Vancouver is kickass!

August 3-4, 207--From Portland, I drove straight north up I-5 to Bellingham where one of my best high school friends, James, had just moved. He had told me before that when I came to visit he would just hop right in my car and we'd go up to Vancouver since there's nothing to see in Bellingham, so that's pretty much what we did. Except that I instead hopped right in his car cuz mine was a bit of a mess and smelled a little funky after living in it for over a month. So we zoomed right up to Vancouver... after about 2 hours sitting in line at the border.

We checked in to our hotel, showered, and wandered up the street to the #1 bar the Aussies on Bainbridge had recommended, Doolan's. We had a yummy meal and some great local brews, and before we knew it had attracted some new friends to our table. Next to James was another redhead, Julia, who quickly started calling herself my twin. She and her three friends, Canadians from Vancouver and Saskatchewan, were apparently regulars and quickly had their regular suitors and stalkers surrounding our table. It was a hilarious crowd of unintelligible drunken Brits, these crazy girls, and James and me throwing each other wide-eyed glances and stifled laughs all night.


















Finally James and I tired of the spectacle and headed back to our hotel. On the way back down Granville St, we saw many sex shops on this wild strip of bars, hostels and late-night food places, but this one was by far the best with the mannequin submitting to some S&M and the neon sign.... I can't even come up with a clever enough caption to do that one justice!!



Saturday morning we emerged from our hotel to explore the city. Unbeknownst to us when we planned to visit Vancouver this particular weekend, it was Gay Pride Weekend, meaning there was a huge fireworks display Saturday night, the Gay Pride Parade Sunday morning, and not a room to be found in the city that night. So we checked out and saw what sights we could before heading back to Bellingham. Below are some of the preparations near our hotel for the parade the next day...


We headed up the west coast of the downtown to Stanley Park, a huge park, arboretum and recreation area right next to downtown. We stopped at Prospect Point, the most northerly point, for a view across the water to North Vancouver and of Lion's Gate Bridge.



















Then we headed back along the north waterfront of the downtown through Gastown, the oldest section. While part of it is a tourist attraction, the rest is very run down, complete with many homeless (albeit rather clever... this one has combined a wheelchair and a standard bike to create a reclined bike) and graffiti (which I thought was actually pretty).


















We did a quick tour through the rest of downtown Vancouver but couldn't find any parking in order to stop, so we just drove through and across the Granville Bridge to Granville Island to find some lunch and explore. Granville Island was actually created by building up a sandbar in English Bay to gain more real estate for industries under the bridge. When industry declined, hippies moved in, and the area progressively became a touristy collection of galleries, shops, and a very cool public market. The market reminded me a lot of the Queen Vic in Melbourne... one of many things about Vancouver that remind me a lot of Melbourne; no wonder they're both top ranked as the best cities to live in in the world!

Inside the market:


and outside on the waterfront:



















There were lots of street performers:


And art:


And leftovers from the hippie days (you can click on it to read it... just don't think too hard)


I thought this was very cool--an old concrete factory from the industrial days of the island which has survived and changed with its surroundings to turn itself into a tourist attraction, complete with the happiest concrete trucks in the world and a very cool Rube-Goldberg machine demonstrating the path of the ingredients of concrete via colored balls.























I really enjoyed checking out the awesome boats moored and being constructed in the docks here... I think I also drooled a bit.


James and I stopped for one last ice cream cone on the waterfront before leaving Granville.


We headed back across the bridge again into Vancouver... this is the view of the downtown from the south. Does anything strike you as odd? All the buildings are residential! And, they all have balconies!! Can you imagine seeing this in any other major city?


We spotted this very cool one--it has a living tree on top!! Apparently it is a deciduous one... an evergreen probably wouldn't be able to stand up to the winter storms with the extra wind resistance.


We headed to Sunset Beach, apparently the best vantage point for the fireworks that were to be set off over the bay later that night. It was packed... with pudgy, pale Canadian bodies. Swimsuit season is quite short here.


The water was lined with these pretty purple shells... so I took a picture instead of wasting my time collecting them.


We enjoyed the sunshine with some mojitos at a local restaurant, then grabbed some food from the cheap stands on the beach to satisfy us for the drive back. We wandered back along the shore to see this sculpture, which apparently is a symbol for welcome.


And then (of course) James and I played like kids among the boulders and driftwood before finally heading home to Bellingham.


I have to say Vancouver was a major highlight of my trip... I would even say if I weren't about to move to Melbourne I would be considering moving to Vancouver. Too bad the real estate prices, already high, will be skyrocketing when the 2010 Olympics come to town!