Vancouver

We took off from Anchorage at 2:30am, and landed in Seattle at 7:10am. We then rushed to our terminal (taking two inter-terminal trains), and had time to go the bath room before taking a small plane from Seattle to Vancouver. We landed a bit after 8, got our bags, and headed to our hotel.

Our hotel was a suite hotel in a quiet side street off Davie st. which is a main shopping street. We got to the hotel, but as expected they didn't have a room ready. So instead, we left our bags and backpacks, lent two umbrellas and headed to the city. We started with a big breakfast on a place a block away on Davie st (the place was recommended by the receptionist at the hotel, and was indeed good).

The umbrella people

From there we decided to walk down to the water and take a water-bus to Granville island.

Water bus

This area is a small peninsula that used to be an industrial area, and now is mostly a collection of markets and boutique shops. We went around looking for exciting stuff. There was one place that was a workshop for big native-like wood sculptures.

Wood-work shop

At some stage the lack of sleep caused us all to feel very tired.

Tired?

And so we started looking for coffee drinks. We found a nice organic cafe that also made ice-cream floats, and had a duck pond next to it.

Coffee --- read the labels...

Duck

Lior however, wanted milkshake, so we scoured the island searching for one, and finally found an ice cream stand in the food market that sold milkshake. Satisfied with our drinks, we were a little vitalized, but still not energetic. So we decided to go on the tourist bus that goes around town. We bought tickets and went on the bus. Initially we managed to get the last four seats, and so sat far apart from each other, but as the bus progressed we managed to regroup. The bus included taped descriptions of the areas we passed through, but the driver had much more commentary and was shouting (no microphone for him) as we went along.

We got off in Robson st, the main shopping street of the downtown area. We walked along it seeing shops of every kind. It was stricking the number of Starbucks along the street. There was one, at least, in each block. In one intersection there were two of them on opposite corners. Roy wanted to go to a book store, so found a large one (Chapters), and spent some time there. When we came out it early afternoon and there was a serious downpour. We opened the umbrellas,
and walking in pairs returned to the hotel.

By now they a room for us, so we went upstairs, showered, checked email, read and such. We were all pretty tired, but it was still too early to go to sleep. After much discussion we managed to get ourselves outside and walk a bit along Davie st. to see the shops. This neighborhood is less flashy than Robson. It is known for its local gay community which was apparent in some of store themes.

We ended up at a Chinese/Singaporean restaurant that was again recommended by the hotel stuff. It was a very nice place and was full of people. Although we thought we were not hungry, we did develop appetite as the food arrived (we didn't have lunch), and had a good time. We returned to the hotel and got some sleep at last.