Vancouver Redux

On our return trip we had one and half days in Vancouver.  We arrived around noon, took the Skytrain into the city, and checked into the Fairmont downtown again for one night.  After a couple hour nap we took a walk along the waterfront in the sunshine.  There were great views of the mountains this time compared to the cloud shrouded views back in January. 

View from the Vancouver Convention Center area

We had a very light dinner at Nosh, a little self-serve café in the LEED certified Telus Garden building on Georgia St.  Sleep was elusive.  Around 11:30 pm a loud party got off the elevator and woke me up, then a couple guys continued a conversation on their relationships out in the hallway until I asked them to please go talk elsewhere.  We both woke up again at some point for a few hours, read, slept until 8:30 – 9am.  We breakfasted at Nosh then packed our bags and checked them with the doorman of our hotel.

Western skunk cabbage

We opted to take the bus to Capilano Bridge, a privately run park in West Vancouver with a long suspension bridge over the Capilano River gorge and suspended walkways and boardwalks through the woods.  It was very civilized but very pretty.  Jake described it as the woods for urbanites who don’t want to get their shoes dirty. 

From there we took a bus up to Grouse Mountain, a ski area.  We took the gondola up to the chair lift area to admire the views and walk in the mash potato snow.  Jake said it would be a great day for snowboarding and there were quite a few people skiing, snowboarding and snowshoeing around. 

Back in town we stopped by the Bill Reid Gallery.  He was a famous native artist who did sculptures, paintings, and jewelry.  We also stopped in the Maritime Building with its beautiful architectural details and art deco lobby.

We met up with Tom and Leah for one last dinner together at Blue Water Café in the Yaletown neighborhood.  They had lots of great seafood dishes from sushi to cooked fish.  Jake and I shared two sushi rolls, both featuring dungeness crab.  

We said goodbye to our travel companions of the last month and walked back to our hotel to collect our bags and take the Skytrain back out to the airport to stay at the Fairmont Airport hotel, a hotel right at the airport.  We fell asleep promptly at 9pm, but then both woke up around 11 pm like it had just been a nap.  We read for a few hours and finally fell asleep again before our 5am wake up call.  The airline suggested getting to the airport 3 hours before our 6:40 am flight, but we thought an hour would be enough.  It did turn out to be enough but it helped that we had our Global Entry pass because we were able to bypass two much longer lines.  We should be back in Maryland tonight if all goes well!