Vancouver has always fascinated me since childhood. I dont know why, probably the name of this city attracted my attention when I was browsing through the Atlas. The chance to visit this place came when me, Muneesh aka Muni, and Narendra aka Naren planned to celebrate New Years of 2005 at Vancouver. Naren was based at Seattle at that time, and thus Seattle was a convinient meeting and starting point.
I reached Seattle on the night of the 28th of December 2004. Muni had arrived a week before, becasue he desired a long winter break outside Davis. My flight was over 3 hours late, so Naren and Muni had to pick me up from Sea-Tac Airport well past midnight. I was exhausted, wanted to fall asleep soon. But when you meet old friends after a while, that never happens. At Naren's home in Redmond, the conversation soon drifted into Naren's past life in Davis, and befor we realized it was already 4am.
The next day was a typical murky Seattle winter day. Lots of fog. Nevertheless, I wished to see Mount Rainier desparately for I had missed it in my last trip to Seattle in 2001, and Muneesh agreed to drive me there. Alas, so low was the visibility that once we reached Mt. Rainier vista point, we saw absolutely nothing. Dishearted, we went to a nearby ski ranch, befor returning to Davis.
In the evening, we set for the Space Needle, Seattle's most famous attraction. We dined at the revolving restaurant at the top of the space needle. The views of the Seattle skyline at night were superb. Luckily for us, the visibility had improved. The dinner was expensive but not exquisite, I seriously felt that it was a rip off. Thereafter we went to the observation deck, and Muni immediately started working with his Nikon D70 Digital SLR. The atnosphere was brilliant. A picture of the three of us is below.
The next morning, the 30th, we set off for Vancouver. Vancouver is about 140 miles north of Seattle. I-5 took us to the US-Canada border. The line of cars to cross the border was very long as can be seen below, it took us over 1 hour. I and Muni exited the car for some photography. We also met some friends from Davis who were returning from Canada to the US.
We reached Vancouver at about 3pm in the afternoon. The Punjabi market was on the way to downtown, so we decided grab lunch over there. We had the buffet at a place, the Lonely Planet travel guide recommended. The food was very good, with an excellent Punjabi taste. Punjabi market has excellent Indian traditional garment shops.
After checking into our Hotel rooms, we headed towards the downtown in the twilight. Parking in Vancouver downtown is expensive, 15 minutes of parking may cost you at dollar. Its a nice place at night, with the tall-rise prominent buildings. Vancouver has very strong ethnic diversity, and this is very evident from the streets. After hanging out for a while and having dinner at a nice Mexican place, we headed back home.
Stanley Park was our destination the next morning, the 31st. This is a green urban park in the north of main Vancouver. Excellent jogging tracks and views of downtown Vancouver, as can be seen in the picture below. Stanley Park is also very famous for very old totem statues, a good description and pictures of which may be found at this website. Stanley park is also a haven for ducks, geese, swans, and a variety of birds. Muni had brought along all
In th afternoon, we returned back to downtown Vancouver and then went to Gastown. Gastown is the oldest part of downtown Vancouver. It is most famous for the clock which operates on steam and dates back to the late 1890s, a picture of which is below. It was amusing to see stream billowing out of a clock. We had lunch at an excellent Italian place. Gastown has some other prominent old buildings and the Vancouver central railway station. The railway station has some goo ddeals on watches, and Naren bought a couple.
After a short break at our hotel, we headed for the new year celebrations in downtown Vancouver is the evening. The streets were overflowing with people. Some of the shows we wanted to see, were overcrowded with people and had long lines. The firework celebrations at mignight were from the Canadian Posts and Telegraph building. Although we tried hard for a good vantage point, we were dissapointed by the firworks. However, the diversity of the crowd was impressive. We met a group of high school kids from Australia who asked Muni for a picture from his digi cam. Muni was happy to oblidge. It will be interesting if I include their picture here, let me do it. And if you Australian guys find your pics someday, do drop me a thank you note :).
The next morning, the 1st, we planned to visit Victoria, the capital of British Columbia. Victoria is best known for flowers, and winter is definitely not the best time to visit Victoria. The journey from Vancouver to Victoria is interesting. We drove to the port of Tsawwassen, from were we took a crusie to the island of Victoria. If we wanted, we could have taken our car as well, but it was too expensive. This was my first time is a cruise of this size, it could carry as many as 2000 people. We explored the deck of the cruise. The journey was very pleasant, we had a very good view of the istands in the Victoria sea. Below is a picture of Muni and me at the deck. The cruise was about an hour and a half long. From the terminus we took a bus to downtown Victoria, which took another hour. It was 2:30 by the time we reached Victoria downtown and we were very hungry.
Downtown Victoria has some nice buildings and gardens. A pciture is below.
Although, we didnt spend much time in downtown Victoria, the journey from Vancouver to Victoria and back was itself 3 1/2 hours long an either side, and by the time we reached back, we were all tired and exhausted.
Although our initial plan for Vancouver was for 3 days, we decided to stay a day more, to explore North Vancouver. North Vancouver has the Capillano suspension bridge. This place is very expensive, it costs as much as US$17 to enter this small place. The three of us debated for a long while on whether to enter or not, and it was a furious debate which lasted over 20 minutes. This suspension bridge is a steel rope bridge over a 170 feet deep gorge, designed only for humans to cross over. The best part is that when the bridge has a lot of people on it, it oscillates a lot, and this gives a giddy kind of feeling. A picture of the suspension bridge is below.
In the afternoon, we explored the china town in Vancouver a bit, before heading back towards Seattle. The car line on the way back was equally long. It was around 8 pm when we returned back to Naren's home.
Muni started driving back to Davis the following morning. I spent the day with Naren. This was the only bright and sunny day that I saw in the entire belt. We visited the Snoecombie Falls, and later went to Pike's market in downtown Seattle, where Naren bought some magic cards. I left for Davis by air the next morning.
Amitabha