Wordfeud on Granville Street.
I enjoyed taking the Sky Train during daylight! There are really so many sides of Vancouver. I didn't expect what I guess was some part of the fishing industry (passing over the water to Richmond) to look at it did for example. Well I guess I didn't really know what to expect but what I saw didn't look like Vancouver to me. It could have been anywhere but here pretty much. Enough talk about that now!
I almost missed my pick up at the airport not because I wasn't on time but because the representative from the tour company didn't really scream out the companies name from what he was wearing. But I all worked out. I liked how one of his first questions to me was why I had signed up for the Chinese tour (he was also Chinese by the way with English as his second language). Well no one told me that it would be a Chinese tour until I had payed for it and since it was such a hustle paying form it I didn't really feel like trying to change the tour to another one in the end since I didn't have much time.
After being transferred to my hotel for the night, and having a quick bite to eat at a nearby mall it was time for the first part of the tour the half day city tour of Vancouver.
I was excited to see if there were any other non-Chinese on the tour. It wasn't! We were about 18 in the bus including the driver and the guide and I was the only non-Chinese there (not everyone had flown in yet, more people are joining the group by tomorrow).
It turned out to be a pretty intense afternoon mostly because the guide had to speak to speak Mandarin, Cantonese and English and both the Chinese languages are intense to listen to.
Unfortunately the tour didn't give me much since I did most of downtown yesterday. We began by a visit to Granville island, from there we took one of the cute boats from yesterday and got off at the same place as Ian and I got on to. Then we headed to Stanley park where I also spent a fair a bit of time yesterday. The weather was a bit nicer today though which I guess made the park and the skyline look more inviting.
One of the entrances to the public market on Granville Island.
Lots of people buying lots of good looking goodies.
There was a lot of people on Granville Island celebrating Canada Day.
Some live music from a really talented girl was nice while waiting for the boat.
In Swedish I would call the boat Muggevigge.
Pretty much the same view as one of the first night pictures from yesterday. It's pretty cool with beaches right downtown. That's something that we don't have in Stockholm.
I guess I didn't stop for the totem poles in Stanley Park yesterday so I took the chance to revisit them 10 years since last time.
I also had a fair amount of time in Stanley Park to take the first picture of me jumping on this trip. This is try number 15 or something...
New impressions of the day was driving on Hastings Street were the homeless and drug addicts hang out. Another totally different view of Vancouver and unfortunately a sad one. I remember this film from Social Studies 11 about homeless in Vancouver. I guess a lot of the material for it must have been shot on Hastings Street. We also drove through the three streets that make up Chinatown in Vancouver before heading back out to Richmond and our different hotels.
If I was so awake yesterday I felt tired today and even though it would have been fun to have gone back into downtown to watch the fireworks and more of the Canada Day celebrations I decided to take it easy at the hotel instead. I had a nice and quiet dinner at the hotel's solar terrace and enjoyed the sun that finally was really out and about!
Sushi and tomatoes for dinner in the sun.
The view from the hotel's solar terrace. Can you see the plane?
I didn't need as many tries for this second picture jumping.
(Just a quick note about my comments about Chinese and China. I'm not trying to offend anyone by them but it is a certain feeling being the only "western" person in a group of only Chinese especially since I'm taller than pretty much all of the!)
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