So I had been wanting to take a vacation in Vancouver, Canada for some time. Well, ever since I saw a show on TV about all the great microbreweries there. So last year when I got invited to join a group of friends who were going to Vancouver to celebrate a friend's honeymoon, yes, as group honeymoon, I said yes! The group consisted of the newlyweds, their friends, family and dog. Many of the people had been to Vancouver before so they were familiar with the city and what to do in the two full days we had there.
I ended up on a flight with three of the other travelers, and by chance I was sitting next to two of them on the flight from San Diego to Seattle! It is always nicer to travel with someone than alone. The photo above was taken from my seat on the plane as we approached Seattle.
Our hotel for the trip was the historic Sylvia Hotel in Vancouver. Several of the crew had stayed here before, and besides being a nice, centrally located hotel, they were pet friendly, and the newlyweds had their dog Sonny with them. They had actually left several days before from San Diego, right after their wedding, and drove up in their truck, making several stops along the way. They ended up getting to the hotel just as we were walking to get dinner.
We had already decided that the theme of the trip was serendipity, because so far everything good and fun had happed by luck or accident. The fact we were all on the same flight, I was sitting next to a friend and her son, and the sixth friend showed up in time to join us in the limo.
So we were all there for our first dinner in Vancouver, minus my sister, who was arriving much later that evening. I had my best meal of the trip at the Boathouse, a place recommend by the staff at the hotel. I had ravioli stuffed with crab and lobster, and topped with shrimp! What decadence.
We had no specific plans for the trip, other than to have fun, relax, hang out and drink beer or whatever. The Sylvia Hotel is right along the beach of English Bay. This beach provided lots of trails for walking with great views of the harbor, city and sunsets. We had fun just walking along the beach taking Sonny for a walk. As a bonus, we were there on the first day of Summer, when the sun didn't set until 9:40 P.M. And even better, the forcasted rain never came. It was neither too hot or two cold, and there was enough sun to provide good lighting for photo and even a sunburn.
After dinner, drinks and a long walk, we went to bed and planed to meet for breakfast the next morning. As we were waiting my sister came down to take care of some work stuff and ended up joining us for breakfast. More serendipity! We found a place where we could eat outside with the dog. The food was good, I had a salmon omelet, and then we regrouped for the rest of the day.
Our plan was to go to Granville Island, a very touristy place with a huge marketplace and a brewery. To get there we walked about a mile down the coast, then hopped in a water taxi for a short ride across the "river" to the island. With nine of us, we knew we weren't going to all do the same thing, so we agreed to meet at the Granville Brewery at 2 PM. Three of us wandered the island and I took lots of photos. After about an hour or so we were already done and ready to drink beer. So we headed to the brewery early, but were disappointed that the brewery could only serve each customer 12 oz. of beer! So we opted for three 4 oz. samplers, and were sadly disappointed in their beer.
Once the others got there, we hung out a little longer and then once again separated to go eat a late lunch. Eventually we got back to the hotel, and after the previous day of travel, the walking around and drinking one beer, I took a nice, long nap.
We met once again in the hotel lobby and headed out to dinner. We went to a place that I really wanted to try, but this is where we had our worst meal of the trip. It was Mexican night, so instead of selling any of their main dishes, they had Mexican food. I did not travel from San Diego to Canada to eat Mexican food, so I had the pizza. It was not good, and neither were anyone's drinks. They even made a bad tasting rum and cokes. And even worse, the beer I wanted to try, Alexander Keith's Indian Pale Ale, was really bad. Why did I want to try it? It had my name in it, but spelled differently than I've ever seen it. How did it taste? Not good. Worse than Budweiser, but I still drank my pint, as well as my sister's glass as she had one sip and stopped. Hey, beer is beer.
After dinner we went for another walk along English Bay and then turned in for the night. I opted for the smallest and cheapest room in the hotel. The room was just big enough for the bed and some furniture, but all I needed was a place to sleep. This hotel was old, and all the walls were made of cement, so you could hear anything within the hotel, but every morning around 4:30 AM some very loud bird started chirping outside my window. Luckily I brought ear plugs and that took care of the problem.
The next morning we had breakfast in the hotel restaurant and it was good food, but they were not ready for a group of nine people, so the service was slow but good, just like the morning before at the small cafe down the road. After breakfast we made our plans for the day. We ended up breaking up into four groups as everyone wanted to do something different. My sister and I opted to ride the hop-on-hop-off bus which had a stop near the hotel. We took the bus two stops down the line to Stanley Park. Stanley Park is actually within walking distance of our hotel, but it is quite expansive and there is much to do there. My sister had been there before, so I just had two stops to see, mostly for taking pictures. The first was Beaver Lake, pictured below, which is covered mostly in lily pads and other vegetation. Then we walked to the coastline with a view of downtown Vancouver.
Along the way we ran into two of our friends who had actually just walked there from the hotel. They were there to see some totem poles and then off to Chinatown. I snapped some photos of downtown, and then my sister and I walked back to the bus stop to get on the next bus. Once on the bus we got off on the ritzy part of town, not to shop, but to head to the top of the tallest tower in Vancouver for a good view of the city. However, turns out it was closed for a private party. So we headed to the food court and had our lunch.
Then we got back on the next bus, and went back to the hotel, skipping the rest of the stops. Our plan was to all meet in Gastown at the steam clock at 5:30. So after a two hour break at the hotel, my sister and I got back on the bus, since our tickets were good for 24 hours, and then we just rode the bus to the last stop, which was in Gastown! There was a tour guide on the bus that pointed out the sites to see and interesting facts, such as the Starbucks we passed was the highest grossing one in the world.
As we got closer to Gastown, the driver found out that it was closed off due to a music festival. So they let everyone off one stop early, but the guide led us to the steam clock as that is where the main office was just by chance. And once again we were all together. For dinner we obviously chose the Steamworks Brewery, a few blocks away.
Now this place had good beer. I tried three of their beer, the Stout being the best one, of course. Everyone enjoyed their food and beer, and even some of us had some of their unique shots. Mine had Jack Daniels in it, of course. I was slightly disappointed in my dinner choice, but everyone else liked their food. After dinner we walked down the main road, which was closed off for the music festival. They had stages set up every half block, so at any given time you could here music from three bands. A little overwhelming, plus it was very crowded. We had had enough and took taxis back to the hotel.
This was our last night in Vancouver. We kind of went our own ways. I took a walk with a friend down past the famous Burrard St. Bridge to take photos of the bridge and the sunset.
Back at the hotel is was bed time once again. We all had different flight times in the morning. My flight left at noon, while other's left later, but we planned to have breakfast once again at the hotel.
Everyone made it for our last meal together which was nice. We had time to talk about how much fun we had. Then after breakfast, we said our goodbyes. Four of us left about the same time, so we took a cab to the airport and got there in plenty of time. When flying from Vancouver to Seattle, you first go through Canadian customs, and then US customs, which took less than 30 minutes.
I had my own flight back home, so another set of good byes and the vacation was officially over. The flight to Seattle on Alaska Airlines is a short 30 minute flight on a commuter plane. Once in Seattle, it was raining, of course. I still have not officially been to Seattle, as airports don't count. The flight to San Diego only takes two hours and thirty minutes. We landed before sunset and I was home by eight.
What was nice was I still had the weekend at home to relax, and relax I did. I guess I really needed that time off because I felt very relaxed and completely forgot about work and the fact I may be unemployed at the end of September.
I'll get back to Vancouver someday, hopefully with a few days in Seattle and the surrounding national parks.
