Vancouver, Canada - Day 3

29th November 2008 (Sat)

Another rainy day.. :(

The weather forecast was very accurate in forecasting it to rain, so lucky we booked the Vancouver City tour (included in our tourism card) for today so that at least we got transport to take us around Downtown Vancouver. (hee.. then also don't need to fork out money for public bus, which is per trip CAN$2.50!)

Cannot expect much since this is mostly a bus tour... so we just got to see Vancouver from the bus with a few stops here and there. Photos taken are also not very nice due to the motion of the bus and the wet windows..

Map of Vancouver:

So here's some buildings in Downtown Vancouver:

We did go through Stanley Park again, this time making a stop at the Totem poles. Stanley Park is actually an urban park bordering downtown Vancouver, something like Central Park in New York. But the trees there are secondary growth with the difference being it had growth naturally after the primary forest was cut down. Folks would go there to exercise and tourists wld visit it to get views of downtown and visit attractions like Vancouver Aquarium that is located within the park itself.

We were actually suppose to stop at Prospect Point to get a view of the whole of downtown Vancouver but as it was raining and the whole place was very misty, the guide and the rest of the visitors made the decision not to stop there.

Travelling through Stanley Park:

The totem poles:

If it was not raining and the sky was not misty, we could have seen Grouse Mountain (the nearest mountain, about 40mins drive away, from downtown Vancouver where folks can ski in winter time or see grizzly bears during the summer)

If you look hard enough, you might be able to make out a huge bridge.. :p it's the Lion's Gate Bridge that connects Downtown Vancouver and North Vancouver..

At another site near the Totem Poles, we got to see a glimpse of downtown Vancouver and Deadman Island (the one with the house)
More views from the bus..
Clockwise from top left: Girl in wetsuit statue, a man made beach within the park, Inushuk!, some boating club i think, and Lion's Gate Bridge

After that we proceeded to Granville Island, a small little island that is located just south of Downtown Vancouver.. sounds very far but it is not! lol.. it is like this small little piece of land stuck between downtown Vancouver and the rest of Vancouver that is easily accessible by Granville Street Bridge. Granville Island contains mainly art galleries and shops, and also a public market that is popular with locals.

Some pictures of the streets of Granville, the public market and Granville Street Bridge.

Inside the public market:

The tour group stopped at Granville for lunch and so i had fish and chips!
After that we proceeded to drive through Chinatown. It is said to be the 2nd largest in North America. Too bad i never got the chance to walk around it during my stay in Vancouver.. just got to see the sights of Chinatown from the wet windows of the bus..

Then it was a visit to Gastown, where the world's first steam clock is located!

The clock displays the time on four faces and announces the quarter hours with a whistle chime that plays the Westminster Quarters. Quite cool! I manage to video a small portion of the chime..

After Gastown, the tour group was gg to the Vancouver Lookout. But since we can visit the Vancouver Lookout anytime we want as we have free excess with the Tourism cards, we decided to part with the tour group at this point and head out to the Aquarium in Stanley Park. (Since they close at 5pm and the Lookout at 9pm)

We took the Big Bus from Gastown to a few blocks away and then we walk all the way to the Aquarium, passing by the residential part of Downtown Vancouver that is filled by condos.

Big Bus:

Entering into Stanley Park:
Reaching the Aquarium after some walking through the 'forest' in Stanley Park..

Let me introduce you to a fish called 'Joyce'! :D

As usual there was performances, and we manage to catch a small portion of the dolphin performing stunts.

But one of the main reason for visiting the aquarium was to see the Beluga.

Because we wanted to do this:Lol.. we spent quite a while trying to take such a photo but to no avail. We just couldn't take a nice shot with the Beluga.

There was also a couple of cute little otters that caught our attention too! Especially this one.. see how his toes curl up when he sleeps/floats on the water.. ^^

Me with the otter soft toy at the gift shop:

It was quite a rush trip to the aquarium as we wanted to catch the last Big Bus back to Downtown Vancouver (so as to save on public transport).. but i think we got the pick-up point wrong and we kind of miss the bus. Ended up taking public transport back to downtown, where we headed up to the Vancouver Lookout.

At least the sky cleared up while we were up there.. so managed to catch a nice view of theVancouver at night!

By the time we were ready to leave, the sky started to turn misty again.. so we were really lucky!
(p.s. time: abt 6.15p.m.. see how dark it is!)
Using our bus ticket, we manage to catch another bus back to near our hostel where we tried the 'Authentic Singapore Cuisine'. (photo of shop in Day 1 post) Why the ' '? Because only the name of the dish is Singapore!! the other 99.999999% is just disgusting imitation Singapore food. It was really horrible!

The top picture is suppose to be laksa and the bottom picture is mee goreng..

The laksa was Mee Hoon in instant noodle MSG shop... absolutely no gravy with milk..
The mee goreng was just tomato ketchup noodle..

The owner is from Singapore, but i think he migrated to Canada when he was young. Every time we tried asking him abt it, he wld ignore the question or just act busy and walk away. Think he also know his food is horrible and throw Singaporean's face. Somemore newspaper articles praise his food to be good and authentic -_-'' Sad that foreigners are being misled to think they are eating Singapore cuisine. And that was what Ann-Marie (the Singaporean we met at the immigration), who also came to tried their laksa, told the waitress!

After that disappointing meal (which we thought we could used to introduce Noon to Singapore cuisine), we headed back to the hostel where Cynthea and i finally went to find Ann-Marie for a short chat. It felt weird that we know a fellow Singaporean but we did not find her to chat.. hee.. but also me to blame cause i told her a wrong room number for where we were staying and i forgot which room she was staying in. We eventually got her room number from the front desk and we did chat for a while in her room.

I then accompanied Ann-Marie to have dinner at a nearby restaurant (while Cynthea when to study), which i'm glad i did! Even though it means eating more food (calamari + chicken wing + dessert) when i was already very full, i got to chat with her abt her experiences in US and Australia, her backpacking experience and many other stuff.. Esp how everything can be so coincidental.. like us meeting each other at the immigration.. :)

Then it was time to say goodbye to her cause she wld be leaving early in the morning.. and i headed back to my books...