This year we decided to head to Vancouver for vacation. Neither Tommie nor I had ever been to Canada. We had gotten our passports years ago and had gone to Mexico shortly after, but ended up not getting them stamped. We were looking forward to getting our first stamps in our passport books! Well, we went through customs and ended up getting an agent that was asking so many questions and in the end he forgot to stamp our passports! I didn’t even notice, but Tommie pointed it out to me later, so new we’ve been to two countries and STILL no stamps in the books!!
It was a beautiful city. The mountains sit right behind the city and make a beautiful backdrop, just 30 mins from the city, if that. I had a hard time finding a hotel that was a good value. Most hotels I found with vacancies were close to $200 a night. Also, it ended up that most places we went, we had to pay for parking. Even the hotels we stayed at, charged a daily parking fee on top of the bill. It was $5.00 to $15.00 parking most of the places we went.
We were lucky that it only rained a few days while we were there, because just about everything I had planned was outside. It ended up lightly raining a few days, but they were days we were at parks and we had poncho’s we could use and also, being in the rain forest up there, the trees blocked a lot of the rain. It was amazing how many people were packed into everywhere we went. Even at the state parks, it was just busloads of people unloading.
Tommie looked up and later told me that Vancouver was the 3rd densest city in North America, after New York and L.A. I had no idea about this before we went. I’m glad that Tommie was driving the rental car! There were some crazy drivers there and even crazier traffic. There was no part of the day or day of the week that had light traffic. The cars would cut you off without turn signals and weave in and out of traffic. The lady that drove the car rental bus from the airport to the rental place had told us that if they catch you driving 20 km over the speed limit that they impound your car for a week. Guess that’s one way to get people to not speed too much! Downtown is full of high-rises, people living on top of each other. I saw that there were several high-rises being built in the suburbs also. I also read that all parking garages were built underground, since land is in such demand in the city.
There was a large Asian population there. There were two China town’s that we found. The one downtown we walked through on a walking tour offered through the Police Museum. They gave a history of the founding of Vancouver, and most of it was centered around the Chinese population and the gold rush. It was pretty interesting. The other Chinatown was near the airport where we stayed on the last part of our trip. We shopped at the Chinese mall there and ate at some authentic restaurants that were pretty good.
There were several things I had planned on or wanted to do while there, but didn’t get to, but I think this was our once and only trip to this city. I think sometimes I tend to over plan vacations and don’t leave time for doing “nothing”. I like to go-go-go on vacations and see and do as much as I can in that short amount of time. Tommie tends to just like to have days that he can nap and do nothing, and gets tired of the “going”. This vacation I had so much on my mind that I didn’t plan it like I normally do and a lot of it was wide open and we had to sit down midweek and plan the rest of the week. We had Tommie’s daughter along with us also, and I know Tommie enjoyed seeing her after so long. We hadn’t seen her in about 5 years.
Despite some annoyances I had with this vacation, I did enjoy myself and there were many points of beauty in the city and in the mountains. I enjoyed being able to be outside and do a lot of walking and see and explore a new city. All the water was so clear and it was amazing to see so many people walking and riding bikes. People were friendly for the most part. Loved the accent and hearing the “eh” and “Fer Sure” a lot. 😀 Thanks, Canada, for the nice visit. I’ll be back – just not to this city…..I think I’ll shoot for a little slower paced city next time.