Exploring in Vancouver

Today dawned fine contrary to the forecast.  We took our raincoats though, as it was probably time that our luck with the fine weather ran out.  Our money had arrived in our account from our other account after going AWOL for a day.  Not sure who had it, but they gave it back.  This meant that we were able to get some Canadian money, although the locals don’t seem to mind whether it is Canadian or USD.  On our walk down to the ferry, we passed a Rogers mobile shop and they offered us a really good deal so we now have one functioning phone while we are in Canada.  It comes in very handy when you need to pull up Google maps to work out where you are and where you are going.

We then caught the ferry across to downtown.  They have these bus passes that you can use for 90mins from when you first activate them.   So the ferry that we caught was the Seabus, and then we caught a train to the main train station to find out about what time we can leave our bags on Sunday.  We will need to check out of the hotel by 11, but we don’t board the train until about 8.30pm.  The train people will look after our bags and make sure that they are all in our cabin when we board the train.  It sounds all very civilised.  With that all sorted, and still some time left on our 90mins, we headed back to the middle of town. 

We wandered around a bit and ended up by the Canucks stadium where they play Ice Hockey.  Game 1 of the play-offs is on tonight.  Vancouver Canucks are playing Los Angeles.  A scalper offered us two tickets for $150 each.  We checked out the scalper, and he was a reputable scalper offering a fair price for the tickets – apparently he’d been doing this for years.  While it was tempting, we decided against it in the end.  A lot of money for something that would have been an experience I’m sure.  But we’ll save our money for a football match in England, or a match at Twickenham. 

We then caught a water taxi to Granville Island.  It is very pretty there.  The market was really nice with lots of different foodie stalls.  Nice bread, cheeses & pates, fruit & veges, and smallgoods.  We got a nice selection of that including some divine olives stuffed with blue cheese for dinner tonight.  The market also had a range of different hot food stalls for lunch.  It was one of those instances where while the first choice looked delicious, you didn’t want to declare your hand until you had surveyed all of the options.  Despite delicious smelling bratwurst, kebabs, soups and Asian food, the fresh salmon sushi won out for lunch. 

By now it had started raining (not heavily).  We wandered around most of the rest of Granville Island, discovering the Granville Island brewery in the process.  It wasn’t very well hidden though.  They had a very nice Maple Cream Ale which was very creamy and yum.  Their winter ale was the best though.  While not very dark, more reddish in colour, it was one of the chocolatiest beers I have tasted.  All very good.  When we emerged from the tasting room, the rain had really settled in and the temperature had dropped significantly too.  We were wishing that we’d brought our thick coats not just raincoats.  A far cry from when we left in the morning.

We made it back to the mainland (despite Granville Island not actually being an island) by water taxi, and it was a short walk up the road to a train station where we could start another fun-filled 90min public transport escapade.  We caught the train to the Seabus, then got a bus back to our hotel and hardly got wet at all.  Did it easy within our 90mins too.

Back at the hotel, reality set in as we had to do some washing and tried to get an update on Dad.  Dad has had to go back to hospital because they think that he must have some infection from his most recent round of surgery.  It had all gone so smoothly as well, and he seemed to be making a great recovery.  I’m sure that he’ll be back on his feet again soon.  It is pretty hard being so far away.  Also, no photos today either – it just wasn’t the weather for it.