We woke up early to catch the boat entering the harbor and docking. After all the excitement dies down, we go down to the dining room for our final meal. After we finish eating, we take a power nap before needing to be out of our room by 8am. They have meeting places for various groups to stagger everyone's release (think it was determined by luggage and flight times) and ours was upstairs on the deck. We head down a little earlier than expected and they were just letting us go.
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| Starting to come into town as it is still early. |
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| Passing under a bridge coming into the bay. |
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| Start seeing the city. |
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| Thar she blows! |
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| North end of Stanley park. |
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| I enjoy flags flapping in the wind, so I took advantage of 3 of them flapping together. |
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| Lots of building shapes/sizes down there. |
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| Another boat following us in. |
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| Final picture of the city as we start heading in. Lets go check this place out. |
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| Pay no attention to the tourists in the reflection. |
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| The types of things you see when you walk with no direction or purpose. |
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| Little different architecture from other parts of the city. |
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Cool statue walking around chinatown.
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| I found Mushu! |
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| Found an entrance to a chinese garden, let us explore. |
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| Just taking a stroll through a park on a great day. |
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| Beautiful little garden. |
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| Quite a relaxing view. |
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| A gazebo in the park. |
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| Weeping willow tree. |
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| The man, the legend. |
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| Entrance to the paid garden part. |
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| Found the Chinatown entrance gate finally. |
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| Chinatown markets, lets see what we got here. |
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| Lizard satay? |
So after getting off the ship, go drop our bags at the daily check place, and walk around the city. We first head east through gastown area which has some cool buildings but a huge homeless/drug/trash problem. After wondering around there for a little bit, we head a little south to Chinatown and Dr. Sun Yat Sen's Chinese garden; small but nice and quiet and pretty. Then we walked along the market streets of chinatown and stop at Kent's kitchen for a bite; was cafeteria style and were not entirely sure what we ordered but it was cheap with big portions and tasty, though I did find my meat to be really fatty and had bones mixed in with the food. After we finished, we walked down to the stadium area which is along the water so there were numerous people out on the water kayaking, rowing, etc. When we get there we see the plaza of nations, which I would assume was where they had the flag ceremony for the olympic games years ago as there was an olympic statue and an abundance of flag poles. Since then, or maybe at that time as well, there is a casino there for people to try their luck. Walk down along the water for a bit until we decide we should start making our way back. Meander through the streets and eventually come upon their Colosseum-styled library (I remember visiting this years ago and was just as impressed then as I am now). Left there and walked along granville street until we got back to get our bags. Still have some time after getting our bags our of storage so we grab some coffee at a nearby Blenz coffee shop and look at some things to do in the next couple of days since we have some time and internet. Once we finish our joe, we go down the street to the steamworks brewery for some beers and dinner until it is time to meet our AirBnB host.
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| The race is on! |
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| Museum on the water with a few people out enjoying the day like us. |
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| Artwork on a giant facade of the building downtown. |
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| Fountain on our walk. |
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| This city has trees on their buildings. So cool. |
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| So window shopping in vancouver is slightly different than other places :) |
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| Backside of the above underwear. |
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| Nice streets for a walk around the city on such a pretty day. |
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| Flowers on street signs is a nice touch. |
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| Going into the Coliseum-like library. Cool looking building inside and out. |
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| Social area within the Library walls but not in the actual library (to the left) yet. Cafes and food stalls line the right side. |
The beers were good, though I couldnt get them to tap a berliner weiss a few days early, but the pizzas were awesome. After finishing our meal, we jump on the skytrain and get off at metrotown to get to our AirBnB. He was coming intown that day and I didnt have cellular data so we had all kinds of problems figuring out exact time he would be there. We find the place and keep walking from his place to the metro station to get wifi to try and figure out what is happening. We eventually get it all figured out, get in, and he shows us his place; 1/1 where he gives the guests his bed and he sleeps on the couch with a changing partition for a fake wall. The towels we were supplied were like thin, hand towels which I feel like should have been mentioned as we could have bought towels while we were waiting. All that being said, the place was significantly cheaper than many other options, so we made the most of it. The host is a very friendly, knowledgeable resource on the surrounding area (likes to go on trails and takes nature pictures). We talked for a little bit then head to bed.
