From Wednesday to Friday Lisa and I did very touristy things. During that time, it became increasingly apparent that the laid-back nature of the west coast absolutely permeates Vancouver. You don't have to look any further than the traffic patterns to see that. In addition to the flashing green lights that I've written about before, there are crosswalks everywhere, and drivers are constantly aware of them, stopping if you even hint at crossing. It speaks to Vancouver's acceptance of "alternative" methods of transportation: just like the dedicated bike lanes that are everywhere (extending even to low-speed raised highways!), pedestrians are recognized as first-class citizens. Contrast this with Waterloo, where even on the campus walkways you'll be pushed off by vehicles. It's a truly different place, one which meshes much more with the student lifestyle than southern Ontario ever could.

As for those really touristy things: Science World, whose giant geodesic dome we could easily see from our hotel room window, is to the Ontario Science Centre what Vancouver Aquarium is to Marineland: smaller and less impressive. There are some pretty neat exhibits, though, especially those about light, and we had fun playing around in the water exhibit, building small dams. Go if you have extra time — especially if you've got small children with you — but don't go out of your way to visit.

The IMAX theatre (note: not the OMNIMAX theatre at the Ontario Science Centre, the IMAX theatre at Canada Place on the waterfront) offers 3D shows, and for a little bit more than you'd pay for one movie at a big movie theatre back home, you can watch two 45-minute shows. They were interesting enough, but again, going to an IMAX movie is a good thing to do on a rainy or otherwise-unused day; don't visit it instead of a more deserving attraction like, say, Grouse Mountain.

Now, if you wanted to plan your trip around something, plan it around whale watching. Lisa had wanted to go from the very beginning, but when we got here we found it was a bit more expensive than we'd expected: about $100 per person, on average. It took the entire week for me to convince her that, even though it was expensive, we shouldn't forego doing something that we'd regret later. Money is replaceable, but experiences definitely aren't.

And oh, it was so worth it.

About 20 people in all launched with Seabreeze Adventures from Steveston, which is a small village in the south of Richmond. We travelled out across the Strait of Georgia to the Gulf Islands, which seem so much like Muskoka (cottages everywhere, rocky landscape, etc) if you didn't see the mountains in the background you couldn't tell the difference. Once we'd travelled around in the islands a bit, we came across J pod, a pod of Orcas run by the 92-year old matriarch "Granny." They were travelling up the strait, feeding on salmon and rising every few minutes to breathe. Then the younger whales in the pod came upon our boat, and started showboating for us! Slapping tails, rising out of the water — it was better than you can imagine.

When we go back — and we will go back — I think Lisa and I will focus on Vancouver Island and Victoria, maybe staying in a B&B in the Gulf Islands. Vancouver the city is nice, but I think that we've seen all we can there; I think the more wild, more beautiful islands are the destination next time.

The saddest sight for Lisa is next. She'd have stayed forever if she could. I might, too, but I think we should see more than one of Canada's beautiful cities before we make a decision like that.

From Ontario with love,

Joe

The long-awaited nice day! We took advantage of the relative lack of rain today by visiting two mostly-outdoor activities, the Vancouver Aquarium in Stanley Park and Grouse Mountain, which is visitable only by cable car (gondola).

Vancouver Aquarium seems sort of like the square root of Marineland — everything's a little bit smaller and a little less impressive, but you can tell they're trying hard. They're a non-profit who (reportedly) engage in a lot of research and animal rescue activities, but who also do Marineland-style shows (with an educational bent) with their somewhat less impressive roster of animals. Lisa and I enjoyed this place, but the most entertaining animals were the ones who didn't have a show dedicated to them:

Notice the otter on the left is sleeping while floating on his back! Oh, how I'd love to be an otter.

Grouse Mountain was an entirely different experience - larger and more grand in every way than what I expected. The terrain around Vancouver is more beautiful than just about anything I've seen anywhere else. This view was available about 45 minutes from our hotel in downtown Vancouver, very smooth cable car ride to the top of the mountain included:

The most mountainous areas in Vancouver are the most suburban, too, and in that respect Vancouver isn't unlike any other large suburb. Subtract the natural backdrop and you could be driving around in Mississauga or Richmond Hill, not North Vancouver. The locals are more diverse (at least in the hospitality industry, and this is only what I've seen): A lot of Asian people, sure, but many French, and some number of Aussies too.

Grouse Mountain is an example of the sort of people I see Vancouver attracting: the young, active twentysomethings who want really cool experiences. It doubles as a ridiculously convenient ski hill in the winter, and in the spring, summer, and fall it's a hiking/running/exploring area that spans tens of kilometres in many directions. Combine that with the pervasive bike trails, Smart car sightings just about every time we go out, and Prius hybrid cars as taxicabs, and you've got one hip, environmentally aware hippie town. It's what every university town tries to be, only Vancouver isn't a university town, especially not compared to Waterloo.

I'm really enjoying being 3 hours behind home — it feels like I've got "bonus" time. I'm sure if I stayed here for an extended period of time it would get in the way more often, but when Lisa and I are just in the middle of touring around, I know that I can call home and get everyone at home after dinner.

There aren't too many days of nice weather ahead, but we've saved up some indoor activities for the near future. I just hope it clears up a little bit so we can get up in the Vancouver Lookout, which looks suspiciously like someone left the Seattle Space Needle in the dryer a bit too long.

I leave you with a picture of a fellow Grouse Mountaineer doing a very, very dumb thing to a grizzly bear.

(That bear got very loud and angry before stomping off. Luckily, the yellow sign in front of him reads "Electric Fence.")

Today is best summed up in pictures.

The steam clock in Gastown:

A canyon, formed by a now-dammed river:

... and the bebbuxu (snail) we found there:

Dinner, at Kobe, a Japanese steak and seafood house where they cook the food in front of you:

(Thanks to Mom and Dad for making that dinner possible!)

The Greater Vancouver area is divided into several connected but separate cities, including Richmond, Surrey, North Vancouver, West Vancouver, and of course Vancouver itself. It's easy to get around in most of the lower mainland, but downtown Vancouver is (almost) physically separated from most of the rest, and (actually) from the other Vancouvers (West and North). Getting in and out of downtown can be a huge pain, too: on several roads, no left turns are allowed, and one of the most obvious ways to get to the mountainous northern suburbs of Vancouver is a 3-lane bridge (with variations allowed on which direction travels in each lane), the Lion's Gate bridge.

Eventually (sometimes very eventually), you make it up there:

Somewhat less difficult to get to, but much, much more difficult to park in, is an enclosed, Disney World-style village of shops and restaurants called Granville Island. It's fairly unremarkable, so far as tourist traps go, except for two things:

1. Very large seagulls.

   I guess the ocean brand gulls grow much bigger than I'm used to, because there were some toddlers seeing eye-to-eye with these birds of refuse.

   
2. A BALD EAGLE HUNTING THESE SEAGULLS

   I shit you not. As Lisa and I were driving off of Granville Island, we saw a real, honest to God bald eagle swooping around beside the bridge, chasing after seagulls whose thoughts might have sounded something like this: "Is that a bald eagle? I thought they were endangered! What a majestic bird. And it's coming right tow-"

I've been struck by just how well-equipped Vancouver is for cyclists. Everywhere we go, I see bicycle paths integrated into the road, instructions for bicyclists on construction or special circumstances that affect them -- it's really quite amazing. People in Toronto would kill for the amount of support bicyclists get here in Van. The hippy lobby really has done a number on this town!

Finally, a sign:

I'm very unhappy when I'm overwhelmed, and it's an overwhelming city. This isn't an encouraging way to start off a vacation.

Vancouver's divided by geography into a bunch of different sections, with several sweeping bridges providing a bottleneck through which traffic doesn't flow. Well, that's not true. Traffic flows perfectly well over the bridges into and out of the downtown core; it just doesn't move at all when you're in downtown Vancouver. On several of the major east-west streets, there are no left turns for probably 5 blocks in a row. On a heavy traffic day, this restriction doesn't make traffic move quickly, and for a newcomer, it can make for a very long 45 minutes trying to go south, but being forced to go west instead. But I should back up from my ordeal to leave Vancouver, and focus on trying to get back into it instead.

The very first thing that you'll notice as an Ontario driver going into Vancouver is the slow flashing green lights. "Advanced green," you'll think at first, but after a while it dawns on you: there is nothing advanced about those twinkling beacons. Instead, they form half of the most baffling traffic construction I've ever seen: the intersection of two streets, one controlled by traffic lights, and one controlled by stop signs. Imagine this scenario (purely hypothetical, of course): after getting lost, you pull up to a stop sign and glance around to see whether any of your neighbours will be forced to stop. Instead of being greeted by the familiar "4-way stop," or the less welcoming but still manageable "2-way stop intersecting another street which has the right of way," you're greeted by those infernal flashing green lights, taunting you with each cycle. "No problem," you think to yourself, "weight sensors will change these lights so I can go." Not true. As it turns out, those signals of despair are controlled completely by pedestrian crosswalk buttons. An driver, such as yourself, who is new to Vancouver then has only one option: exit the vehicle and press the pedestrian cross button, and then get back into your car. No greater humility exists.

(As it turns out, you can treat those intersections as a 2-way stop, proceeding when you can do so safely, but that was a sad 15 minutes wasted.)

Of course, if you really want to be humbled, just think of the scale of the Earth. Forty thousand kilometres in circumference, weighing billions and billions of tonnes, and with kilometres of atmosphere surrounding it. Now imagine you're in a metal tube flying 800 km/h 12 km above the surface of the earth. If you looked outside that tube, it might look something like this:

Those clouds look so fluffy, so soft, so pretty -- but don't think of the truth of the matter, which is that if you fell out of your encasing tube you'd fall and fall and fall and the only thing stopping your descent would be the Earth rushing up and up and up towards you, your bones shattering as they met those billions and billions of tonnes of Earth. And it wouldn't even notice you hitting it.

But hey, that didn't happen! We made it! And we even had satellite TV to watch on our way there (but I swear it wasn't this blurry):

After some time in the car, Vancouver becomes a lot less intimidating, and I became a lot less overwhelmed. And, even though it was foggy and rainy, the beauty shone through.

I can practically see the pot "smell lines" wafting off everyone here, though. It's Queen Street in Toronto blown up into a city. An Australian ex-pat once told me how much Melbourne is like Toronto: "Even walking up University, I can say "Oh, this'll be the financial district; here are the restaurants, a Bohemian street will be coming up soon, and here it is: Queen Street." What I've seen of Vancouver is very much Bohemian.

UBC's campus is unbelievable. I can't fathom being able to walk out of Waterloo's MC building and seeing mountains in the distance. That beach picture is actually taken from University-owned land. And the houses! Just following along the coast-hugging roads, Lisa and I came to what could only be called "estates." Every house had its own gate, and many houses we couldn't even see from the road. Even the student housing looked good. Imagine if University Ave. in Waterloo was tree-lined, with a well-kept divider island with trees and shrubberies dividing the two directions of the street.

I started off unhappy, but Vancouver's blown my mind. Everybody always said to me "Oh, you're going to Vancouver. It's such an amazing city. So beautiful." I thought to myself "Oh, sure, right, whatever." But it's true, it's all true.