The past few days

I apologize for the delay in this post.... those coffee shops in Vancouver with wireless internet are few and far between. That or we were out sightseeing (and our hotel did not have internet)!

Sun, Aug 13-- As hinted at in the previous post, Shamil and Nash took us out to the Rockies! We drove to Banff national park, and boy is it gorgeous. Once in the mountains, everywhere you look you want to take another picture. The Bow River that flows through the area is bright green/blue and glacially fed with mineral deposits. We went to Johnston's Canyon where we were greeted by a Parks Canada guide who said that a bear was sighted in the past hour, so we should travel in groups and be careful around blind corners. We walked in along stone boardwalks to see a nice waterfall, and did run into a few chipmunks, but no bears again. We got back on the Trans Canada to head back to the town of Banff. There they have the huge Fairmont Banff Springs resort, starting at ~$450/nt. The whole town was full of people, and lots of touristy shops and restaurants. We only stayed there a little while, and headed back to Canmore to have supper. Shamil and I both had bison lasagna, so I had bison three different ways in 2 days! We left the beauty of the mountains and headed back to Calgary, and then Matt and I proceeded onwards to Edmonton.

Mon, Aug 14 -- We had to get up bright and early to return our car, and get to the VIA station. The train was already running late. so we had to wait for the Canadian to arrive. There is not much for exciting scenery outside of Edmonton until the Rockies are reached again. This time we entered Jasper National Park, and the train made a stop in Jasper for about 45 minutes. Jasper seems slightly less resort-town than Banff, but it is still full of gift shops and has the Fairmont Jasper Park Lodge (which we couldn't see) as well. Back on the train we went past Moose Lake, 8km of blue/green waters, of course surrounded by tall mountains. We had some rain, so along the way we also got to see some pretty rainbows. After exiting the National Park, we passed Mount Robson, the tallest mountain in the Canadian rockies, but it had some clouds at its peak. Later in the evening we passed Pyramid Falls, where the train slows down so people can snap pictures. That night we dined on Mr Noodles and watched some of Brokeback Mountain, since it was filmed here in Alberta.

Tues, Aug 15 --We arrived in Vancouver a couple hours late, as is usual. At the train station the line for cabs was enormous so we decided to walk over to our hotel, which was nice after sitting for a long time. We were able to check in early again, and rested to make up for some lost sleep on the train. Then we strolled down Robson St, supposedly Vancouver's Rodeo Drive, but it was more reminiscent of St Catherine in Montreal than what I would imagine Rodeo Dr to be like. We had lunch at Bojangles Cafe, a chain, but decent nonetheless. We then rented bikes and biked around Stanley Park, a 1000-acre peninsula just west of downtown. We got to look back at the city, go under Lion's Gate Bridge, look out towards Vancouver Island and see lots of container ships, go past beaches on English Bay, and head back. It was a nice way to get some exercise and a lovely ride. Continuing our way along the waterfront we walked past the marinas looking to North Van, and past Canada Place convention center. We had a pint each at the Steamworks Brewery, then made our way towards Gastown, where the city began. We walked around just down the Water St, then didn't go any further than Carral (?) as it is supposed to get pretty sketchy pretty fast. Even then we went through a park that I would not have liked at night. After a bit more walking around, we headed towards Yaletown, where we dined at Lucy Mae Browns. We had a seafood platter to start, with lobster turnovers, risotto and prawns, and salmon and halibut tartares. The halibut tartare was actually quite nice! And the platter turned out to be on the house since it was a little slow in getting to us! Sweet! Matt had a salmon entree and I had lamb shank with a cinnamon-y flavour, quite good. After a supper like that, what better way to end the night by watching some Food Network and head to bed.

Weds, Aug 16 -- The morning commenced with coffee and banana bread, then we headed back to Gastown to go to Storyeum, an underground live history museum. The BC live part was okay, it had actors in 6 different rooms acting out native customs, the Hudsons Bay Company coming, gold and getting people to move to BC, and the transcontinental railway coming. This program seemed more geared towards families with kids, so we were kind of disappointed. We also got to see Dinosaurs in Gastown, which redeemed the visit. There were a number of fossils, and dinosaur skeletons constructed from 80% real fossils, including a Crightonasaurus, named after Michael Crighton! I also pretended to be a dinosaur. We got to see an life size animatronic T-Rex too, which was pretty cool. We lunched in Gastown, at an Irish pub, and walked back past the steam whistle clock once again on our way out. We walked around the Historic district a bit, and headed all the way down Granville St, contemplating going to Granville Island and market, which would have been closed by then, so decided against it. Instead we made our way to Yaletown again, and over to the southeast waterfront, and back up to Robson to get Sushi for supper. I was only adventurous enough to have California rolls, but it was pretty good.

Thurs, Aug 17-- We made haste to get back to the waterfront and catch a ferry to Granville Island, and had coffee and a scone for breakfast at the public market there. We wandered about the whole island, past the Emily Carr art school, a houseboat community, through numerous artsy shops, some book stores, the Granville Island Brewery, etc. We had lunch at a seafood place where Matt had salmon fish & chips, and I had a cajun salmon burger. It was great, and a very popular place. We headed back to the market where we began and grabbed ice cream before catching the ferry back to Yaletown. We taxied it over to the station, arriving at 4:15 to find people already lined up for a 6pm train! We had to go through security for Amtrak, something we've never had to do for VIA, and boarded the Cascades 45minutes before the train was to depart. The cars on this train are smaller than normal cars, and it has two fins. Supposedly this train can go 80mph now, but if tracks were improved could go 110mph! Leaving Vancouver, the mountains look like a paper cutout behind the city, and approaching the border the tracks are right along the splashing rocky waterfront. USA here we come!