Travel to Vancouver

I downloaded the ‘Hunger Games’ on to Sue’s IPod to pass the time while on the plane and waiting in airports (the plane to the right is not the plane I took to Vancouver).  The flights to Vancouver were very quiet. I’m certain I looked kind of strange walking through the Phoenix airport wearing a fleece jacket when it’s 90+ degrees outside. But I was only expecting mid 60’s in Vancouver. We flew over some of the forest fires in OR and WA. There was lots of smoke in the air. I believe we also passed over Mount St Helens in western WA. It sure looked like the images I remember seeing of the remnants of the north side of the mountain.

 

Sylvia Hotel



Upon my arrival I had the opportunity to stand in line for about 30 minutes to go through customs before getting into town. There are lots of people that travel through Vancouver. Once I made it through customs I took the light-rail between the airport and downtown Vancouver, a 30 minute, 20 some mile ride to downtown for $8.50. From there I hopped on a bus for another $2.50 to my final destination. On my last visit in '09 I paid $30 each way to take a taxi to the same place. The mass transit in Vancouver is very good; buses and the rail to the airport came about every 10 minutes. In fact if I wasn’t walking I took mass transit.



Tree top



The downtown area is very compact, a couple miles across, and very vertical. I stayed at the Sylvia Hotel for the first two nights. It is an older hotel built in the early 1910’s and is a Vancouver landmark. I stayed in one of the smaller rooms but was very comfortable with a queen bed and private bath. The Sylvia is on English Bay next to Stanley Park, Vancouver’s version of Central Park in NYC, except Stanley Park is larger. The fall colors were showing up in various parts of the city, especially on the Sylvia.  Notice the tree on the roof of the apartment building in the image on the right.  The height of that tree signifies how tall the trees were when this area was first discovered by Europeans.



Part of downtown Vancouver







English Bay at sunset

Each night I sat out watching the sunset over English Bay. The bay area is in constant motion; people were walking, jogging, running, skating, biking, sitting, kayaking and even swimming in the bay (too cool for me).

On the way back I stayed at the Sunset Inn, an executive suite hotel in the west end of downtown. It was quite a change from the Lodge in Klemtu, it had a very soft bed but lots of city noise, I like the quiet of Klemtu.

Vancouver and British Columbia in general experienced very warm, high 60’s, sunny weather almost the entire time I was there; very unusual considering that the area averages 25 cloudy days during the month of October.

Canada Place

 

The first day I took a trolley tour of the city; I saw Canada Center where cruise ships dock to go up to Alaska, Vancouver Lookout; a 50+ story building with a 360° view of the greater Vancouver area, quite a view!



   

A view from Vancouver Lookout

I stopped at the Vancouver Aquarium and saw a 4D movie of a salmon’s life as they are working their way back to where they were born to spawn. There were also a lot of exhibits of the local waterways along the BC coast, the Amazon River and sea life of the Arctic. I stopped in Stanley Park for many views of the park itself. After all the looking I went to one of the local Greek restaurants for dinner; mousaka, but no Ouzo, since I had to walk back to the hotel.

Thank you for stopping by,

Mark