Vancouver

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As you can tell by my countdown timer, we are on holiday. We've spent a few days in Vancouver, BC prior to setting sail on our cruise (we embark today). We are in love with this incredible city, the beautiful Canadian people, the food, the sea port, all of it. Here are a few shots that Herself has taken. I hope you enjoy them. She has loads more, but I thought these were fairly representative of what we've seen. There are no food shots as we'd keep forgetting to take them before we started eating.

This is a shot of the Public Market on Granville Island. We spent a lovely half day there wandering around. We purchased lunch which consisted of dried and cured meat, cheese, baguette, olives... one of our favorite ways to eat. Oh, and dark chocolate salty caramels for dessert.

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The marinas are some of the cleanest we've ever seen. No stink of dead and dying fish. No garbage floating. They keep them very clean as are all the boats and schooners, yachts, etc.

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There are many, many boats and yachts for sale. We thought we just might be able to afford this one! (It's so us, don't you think)? Redboat.jpg

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YAYAYAYA loving the pics

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This shot is taken from the seawall in Vancouver. The city is, of course a port city and a magnificent one at that. The day was beautiful, but a touch hazy. The downtown commerce area is populated with tall skyscrapers of metal and glass. Taken as a whole, it's almost a bit overwhelming. Very futuristic. There is a bit of "old" here and there, but for the most part, the business area of Vancouver is high tech and very modern looking.

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This is a reflection of a building within the building. The exterior glass of most of the downtown buildings is highly reflective. Couldn't resist playing with a shot or two.

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You'll remember Vancouver was the host of the Winter Olympics 2010? This is the Olympic Torch. The mountains in the background were fabulous for we "flatlanders."

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We spent much time by the sea. This (fat, gray) gull was dining on starfish. One of the gulls swallowed one whole. It was a frightening sight to see! Was convinced it would choke to death, but it managed to survive.

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The Vancouver Harbor has a seaplane terminal. We watched as seaplane after seaplane took off and landed. I loved the gas station in the middle of the harbor!
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So there are a few shots of this beautiful city. We are loving it. Could easily, EASILY live here. The place is clean, the traffic although heavy is well controlled and there is not a heavy handed police presence. We watched a film being shot (three days in a row) in an area of downtown. It's "Metallica." (Yes, the band). Amazing stuff and equipment like you wouldn't believe! Prices are high, but not for a city. The only thing we never found was a proper grocery store! Little convenience stores here and there, but nothing that shows us where the city dwellers buy their food. And yes, it's an urban city with a heavy residential faction.

Oh, another thing we noticed is that there are very few old people around. Unlike, NYC where you see them coming and going about their daily business, Vancouver seems quite young, and full of beautifully dressed young professionals. Men wear suits and women wear heels! There is a young element that wears irreverent, shock factor clothing, but nothing seriously untoward (more along the lines of "just fun"). We did see two women who were noticeable for their ermmmmm... lack of properly fitting clothing. Herself wondered if they were working girls. They could have been, but even so, they were fairly classy (without gobs of makeup, ect). It was just the barely there clothing that caused them to "stick out" and be noticeably different from the rest of the people surrounding them.

Was very happy to see very few jeans and almost no t-shirts in this city! YAYAYAYAYAYAY! I get so sick of jeans and t-shirts.

Not sure when I'll get a chance to upload more photos as we will be without wifi for the majority of the remainder of our holiday.

Take care, and "see you all real soon!"