treasures but the feeling that lingering would have resulted in a mugging or stabbing loomed in our minds. We broke from the crowd at the next intersection, unsure where we were, and bewildered after bobbing and weaving through the crowd. We looked around to get our bearings and realized we were on East Hastings street. We had been warned to stay away from there before going. We looked down the street and there were large groups of homeless people extending all the way down the street. We didn't know where to go to get to Chinatown but it had to be close? At one point Amy said, "Lets just go down here (meaning walking through the mile of lost souls)" To which I replied, "Really!?" with a wavering in my voice. She turned and took about 3 steps and once a man stepped towards her (possibly because the voices told him to) she turned on her heel and just said, "Nope!" and we hurriedly walked across the road. We
noticed one of those information signs about a block away so we b-lined it for it. As we came into the intersection we saw the pagodas, and we thank the gold waving kitty, we were in Chinatown!
Chinatown was interesting. It was interesting walking by the open market stalls and trying to guess what part of the animal was piled in the bin. It was a bit on the shabby side, but it was interesting to walk around and see the sights. There was also a really nice little garden we walked around in. I was astounded with the greenness of everything out there. It really is spring on the west coast! Green lush trees and flowers everywhere in the sunshine, it was like a breath of fresh air. We walked around downtown for a while, took in the sights, and stayed the hell away from East Hastings. We had a bite to eat at a new pub called, The Pint, and people watched in the sun before deciding that we would check into our hotel, drop our bags and try to make it to Granville Island and go to the market.
On the way to the hotel we drove down Davie street. As we were driving I said to Amy, "This must be the gay village." I wasn't wrong. That is possibly the gayest neighborhood I have ever seen. The only way it could have been more gay is if there was men in rainbow tutus riding unicorns and having anal sex on the sidewalk. It was very close to our hotel and we soon became no stranger to the gay village. It was a great spot to hang out with great cafes and shops. One of my fav areas of Vancouver for sure! We checked in, dropped our bags, checked out the view from our room (which included a nice view of the mountains and a little view of the water) and then struck off to do some exploring. Our hotel was located in English Bay and was about 2 blocks from a beautiful, well populated beach. The streets were lined with restaurants and cafes and there was a ton of people out enjoying the sunshine. We hung out on the beach for a few minutes taking in the view as we waited for the hop on hop off trolley we were going to take. We had a less than easy time trying to track down how to get to the Graville Island and the concierge at the hotel told us to take this trolley from the beach it would be no problem. Welllll it was a problem. There was poor signage, no timetable, and it was too expensive. Getting frustrated we went for some liquid relaxation at a really awesome spot called The Beaver and Mullet. After a Jaggy Bear, a Bottle Cap, a Tequila Sunrise and some very good advice from our server we set out to find the ferry to take us to Granville Island. It was a beautiful day and the walk by the water was awesome. We found the ferry and took it over without fail.
The Granville Island market was a very neat place to be. It had great atmosphere and lovely lovely things. The only problem was it was very expensive. I would to have loved to buy some of the things there but simply couldn't afford $9.99 a pound for raspberries. So we toured around a bit then took the ferry back to the other side. By this time it was heading on for evening, but still beautiful so we decided to go up to Stanley Park for a while and see some lookouts and totem poles. Stanley Park is a huge beautiful park with massive trees and lush green forest. If I lived in Vancouver I would go there all the time! We drove to some of the park sites and look outs and saw some really really huge trees. I took a picture inside the largest hollow tree, and we headed for the totem poles.
The totems were really cool. I found the aboriginal art very much different from west coast to east, and the artwork was beautiful. They stretched high above the ground, and were carved and painted in very interesting designs. After enjoying Stanley Park a bit we drove back to the hotel, got cleaned up a bit and finished our day with dinner and a beautiful sunset on the beach. We went to bed earlyish because we had to get up in the morning to drive to Seattle. We were chasing the sunshine and boy did it pay off!
Stay tuned for the story of our trip to Seattle, and Vancouver day 2!!
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