May 24, Day 15, 1st Full Day in Vancouver

Both of us are still amazed and approve of the ways in which the Canadian nation is trying to address the wrongs of its past and the many horrible things that white explorers did to its various indigenous, Metis, and Inuit  peoples.

Today begins our last day of structured tour activities.  Vancouver is the largest city in British Columbia and the eight largest in Canada.  It has a population of over 700,000 citizens.  It is also one of the most diverse populations in Canada with 54.5% of the population being from minority sectors with Asians representing almost 40% of the population. We started early this morning with a guided small tour of the city and surrounding parks and neighborhoods.  We visited Stanley Park, Granville Island, Gastown, China Town, the Vancouver Lookout Tower, and key places in downtown.

Here are photos from Stanley Park where we visited the area where totem poles from each of the indigenous tribes that have their roots in this area.

Stanley Park views...

Granville Island is a local entertainment area that is in a part of town on the river, which previously had abandoned warehouses and industrial buildings.  Now, it is a center for arts and food establishments which occupy those once-vacant industrial spaces.  The only working industrial facility that remains is a concrete plant; however, even that has changed its decor to match the light and whimsical nature of the "new Granville Island." There are numerous small restaurants and a farmers’ market that features a variety of locally grown and produced items.  We had an exquisite lunch at a Mexican Tapas restaurant and then walked through the farmers’ market enjoying the sights and smells, until we purchased some delicious gelato that we took with us to our bus as we continued our tour.

Granville Island

Gastown was the area where railroad workers had bars and entertainment halls during the earlier years of the city. There is a large gas-powered grandfather’s clock in the center of the area. We drove through Chinatown on our way back to town to disembark at the Vancouver Lookout Tower.  The tower is the highest vantage point in the city.  

Here are some pictures from Chinatown and Vancouver Tower.

After we left the tower, we decided to walk back to our hotel to try and locate a place to purchase another piece of luggage and souvenirs for Patrise’s office team members and some extras for family members.  Our tour included dinner at a marvelous restaurant at the Coal Harbor Club at 6:15 pm.  The meal was fantastic!  Doug had salmon and Patrise had steak.  However, the most miraculous part of the meal was the butternut stuffed ravioli in a white cream sauce with a shrimp topping.  This was an incredible creation that is one of the chef’s specialties.  Here are photos from our walk to the restaurant and the meal at the restaurant. 

After dinner, we each had key lime pie and walked back to the hotel to go to bed.  Although Doug worked on the blog entries from the 23rd, Patrise went to sleep.  Our peace and quiet was disturbed twice during the evening by a fire alarm system that went off in error twice.  The first-time, guests in the hotel all proceeded to leave the hotel in their robes, pajamas and house slippers. The second time occurred around 2 o’clock am and neither of us left the room.  We assumed that since the first alarm was a false alarm, that the second alarm would also be a false alarm.

Tomorrow will be another relaxing day.