Vancouver June 23-25

Wreck Beach near UBC

After a short one hour flight from Calgary to Vancouver, we hit the ground running and took a scenic drive along Marine Drive and ended up at the University of British Columbia.  The campus is beautiful because part of it abuts the Pacific Ocean.  The campus reminded me of UCLA (think UCLA along the coast).  Mark read about Wreck Beach in our guide book; sort of a hippie beach with food vendors and others selling wares.  So, I'm thinking it would be sort of like Venice Beach with nice paved walking paths.  Nope.  First, the access to the beach was through a steep trail of stairs (over 400) (i.e. no paved anything).  Ok, so I thought no big deal, when we arrive, it will be nice.  Nope, or I guess I should say depending on who you ask.  We hauled two kids and a double stroller down the gazillion steps and arrived to a pretty rough looking beach.  Lots of washed up debris from the ocean; no food vendors (we didn't bring much food or water because we figured we could get it there) and naked hippies sunbathing.  I felt like a fish out of water, but the kids didn't seem to mind.  I guess Wreck Beach is clothing optional, though I only saw men nude and no women.  It was a pretty day at the beach, but I couldn't help thinking, how the heck are we going to get back up those 400+ steps having no water.  Mark sprinted up the stairs with Liam and the double stroller while Christian and I walked up.  I wanted to distract Christian from the daunting task of climbing all the steep stairs, so we just kept singing a song we made up--"take your time".  Lots of people were coming and going up and down the stairs so he had something to look at.  We stopped 6 or 7 times upon our ascent.  I was really proud of Christian (and me) making it all the way to the top without ever getting winded or feeling like it was too much.  I thought the ascent would be too challenging for Christian, but he didn't seem to mind.  We left Wreck Beach and went to a chinese noodle house--Legendary Noodles-- that makes its own noodles for chow mein and soups.  The place was recommended in our guidebook; the food was good, but it was a bit of a hole in the wall.  We didn't mind since we were so hungry from burning all the calories getting to and from the beach.  After lunch we checked into the Sutton Place Hotel and rested until dinner time.

Shopping/Dining on Robson Street

After resting a bit in the hotel, we headed around the corner from our hotel to Robson Street, a major shopping district.  The streets were busy with shoppers; it felt like a real city.  We strolled the kids down the street to our dinner destination.  It was pretty good, nicely presented Japanese influenced food.

Visit to Stanley Park/Vancouver Aquarium

On Tuesday, we were meeting my Calgary friend Shivawn and her two daughters Tiffany and Cherise at the Vancouver Aquarium inside Stanley Park.  Stanley Park is a very large iconic public park with lots of different things to do like the kids' water park, a little train ride and other swimming options.  As we drove through the park to get to the Aquarium, you could see all the trees that were destroyed in the 2006 winter wind storm.  Mark and I remembered reading about the incident back in 2006 and how at that time people were saying that the park would never be the same and how devastating the storm was to the park.  Since it was our first time in Stanley Park, the broken trees didn't seem that bad, but I guess you would have had to see the park before the storm.  Apparently, however, 45 hectres (110 acres) or 1/6 of the park's trees (about 10,000 trees) were leveled by the gale force winds of the storm.  

At the aquarium, Christian and Cherise were very interested in the sharks in the large glassed tanks because you could stand near the glass and see all the sea creatures swimming.  We stayed for a dolphin show and also took a look at some of the exotic birds at the aquarium.  We had lunch with our friends there and afterwards we headed to Granville Island.

Granville Island

After a bit of a rest, we headed to Granville Island, actually, a peninsula off of the city of Vancouver.  It's a very walking friendly district with lots of artisan galleries and boutique, local shops.  People say parking could be an issue there, but were went late afternoon and found a spot right away.  There is a large farmer's market selling tons of local BC cheeses, teas, meats, fruits and vegetables.  It reminds me of a very large Bergamont station.  There was a toy market- -  a large industrial building housing many boutique toy stores.  The kids got a kick out of playing with different toys and we found a great toy store with lots of wooden toys- -Knotty Toys.  We were able to pick up a few unique toys for Charlie's kids who we were visiting in Victoria.   For dinner, we ate at the Farmer's Market, then headed back to the hotel to get ready for our morning departure on the ferry.

Horshoe Bay Ferry to Departure Bay (Nanaimo)

We had a 10:30 am ferry from Horshoe Bay to Departure Bay.  The weather was beautiful and we had no problems getting to the ferry.  We drove our car into the ferry and headed upstairs.  We brought along a little picnic lunch and sat at the outdoor tables watching the sights and having our lunch.  The kids had a great time exploring the boat and meeting new people on the boat.  The scenery was quite striking.  Lots of lush trees and pretty expansive views of Vancouver and the Pacific Ocean.  No cities between our two ports to see, but a very nice, relaxing boat ride.  Once we got off the ferry, we headed north from Nanaimo to our next destination, Tofino.