Pootling round Vancouver

 What a great day we had yesterday..

It’s such a great city with so many diverse areas.

There’s a beach, a mahoosive park, a lovely harbour and little districts that feel like a quaint little small town! And we only covered a small-ish area of the city.

It’s really easy to navigate around too and everyone so right, Canadians really are friendly! 

Our brekkers in Yolks was delicious and then we moved on, via a trip back to the hotel for Dan’s sunglasses and cap! There was no forecast for sun and of course it made an appearance with a vengeance whilst we were eating! 

We then set off towards Stanley park brewing company which was about a 30minute walk and meant we got to see quite a bit of downtown and could go via the beach. 

Beach area was lovely and there’s these sculptures known as the Amazing Laughter Statues - they portray ‘the artists own image in a state of hysterical laughter’. They’re many to inspire laughter and joy.

Well we had a giggle replicating a couple of them!!

 

We walked on to and through the park and found the brewery place. 

Weather was lovely so we sat outside and watched the world go by / play tennis.

We also watched a cheeky crow swoop down and inspect the contents of a child’s pram that had been parked up in a quiet corner. Cheeky bigger had a good root through a came out with a half eaten snack bar and sat there finishing it off!! 

Its mate came along to join it so Dan went over to tell the owners of it that ‘a bird is going though your things over there’!! Really made me giggle as I had images of it pulling things out and trying them out for size and then discarding it to root some more!! 

After a beer in there we moved on to walk further through the park towards the harbour. We went past the Lost Lagoon which we decided was very much not lost and rather minging looking!! 

The harbour is done out beautifully with a proper walk path and a cyclist path all along it. We found a nice spot overlooking the harbour (Lift Bar and grill) and sat watching the boats and the sea planes. Dan declared he now wanted to go on a sea plane! 

After there we wandered on into Coal Harbour proper and headed somewhere for lunch. We found ‘The Red Accordion’ which was a lively place but quite dark inside. 

I orders the Caesar Salad which, whilst lovely, was pretty much just a massive bowl of lettuce in dressing and Parmesan with 2 anchovies!! 

Suitably garlicked up to the eyeballs we moved on from there back along the harbour wall and into Gastown. 

We checked out the SeaPlanes and as we’d already discussed and planned that we were going to go to Nanaimo on Vancouver Island the next day, we looked into maybe getting a sea lane over rather than the ferry. 

On closer inspection Dan decided he’d find the planes too claustrophobic and so we carried on! 

Stopped at a place called Steamtown Brewery (yes we do go to a lot of Brewery places!!) and had a couple in there whilst I booked the ferry for the next day. I found I was seriously starting to flag in here but then we had walked over 6miles and by this point, still hadn’t been in Canada for 24hours!! 

Last point of interest was the Gastown Steam Clock which someone had said I really ought to go to see. It’s the 2nd one ever created and one of only 6 left in the world. 

Hmm it was an old clock that emitted a noisy steam trail on the hour! I duly took a photo and we turned to head back to near our hotel. 

I was getting quite hungry now so once we reached our hotel area we went into ‘The Ballyhoo’ which was someone Dan had had his eye on. 

I was all beered out by this point so Dan found a nice cocktail for me and we perused the menu.

Nope, it was not for me and so I had a small sulk/meltdown/hangry attack as I was tired and hungry now! 

We spotted somewhere right across the street called ‘Taylight’ where the menu looked decent so we drank up and headed over. 

Non alcoholic cocktail for me as I was done with booze and I ordered fresh oysters - $1.50 each up to 9.30pm, min order of 6- Yep, that will do me and I also got some Tuna tacos. Dan got poutine and gyoza. The poutine was YUMMY! 

The tacos were delicious but the oysters just never arrived so I asked after them and they were mortified they’d not served them.

Few minutes later they brought me 8 oysters and a 10% discount! Yesssss!!

After that we decided to head back as both of us were shattered - and it was now lashing down 😲

So, first day of our hols and we were back in our room before 9pm AND fairly sober! 

I stuck a film on and watched oooh about 3mins of it before fully crashing out!! 

All well and good but it did mean I was wide awake by 4.30am and couldn’t get back to sleep.. so I just waited for the gym to open and went off to do an early session!! 

Yep, I’ve definitely changed 😂😂.

Anyway, we’ve had a great breakfast at the hotel this morning and a really good chat with one of the waiters and we’re now on the ferry waiting to set sail for Nanaimo!! 

It’s a very grey/cloudy/rainy day today but we came more than prepared for that sort of weather!! 

Dan is like a bloody hyper 5 year old waiting for the boat to set sail so he can go back up to the sundeck. He was already up there within the first 5mins of getting onboard but apparently it’s not as much fun when the boat is stationary!! It’s not as fecking cold either mate!! 

Anyway, Ahoy me hearties and anchor away now!!!