Grouse Vancouver
We started the day by going to Grouse Mountain. Grouse Mountain is on the northern side of Vancouver and overlooks downtown. Today was another clear day so we could see as far as the hills of Vancouver Island.
Grouse Mountain hosts a bear sanctuary as well as the usual tourist type stuff like a lumberjack competition. There was still a fair bit of snow on the mountain. Not enough to ski on, just enough to cool us so that you wouldn’t notice you were getting burnt, We’ve had that experience before so on with the slip slop slap. We hiked around the mountain and took in the view. It’s still not tourist season so things were reasonably quiet.
We planned to go to Glanville island this afternoon but after getting back from Grouse, we decided to stick around the harbour area and watch a couple of the cruise ships leave. One of them had a complete evacuation drill before they left. We were surprised to see people stay in their cabins while the rest of the ship and crew did the drill.
The floatplanes continued to take off and land in between all the river traffic.
One of the ships was huge carrying some 2500 passengers, so a local told us. Apparently the bigger ships arrive this weekend, one with 4000 passengers.
We finished up with some shopping in downtown and some sushi. There was a line up for the sushi restaurant and I was asked “is that at the bar or in a booth?”. I said “at the train” and she looked at me weirdly. We understood why this was when we were seated that the train was infact a series of floating boats. She must have thought we were crazy. The sushi contained what I called “wasabi bombs”. Hidden carefully under each piece of meat was a random amount of wasabi, some small, some with a teary kick.
This is our last two days in Canada before we return to the USA and then home. If anyone wants something specific to Canada, better say it now.
May 31st, 2007 at 12:58 am
Loved the one with the flowers No 2157 - colours are grouse.
Boat drill with that many passengers would be a schmozzle, crew are bad enough - so many nationalities its like the Tower of Babel.
Impressive though - P’raps Liz was right to stay there. Nice Place.
Harbour area reminds me of those New England jig saw puzzles.
Little highly coloured bathtubs with motors, plying to and fro.
May 31st, 2007 at 1:32 am
Who cares about the passengers anyway save the captain! Souds like B.C. is a hit we liked the harbour andthe old part of Vancouver.
May 31st, 2007 at 8:45 am
Ahh the memories. We travelled on the Carnival Spirit for our Alaskan cruise. Home sweet home for 7 days. And yes we took part in the evac drill and waved at all the people on shore taking photos of us standing in line in our pretty lifejackets. We also noticed a number of passengers peering out from their balconies at the deck below where we stood. I figured they were either seasoned travellers who knew the drill or were too lazy/ignorant. Either way it made me feel better cause I reckoned my odds at getting a spot in the lifeboats had just increased. I think of it as a form of natural selection…
May 31st, 2007 at 8:53 am
Have you tried any Halibut (fish) in your travels? I had this a few times while in Canada/Alaska and loved it.
May 31st, 2007 at 12:13 pm
Meg had halibut Tuesday night at this great restaurant overlooking English Bay called the Boathouse. Meg said it was fantastic - soft and great taste. Of course, I tried some and agree. It was also an option at the sushi restaurant last night, but we didn’t fancy it raw.
June 2nd, 2007 at 6:50 am
I thought the captain had to go down with the ship! Mind you, I am the first over the side when my boat goes down. Given the weather in the Bight over the last week or 2, may be the Bunbury express needed some drills.