Brian and Leina's road trip - Entry Four
June 09 ---
The welcome sign at the border crossing.
The hostel was in downtown Vancouver. I really liked our stay at this one because there were doors on the shower stalls and because we were the only occupants in a four bed room.
I don't remember us doing much other than going grocery shopping and walking up and down Davie Street and up and down Robison Street. We went into HMV to check out the bilingual dvd covers. Did you know that the French title for The 40 Year Old Virgin is 40 ans et encore pinceau?
At the corner of Thurlow and Robison is a big Starbucks. Brian and I were about to cross the street to get to it until I said, "Why do we have to cross the street when there's one right here?" And lo and behold, there at the corner diagonally across from that big Starbucks was a smaller Starbucks! Brian was just dumbstruck by this. We had heard jokes about Starbucks being across the street from Starbucks, but we were never witness to that sort of thing until that very moment. We ended up getting drinks at the smaller one.
Delicious.
random street sign.
You better watch out for those lawn bowlers. They be some speedy bastards.
June 10 ---
Ferry Day.
We rode a ferry from Aquatic Centre, which was only five blocks away from the hostel, over to Granville Island. That place is home to a grand public market.
a police boat.
The police officers are dressed up as pirates.
a cheese scone.
The last time I had a cheese scone was when I was in London last year. This was a breath of fresh air for me. Yummy.
After walking around for a bit, we took a ferry over to the Nations Plaza area so we could check out GM Place, home of the Canucks, a hockey team that sometimes plays the Sharks. GO SHARKS.
Then we walked over to Yaletown so I could see a marvellous piece of architecture.
That's a PUBLIC LIBRARY.
I think it's genius that it was modelled after the Roman Colosseum.
Then we rode a ferry back to Granville, where we watched a street performer for a bit, then back to Aquatic Centre then we walked back to the hostel to take a break.
Later that night, we rode a ferry back to Granville Island to catch an improv comedy show. Well, we watched two of them that night. The Vancouver TheatreSports League is just awesome.
My overall view of my Canadian experience thus far ---
Vancouver is like a cleaner and more polite version of SF, but yet we were paying for things with money that looked like Euros. That confounded my brain.
June 11 ---
We headed down south to catch a ferry over to Vancouver Island. But before that, we drove around Stanley Park. I wanted to see the totem poles.
a self-pic of me with my fave totem pole.
Then we stopped to check out a yarn store. Yeah, that little trip was a disappointment only because I didn't notice that on the store's website that they're closed on Sundays. Durr. But we did walk around on that street and came upon this bear.
There are tonnes of these painted bears all over BC, I guess.
Here's some bear ass for ya.
I had to get my ketchup-flavoured potato chip fix.
The ferry yard parking lot.
The ride itself was beautiful.
Some pics that Brian took:
