There’s Darth Vader playing the violin – Day 2: Vancouver

After waking up, as you do, at 4:30 a.m. and going back to sleep I finally got up at 7:30 and got washed and dressed before writing up the trip report for the first day. Although I had intended to write up the trip report every day this was the only day I actually did it and some days I didn’t even make notes. :oops:

We went out at 8:40 and after having to let 3 lifts go because they were full we decided to walk down the stairs and hope the fire exit at the bottom did not have an alarm on it. Luckily the door at the bottom was open so we made our way out and onto the streets of Vancouver.

We had been to Vancouver a couple of years ago so we knew exactly where we were going and first stop was the Gastown area, named after the father of the City: ‘Gassy Jack’ Deighton, who got his nickname from talking too much.

Gastown is just a couple of blocks from the hotel so after a short walk we were standing in front of the steam clock, which was steaming away nicely.

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The clock is driven entirely by steam and steam whistles play the Westminster chimes every 15 minutes and ‘strike’ the top of each hour. I waited a couple of minutes for the chimes at 9:15 and we then had a wander around the shops on Gastown, which sell a mixture of tourist souvenirs and native art. We returned to the clock for the 10:00 ‘strike’ before wandering round the rest of the shops and then making our way down to Robson Street which is Vancouver’s equivalent of Oxford Street.

On our way down to Robson Street we stopped off for a cup of coffee and sat outside for a while watching the world go by. Feeling refreshed we made our way up Robson Street and stopped off in HMV where I managed to spend $268.87 (£134) on DVDs :ashamed008: including Benson, CHiPs (anybody remember those) and Full House (only one more season left to buy now).

After HMV we stopped in a shop called Salmon Village which does nothing but (you guessed it) salmon. I had been looking at the salmon jerky (like beef jerky only made of salmon) in the shops in Gastown and we decided to get some here to try. It comes vacuum packed so we decided even if we didn’t try it while we were away we could still bring it home as it wouldn’t need to be refrigerated.

Continuing up Robson Street we arrived at the Blue Horizon hotel where we had originally been told we were going to stay while in Vancouver. By now it was lunchtime so we stopped off at the pavement café next to the hotel where we both had smoked salmon club sandwiches and a pint of lager for a total of $35.00 including tip.

After lunch we crossed over Robson Street and began walking down the other side. We went into Sears and, as Vancouver is hosting the 2010 Winter Olympic Games, I bought an official Olympics polo shirt, shot glass and pin.

After doing so much walking we went back to the room for a short rest before going down to the bar next to the hotel where we discovered honey brown lager, which was to become our drink of choice for the rest of the holiday. It’s a lot lighter than normal lagers and we’ve since discovered that quite a few pubs over here do it so if you see anywhere serving Sleeman’s Honey Brown lager I can thoroughly recommend it.

Before long hunger was setting in so I ordered a Tostada salad while Dad had a Parisian Panini and we had another pint of Honey Brown each. Total for the night was $55.

Suitably stuffed we went back to the room to pack for tomorrow we were back on the move. We were both in bed by 9:30 (party animals we ain’t).

Tomorrow: Off to Victoria