Sculptures, Trucks and Suburbia

Well what can I say...the past few days have been a balancing act between trying not to over spend and keeping ourselves entertained. We have done quite a lot of exploring around the city and doing a bit of window shopping along the long shopping streets. 

Vancouver has a lot of amazing sculptures hidden everywhere and the more we explore the more we find.....

Most of the sculptures relate in some way or another to the history and culture of Vancouver.

We have also found ourselves lost in suburbia when we were hanging around trying to find a museum. Its a long story but we ended up at the wrong one just as it was closing and the museum we were trying to find was about an hours walk way

Vancouver also has this amazing balance between a grand urban environment and a natural one similar to that which surrounds it. In every part or the city, including downtown Van, they have parks on every scale. The locals seem to use them to take naps or do there yoga (we even came across one guy practising with a wooden sword).

One of the smaller parks we went to was Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Classical Chinese Garden which was a very peaceful place that was right in the heart of Chinatown. The garden was so different to everything that surrounded it, you felt like you weren't in the same city anymore...until you heard the siren of a passing fire truck.

The Chinese Garden was really beautiful but you did have to pay to get into it and it was a little over priced for the size of it.

We made the trip out the Grouse Mountain to get the ski lift up and do the proper tourist stuff. The view of Vancouver from the top was pretty epic!!

While we were up there the Canadians were playing up to their stereotypes by putting on a Lumberjack show

Even though we have done all this our main task over the past few days has really being preparing from moving on and travelling further afield. We have been to Walmart (or Asda as Vic keeps calling it) to stock up in camping supplies for heading over to Vancouver Island (Vic's first purchase was a bear bell...they didn't have bear spray).

We are both defiantly ready to move on and get on the road. However, this does mean it will be more difficult to stay in touch as tents don't have wifi but we will do our best.

Finally, this ones for Big Tom, trucks are king over here.....

Yes...that is a normal size golf!

And mum I can get parking tickets in other countries too.....

Starting to fall into place....

Well we have had a busy few days over here and things are starting to fall into place. Its all very real and exciting!

For the most part we have been doing the whole tourist thing. But it has been quite difficult to not think that we are just on holiday so we are trying to pace ourselves and not spend too much money. 

We have been spending a lot of time walking around and getting to know the place which I think I have got the Downtown area pretty well sorted. Vic's navigation is something special but she is getting there. But we are both starting to feel very comfortable here.

The rest of the time has been spent in Stanley Park enjoying what it has to offer.

We spent friday in the Vancouver Aquarium which is in the park and is really impressive!! Its like Tynemouth aquarium only better! For starters they have these fellas....

The trainers had the dolphins well trained putting on shows to entertain the crowds while giving us fun facts....then they asked us to donate to their charity.

And just like Tynemouth they has an Amazon section with other animals which don't live in the ocean but these we pretty cool to see!

Saturday we hired some bikes (I know I flew one out here but it is a different kind of bike) to ride around the sea wall of Stanley Park and really to have a rest from walking everywhere. The handle bars on my bike weren't straight so I had to steer left the whole time to stay in a straight line but i have got crazy bike handling skills so it was ok ;-)

We did a couple of laps of the wall and took some photos and GoPro video it was amazing to see the Pacific ocean it was a shame that it wasn't epic sunshine at that point other wise the photos would have been really awesome!

While we were riding round we came across this guy who was stacking round rocks on top on one another making totem poles out of them. We could work out how he was doing it because he was just picking them up a careful place them and they would stay in place. It has to be something to do with the centre of gravity on the stones.

There are also loads of these Canadian geese and we were wondering if they were just called geese over here?

Oh and finally......we bought a car/van we are now rolling in a Chevy Venture 3.1ltr V6

Its only 7 seats.....we bought it of some Kiwi's who were going back home and were having to sell it. After getting through all the paperwork and getting insurance we finally got out on the road. The size of the car (I am pretty sure its bigger than Matt's van) and being on the wrong side of the road was a challenge at first but you get use to it. Intersections are a very different to roundabouts it pretty much just go for it at the light.

But now we have the car we are getting excited about getting out on the open road and seeing what else this place has to offer. Roll on the travels and Vancouver Island........ 

Great weather for ducks

Granville Island/Gastown

            Granville Island Market                                               

Granville Island Brewing

House Boats

Only in North America

Gas Town

Arrived Safe and sound!

Finally Here!!

Well, after waking up with a busted toe (Tom) and not have a clue how I did it in my sleep we managed to get me (hobbling around) and all our luggage on to the plane without any issues.

Flight took us over Greenland and saw some big ass icebergs! It was good pretty straight forward but we were sitting next to some up tight Canadian woman who really didn't like it when one of us got up to use the toilet.

We landed early and had a bit of a grilling at customs but they let us through and sent me to pick up my work permit. Turns out if you are from the UK you get a 2 year visa so went Vic gets hers we maybe here longer......

Got in a taxi to the hotel and had no problems checking in to the hotel and then went for a bit of a walk round, 1) to have a look at the place and 2) to keep ourselves awake.

 Don't think they built it straight!

Vicki's Dream house!

Epic boats!