Vancouver 2nd day

We woke much refreshed after a good night sleep. Went down, picked up umbrellas, and walked to a Starbucks around the corner for some coffee and muffins. After that we hopped on the tour bus which took us to Stanley Park. This is a large park which occupies roughly a half of the downtown peninsula. The park maintains redwood rainforest that here before people started to chop them down for lamber, and also various trails and attractions.

Orca Sculpture, Stanley Park

The biggest attraction in the park is the Aquarium. We bought tickets for the Aquarium on the bus, and thus saved ourselves quite a bit of line outside. Inside the aquarium we saw three Baluga whales (white whales that live in the arctic seas). One of them had a baby whale earlier in the summer, and so we had a treat to see the mother and pup swimming along. Due to the popularity of the Beluga, we were allowed to get in in groups of 30, and then after 5 minutes continue to a second window and then again after 5 minutes to exit.

This whales are pretty goofy looking, and cute. Unfortunately, the water was full of stuff, as aparently the aqurium was being scrubbed by divers as we were there and so the floated all kind of algae.

Beluga whale

When we got out we could see how the same whales look from above the water.

Beluga whales coming up to breath

It was then 10 minutes before the dolphin show. So we went to get into position to watch them. The show was amazing with four dolphins that jumped, showed off their teeth, walked on their tails and did additional miracles.

Dolphin show

We continued to watch the display inside, including a talk with sea turtle and sharks. many types of fish, both natives to the area and from other parts of the world. Overall we had a great time.

When we went out of the Aquarium it was a beautiful day, and so we decided to take a small hike in Stanley Park. We walked along the short with a forest on one side and the sea and city view on the other.

Trees broken by a storm two years ago

Vancouver skyline, Stanley island

Roy walking the edge of the island

Roy and Lior strolling along

"A Woman from the Sea" (reminds us of the little mermaid)

Afterwards we hopped on the bus, and continued back to Robson st and went into the Vancouver Art Gallery. This is essentially a museum that mostly has contemporary art. To our delight there were two exhibitions that the kids liked. The first was on cartoons, and animation, and it
examined different trends and development of the media, with movies, cartoons, and even sculptures.

The next level up there was an exhibition on video games and how they developed. Aside from that there were two exhibition that were more "art".

We came out of the gallery and got some coffee. Then we did some window shopping and returned back to the hotel. We used laundry machines at the hotel, and packed our bags for flight the next day.