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.

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.