Vancouver Trip Report.

A few months ago I started listening to a Flamenco guitar player, Jesse Cook and decided it would be really terrific to see him in concert. After browsing his web page we found out he was playing in Vancouver and decided we had to go.  John bought the travel and concert tickets and I made the housing arrangements and on Friday morning 6/25/99 we headed off to Justin's so he could give us a ride to SFO (the San Francisco Airport) so we could catch our flight to Vancouver!  We were initially going to go see a concert on Friday night but the concert turned out to be on Thursday and we missed it.  I had never heard the band before so I was not too distressed about it.  We arrived at the airport on time and said goodbye to Justin and headed inside.  When we got inside we realized that the Canadian Air counter where we were was closed and we would have to walk quite a ways to get to the actual counter where we could check in.  John is very focused when travelling and we motored through the airport and finally found the correct counter and checked in.  We strolled down to the gate and then sat to wait for our flight which managed to take off on time!  Our seats were way back in the plane which meant it was very loud but we would be the most likely to survive a crash.  Both John and I read during the flight and the next thing we knew we were there.  I was very interested in finding a bathroom since I do not like using the ones on planes (even though since our seats were so far back we were almost in the rest room.)  We had to walk a long ways to finally get to customs and when we got there the lines were quite long.  There was, however, a bathroom so I was not concerned.  We waited our turn and then passed through customs without a hitch and went to find ground transportation. 

We found a cab and gave him the location of our Bed and Breakfast - the Ashby House and were on our way.  The weather was nice, not too hot and not too cold but somewhat overcast.  We drove down Granville Street most of the way and peered at the beautiful houses.  It was early afternoon so we did well with traffic and arrived safely at the Ashby House.  There were people sitting on the porch who said 'hi' to us as we approached but offered no assistance so we went inside.  Inside we found some more people who asked us if anyone had talked to us and we said no and he said that he would in a second.  When he finished reading he found a key for us and then lead us to the room and asked us if we needed anything.  We asked a few questions and got some suggestions, which we promptly forgot, then we were off to walk around the city.  We hunted down lunch at "Mary's" which was a 50s diner-type place.  We felt kind of guilty eating there since it was an American style diner but since we were starving it was fine.  We spilt a bacon cheese burger and a plate of cheese/gravy fries which is a Canadian specialty.  After lunch we were up for a walk around so we toddled off to Stanley Park.  This a large beautiful park which takes up much of the "North End" of the "west side" of the city.  The layout of Vancouver is kind of odd, with the hip downtown section being the north-west tip.   The park parameter is 7 miles of sea walk and along the way there are two heated pools, picnic areas, a restaurant, tennis, camping and putting greens.  One of the places we stopped was at the boccie ball field to watch some people play.  We wandered on through the west coast rainforest thick with plants and redwood trees.  We finally found ourselves at the "lost lagoon" where we sat for a while watching the ducks paddle about.   Several of the ducks wandered up and waited for us to feed them.  We had no food so they wandered away.  We slowly made our way back out of the park to the B&B for a short rest before heading out to Robson Street for some shopping. 

The shopping was quite good and I bought a nice pair of earrings.  We wandered about for several hours until we got hungry.  We read through all of the menus posted on the outside of the restaurants and decided on Eddie's and had soup and shrimp appetizers.  After dinner we went into a place called Cows and had some ice cream (delicious) and bought t-shirts with cute cows doing funny things.  After ice cream and t-shirts we headed back to the B&B for a good night's rest.

Saturday dawned cold and rainy but that could not stop the intrepid adventures!  We woke up around 9ish, showered and went downstairs for breakfast.  The smell of the bacon was wonderful.  Our hostess cooked us a wonderful meal and we were off for our second day.  Since it was raining we decided to head to the huge mall "MetroLand" for some shopping.  To get there we got to take the SkyTrain!   I have become a great fan of public transportation since traveling with John and I must say that the SkyTrain was one of the cleanest public transportation systems I have seen.  I was stunned by the fact that there was no graffiti on the trains, none at all.  Typically you will see names scratched into chairs and things like that I did not see any graffiti of any kind.

The mall was huge and John and I wandered through with tons of people who had thought of the same way to spend this rainy day.  We had no specific items in mind so we just wandered about.  I have to admit that the stores in the Robson district were more interesting but these were nice as well.  We finally started looking for shoes for John.  John has feet with character and they dislike being confined so he usually wears Tevas.  Tevas are fine for casual wear but fall a little short on the dress-up scale.  The first store we went into the sales guy was really helpful, he knew a great deal about shoes and fitting etc..  The sad thing was that they did not have the shoe that John really liked in the correct size.  The nice sales man directed us to another store with a bigger selection.  The sales woman in this store was nice and polite but John did not think that she knew quite as much as the sale guy from the first store.  He tried on five or six pairs of shoes and walked about in them for a while before settling on a nice pair of black shoes. 

We wandered the mall for a while longer and then had some mall food before deciding to head out to Canada Place to see an IMAX film.   Back on to the SkyTrain to the far end of the line.  We were close to when the show would start so we scampered up several flights of stairs and down a long path before finding the box office.  We bought two tickets for "Island of the Sharks" and wandered inside.  Our seats were pretty good and the show was ok, it had that "conservation" feel to it which makes you want to crawl under a rock.  We were happily watching the last 1/2 of the film when the projector when all funny and the film stopped.  They tried to fix it but to no avail.  They gave us free passes so we decided to see the next film which was Alaska.  When we scampered by the first time there was a huge cruise ship leaving and John informed .  Our seats were way down in the front but were actually better than our earlier ones.  The show had the same kind of conservation kick but it was still very neat.  After the film we headed back to the B&B and rested for a while before trying to find some dinner.

Our hostess had suggested Le Crocodile Restaurant for dinner and after dinner we were planning to hit a dance club that our shoe sales woman had suggested.  John dressed up in his linen shirt, nice black Dockers and new shoes but I had nothing really nice to wear since I figured we would not actually go out somewhere really nice.  I managed to get by with my tan pants and peach sweater.  We strolled down to the restaurant and were seated by the window.  The restaurant was nice - not outstanding decor and it was quite loud.  We selected some wine and relaxed.  We had a crab cake appetizer which was excellent and dinner arrived soon there after.  I ordered the angel hair pasta with scallops and shrimp and John had the lobster.  Both meals turned out to be excellent and even rank in the top ten restaurant meals I have ever had.   After dinner, we shared a chocolate mousse dessert and the tiny chocolate crocodile they brought with the check.  During dinner my knees had stiffened up and I was pretty much gimped.  I was still game on finding the dance hall - figuring my knees would loosen up but when we got outside it was pouring rain so we decided to bail on dancing and we caught a cab back to the B&B.  Since we had just ate we stayed up a while before settling in for the night.

The next day it was still misting slightly but that could not stop us from enjoying the day.  We did not rise very early and we decided to swing downtown for lunch before trying to see another IMAX film.  We had tasty subs downtown then we were back on the SkyTrain.  We rode over to Science World and asked about the IMAX and they said they only had OmniMAX films and we decided to skip it but did some shopping in the gift shop.  The information desk had given us a nice map with the "tourist" stuff marked on it and it looked like we were pretty close to the Chinese Gardens so we decided to walk over there.  On the way there we passed a field hockey game and decided to sit and watch for a while.  John had never seen field hockey and thought it looked dangerous.  We sat on a bench for 20 minutes or so watching the boys run back and forth before crossing the street to the Chinese Gardens.  If you go to the link and read about the garden then much of this will be repeat but I thought I could give my impressions.  The garden is divided into two sections, the free public garden and the second garden which has a mimium entrance fee ($6.50).  We started in the free public garden and wandered about there peering at the flowers, trees, frogs and koy fish.  The entrance to the pay garden was not obvious but we found it, paid our fee and walked inside.  The garden was bounded by a wall with large windows through which you can see the second garden which makes the smaller formal garden seem larger.  We strolled through at a leisurely pace enjoying the aesthetics and the good company.

On the SkyTrain I had seen posters for the Vancouver Art Musem which was having a special exhibit on portraits.  I like portait art and talked John into heading there next.  We hopped back on the SkyTrain and went one stop north and walked around until we located the museum whichis located in a massive old building, only a few blocks from Robson Street.  The first floor of portraits was very nice but anything after 1900 was not that enjoyable.  We began to get very foot weary towards the end of the day and staggered up to the cafe to refresh ourselves.   I let John sit and rest while I stood in line to get us Cokes and a cookie.   Finally we both sat down and rested, drinking our Cokes (which did not make either of us sick) and munching on a chocolate chip cookie.  John had found a paper and we read through that before struggling up to head back to the B&B.  We stretched out and rested for a while in our room before striking out to find dinner.  Our hostess made another suggestion for the Liguini Grill which was just off Robson so we wandered down there. We had a leisurly dinner which was good but not outstanding before walking over to the Vogue Theater for Jesse Cook.

The walk took us through some of the seedier areas of the city but we arrived no worse for wear and since we already had our tickets we went inside.  We did not realise that it was first come first serve seating but we managed to find pretty good seats on the upper balcony.  Since the theater is small it is difficult to get bad seats.   The first act (I cannot remember their name) was not terribly good and we were glad when they finished.  Jesse was amazing!  He was very friendly, funny and the music was terrific.  We really enjoyed the show and managed to get outside before the rush.  We walked back to the B&B and tucked ourselves into bed.  About 45 minutes later a large cat crawled through the window and into bed with us.  If I had not mentioned it before the B&B came with two tabbies and a Scottish Terrier.   The younger of the two cats had gone out window in the room next to us, across the roof and into our room.  He purred and settled in between John and I and slept there all night.

In the morning we called the cab and since the doors to the host's part of the house was closed we did not get to speak with Robin and Mary Anne before leaving.   The cab was prompt and were were soon on our way to the airport.  We arrived with time to spare, checked in, made our slow progress through customs, got to our gate and waited.   We took turns using the restroom, watching the luggage and browsing the book store.   John bought a paper and I got a trash novel to keep me occupied on the flight home.

The flight was uneventful and since we went through customs in Vancouver were were able to zip off the plane and back home without further incident!