5 Day Vancouver Trip

This past weekend, I headed up to Vancouver, BC, Canada, for a conference for work. While there, there was ample time to look around and do the tourist thing. Here is a quick review of the city and sights (etc), while a separate review of the food is forthcoming!

First things first, Air Canada was our supplier of flights. No complaints from me here on Air Canada, they were the cheapest price available, do not charge for first checked bag, and each passenger has their own TV and sound. The only thing that I could potentially complain about, but is something that is becoming more and more standard, is the lack of food on a dinner flight on the way to Vancouver.

Upon landing in Vancouver, the ground was wet from light rain/drizzle. The taxi service from YVR airport to downtown Vancouver was relatively cheap, and took the five of us in one van. Thirty dollars later, both my group going to the Howard Johnson, and the other group going to the Century Plaza Hotel were checking in and dry.

The Howard Johnson on Granville in the Granville area of Vancouver is a supposed award winning hotel in the heart of downtown. Typical of any downtown budget hotel, one should assume a smaller room in an older building. That is what we got. The room measured maybe 20x12 ft. with a small bathroom. The elevators were small and crowded, enough for 6-7 people, but enough for only the three of us with luggage to carry. The hallways were tight but manageable. Upon entering the room, the door hits the near bed on the right. The air conditioning/heating is provided by a window unit, the noise from below very evident. The music from the clubs booming along and the frequent sirens picking up drunk folk blaring away. We still are unsure what noise was coming from the bathroom, was that squeak a dog in the room next door locked in the bathroom whimpering away, or was it the plumbing? At least we had a TV, granted it was a 19 inch CRT. On the good side, we had free wifi in our rooms, unlike those staying at the more expensive Century Plaza, who had to go to the lobby for free wifi. Another positive is free coffee and hot chocolate in the lobby.

So what tourist spots were we able to visit? Quite a few actually...

We got to the hotel late the first night, so we went out to eat and went straight to bed afterward. The first day commenced with a long walk to Granville Island. We walked over the bridge and 20 minutes later made it to the entrance of Granville Island.

Granville Island houses the local shops. No big name retailer is here. A robust farmer's market and art market with local crafts dot the island with several local theatre productions and other cultural options. The Farmer's market was quite impressive, with locally grown fruits, vegetables abound in the aisles as well as meats, seafood, pasta and more! The food court consisted of all sorts of options from German bratwurst to Italian to Chinese to vegetarian perogie. The price was a little on the high side for all these goods. The art shops were full of local craft, from Indian artifacts to sculpture artists to silk weavers. Another interesting and colorful aspect of Granville Island are the many local courtesans of music, providing entertainment for tips.

After lunch, we began our trek, walking Eastward around the bay on the Scenic bike/walking path. We passed many a condominium considered waterfront properties. Finally we walked past the Olympic Athlete Village from the Vancouver Winter Olympics 2010. Unfortunately it was fenced off, who knows what plans are for these buildings now.

Our first real tourist destination (one you have to pay for at least), was Science World. Science World is housed in a large geodesic dome on the east side of downtown. It is mainly full of kids and their parents learning about science. I would definitely recommend this site for children, but even adults could learn from the exhibits here. For about 20 dollars per adult, we spent 2-3 hours enjoying the exhibits, solving the puzzles and learning about science. Even for adults, the puzzles that abound inside are challenging and mind stimulating. For an extra 5 dollars or so, you could watch a science documentary inside the IMAX theater. This was well worth the money and definitely something to do with kids if not just by yourselves.

The rest of the day consisted of more walking, checking many of Vancouver's street art including modern art, wood carvings, and steelworks. We also happened to pass by the Edgewater Casino. True to form, it was a typical casino with slots and table games. Sweepstakes were being held to win multitudes of cars lined up front. The casino was clean and presentable. We were able to pass close by the BC Palace, where the opening and closing ceremonies were held and the GM Place which houses the ice rink where the Los Angeles Kings and Vancouver Canucks were playing their playoff hockey game.

BC Palace in foreground with GM place (The Garage) the white dome in background

Day 2 started out with a stroll to Chinatown; about a 20 minute walk from our hotels. It was initially raining quite hard on our way to Chinatown and continued that way until after Dim Sum brunch.

Chinatown here encompasses a small area approximately 2 blocks by 5 blocks, just south of the seedier areas of downtown Vancouver. The main attraction here outside of the food include Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Park. This is a small park found in the heart of Chinatown, with several Chinese inspired architecture buildings and a pond.

On our way to ride the seabus to Northern Vancouver, we passed by the cobblestoned streets of Gastown. The famous attraction here the many novelty and souvenir shops as well as the first steam powered clock in the world.

For a mere $2.50 Canadian (lasts 90 minutes), we took a Seabus ferry and subsequently a bus to the Capilano Suspension Bridge. The bus could also take you up to Grouse Mountain if you wanted to visit that area. The Capilano Suspension Bridge is a 26 dollar Canadian experience (with AAA discount). It has recently (2006) been renovated since a large storm caused a humongous Douglas Fir to fall onto the bridge. You could even do a mini-scavenger hunt for a special surprise.

Upon crossing the bridge, you could choose to do a Nature Walk and a Treetop Adventure. The treetop adventure is amongst many platforms high in the trees strung together by smaller suspension bridges. The Nature Walk is a platform based walk down the hill about halfway to the river below. Both walk and adventure feature beautiful views and astounding scenery.

After scavenging stamps throughout the area, you will get this surprise!

For those of you seeking adventure, Capilano Suspension Bridge is likely not worth your money and you should just move forward and go skiing on Grouse mountain. For the nature buffs who enjoy scenery and views, the park is well worth the price of admission.

Our next stop was the salmon hatchery, a short mile walk from the suspension bridge. Due to trail closures, our mile ending up probably being 2 miles, but we made it. This used to be a bona fide stop on several bus tours, but now the souvenir shop is closed and hardly any buses come down the long hilly road. The hatchery is free! You can actually learn quite abit about salmon and how they are hatched here in the facility. Best of all, you are at ground level along the river and can enjoy the sights from below that you just saw from above at the Capilano suspension bridge.

We continued our journey with another bus ride back into town and back across to Vancouver proper by Seabus.

The next morning was the day of the conference, but before that we had lunch and took in some of the sights of Stanley Park. Stanley Park is a large green park that houses the Vancouver zoo and Aquarium. The park itself is free, but admission is charged for the latter two. There are large biking and walking paths that circumscribe the park. The views are beautiful.

The totem poles here were a very small area but impressive nonetheless.

The rest of the day was spent in conference and we had dinner together with our co-presenting attendings.

Our last full day in Vancouver featured another visit to Granville Island via the Aquabus ferry, which looks like a bathtub toy!

This was actually a little pricier than the Seabus, so we decided to do the 25 minute long mini-cruise for 7 dollars Canadian. The stops for the mini-cruise included Granville Island, Yaletown and then back to the original point on Hornsby Street. We spent more time searching the shops of Granville on this day and looking for souvenirs to bring home. Then we stopped in Yaletown, which is an old warehouse district now converted to a young "hip" area with high-end shops. We even saw places specifically for eyelash pulling and eyebrow plucking!

This is Yaletown, a view down its main street

On our way back to the hotel for a quick break, we were met with a sudden shower of hail!


The rest of the day was spent hiding out from the hail and then headed downtown for dinner and snacks. Here is a quick glimpse of downtown.

Of note, the end of April is close to Tulip Festival time for the city of Vancouver, so here are some tulips with carved wood in the background.

More Tulips

Overall, Vancouver is a fun place to visit. We ran out of things to do within our 4 day stay +1 conference day. If you would like to spend more time in Vancouver area, other things to do are visit Victoria, see some of the surrounding islands, or go skiing at Grouse or Seymour Mountains and for world class skiing at Whistler Resort. I enjoyed my time there and hopefully can take Pauline for a visit sometime in the future. The only thing I really could complain about is that on our way out, they didn't allow the 5 of us in one taxi again. They forced us to take 2 taxis, but we opted to walk four blocks and get on the subway. They had said the subway would be 10 dollars a person, what a scam! It was actually 3.75 a person, SHAME on you Vancouver Taxi Service for lying! On top of that, the trip there probably took the same amount of time as a taxi would.

Look in the near future for a report on the food of Vancouver!

Been awhile -- Prime Rib and Lobster House - Artesia

Back again with another food review! A couple weeks ago we ate at the Prime Rib and Lobster House on South St and near Pioneer in Artesia, CA. This hip restaurant used to be a Chinese place but now serves an American menu, although owned by a Pinoy guy. It resides in the corner of a strip mall next to an Asian market and other Asian restaurants, the same complex as Seafood Shack. The outside is unassuming, but the inside is well decorated. Parking is ample at least on this day, if it were a full house, parking would probably be a little difficult.

So untrue to form, we had neither the prime rib nor the lobster! I had the ribeye steak.

The steak was juicy and fatty, topped with fried onions. Sides I chose were mushrooms and garlic mashed potatoes. I enjoyed this overall. It doesn't rank with the steakhouses, but it is better than average. It was cooked to my preference of medium rare.

My wife went with the seafood soup: Bouillabaisse.

This was also pretty good. The sauce was a little heavy on tomato flavoring. There were abundant seafood though, 3-4 crab legs, 3-4 clams, a good portion of fish and 6-8 shrimp.

We both also had the soup. Mine was the lobster bisque and my wife's the vegetable beef. The lobster bisque was adequate, not as good as the one from Pappas Bros in Dallas. The vegetable beef was good but what is with everyone's fascination with putting celery into everything?

Overall would give the food 3.5 stars out of 5. The service was almost too attentive, given that only 3 tables were being served. The restaurant was clean and had a good look to it. Looks like a good spot to have a mini banquet. Probably would eat here again if there weren't so many places to try before I move away from Long Beach!

Six Flags Magic Mountain

So part of travel includes visits to amusement parks. I don't have any good pictures from this day, but I will review the day.

Background: I am a roller coaster fanatic, and yet it had been at least 5 years since my last visit to Six Flags. The last "new" roller coaster I rode was Deja-Vu. So the goal of this romp was to ride everything else that has appeared since then. That goal was mostly achieved and it was a fun day despite the crowds.

Even before the trip I knew West Coast coaster bash was going on, and that it was spring break for the school crowd. Those two factors alone would make this a day for line standing. We entered the amusement park and met some friends at the lockers. We made our trek around counter-clockwise after that.

We started at the awe inspiring Goliath. I had been on Goliath maybe twice before and can say it really hasn't changed. Still fast and that first drop is a monster! Excellent roller coaster. I always have fun on this one, and big ++ is it only has lap bars! We waited maybe 20 minutes to ride Goliath. This probably gave me the most feeling of lightness once we got up off the coaster on this day.

The next stop was Riddler's Revenge. The green stand-up coaster. We waited in line maybe 15 minutes, and then rode the beast. We literally walked straight up to the loading queues for this one. Riddler's was slightly rough and provided a little bit of head-banging, but otherwise was fun.

Our non-official guide took us past Terminator due to his disdain of wooden coasters, I guess that "new" coaster would have to wait for another time for me. We went to Deja-Vu. After waiting for 30 minutes, the coaster broke down. We decided to keep on moving rather than wait.

We finally hit some of the new coasters I was looking forward to! First up, the flying coaster, Tatsu! This coaster is supposed to mimic flying like a dragon, or maybe riding a dragon. You start in a sitting position, then in the station, they flip you down to superman position. You go up the lift hill like this, watching as the floor below slowly gets further and smaller. After a relatively quick lift hill, the coaster starts with a "freefall" type drop which was amazing given the position you were in, it felt somewhat how I would assume skydiving feels except you are strapped in. I couldn't tell you about the rest of the ride, but it was definitely smooth and felt like you were flying. My favorite coaster of the day! Too bad it was an hour plus wait time.

For our last coaster of the day we went to X2 - the 4D coaster. This line was 90 minutes or even longer. The fourth dimension in this sitting coaster is that the seats rotate also while you are on the tracks. This one, you go up the lift hill backwards and down and up the first little hump backwards before the seats rotate you facing straight downwards for the initial drop. Similar to Tatsu, this initial drop is flying straight down almost like skydiving before leveling out. After that, the coaster takes various turns and curves at over 70 MPH, and this was the only coaster that actually made me grab the restraints a couple times. It just felt out of control at times. That would normally make me give this coaster the highest of marks... but all the head-banging I experienced here knocked its score down. Great coaster, just wished it was smoother. I also missed the effects, I wonder if there are minimal fire and fog effects during the day, those things being more visible at night/dusk.

My wife and I had to go home early this day, so we stopped for a churro (wasn't very good), and they took off. 4 rides in 6 hours. Sounds like a typical summer day at Six Flags and yet it was in spring. Overall fun times, and probably satisfies my coaster fix until I have kids that are grown up enough to go.