We got a late start today. I guess our little West End apartment is so quiet that I could sleep in for once, and I did not get up until after nine o’clock! I am not sure I have ever slept so late unless I just had a flight from Asia the day before. John decided to go to the gym – a free pass was included with our rental – and I stayed with the dogs and worked on editing photos. The great thing about digital cameras is since you are not paying for film you think nothing of taking 120 pictures or more in a day. The bad part is that you have to go through and make some choices and delete them or else your hard drive is full before you know it.
Around noon, we piled the dogs in the car and went downtown, parking near Canada Place, the 1986 World’s Fair building which became the Vancouver convention center and a cruise ship terminal. It is not particularly dog-friendly, so we did not go in there. Instead, armed with a few pages from a walking tour I found on the Internet, we wandered through the streets of downtown Vancouver. It did not take that long to see the sights there because there is not much really great architecture in the central business district. It tends to be functional and dull, much like the office towers that Skidmore, Owens, and Merrill built all over San Francisco in the 1980’s and 1990’s. It is not Chicago. Vancouver is saved, however, by the sheer beauty of its natural setting.
We did have a walking tour planned for two o’clock of the Gastown District. We were late and were afraid that we had missed the tour. As it turned out, the tour guide never did show. But we had a pleasant time chatting with some of our fellow would-be tourists including these red hat ladies. I was only vaguely aware of the Red Hat Society movement from an episode of The Simpsons. I did not realize until I came home and did a Google search that there are thousands of women who wear red hats and purple dresses and decide to go out and have a good time together. They were fun, and made me yearn for the heyday of the ECW where I always used to find these ladies.
This old girl was our favorite. The glasses are the best.
Once we figured out that the tour was not happening, we all went our separate ways. John and I looked around Gastown. It is the original settlement on the north shore of the peninsula, and its name has nothing to do with gas lighting. Instead, it is named after saloon keeper Jack Deighton who was called “Gassy Jack” because of his predilection for telling long and involved stories. There is no doubt a lot of interesting Victorian history here that we missed by not going on the tour. All that you see as you walk through the area is a collection of tee shirt shops and other tourist traps. I think that this serves as a place for cruise ship passengers leaving from Canada Place to wander around until the boat is ready to leave. The “steam clock” is shown below. I could not figure out if this was really historical or just another faux bit.
We went on to the Vancouver Art Gallery after this. Originally the British Columbia Law Courts building, this was converted in the 1970’s to be a modern art museum when the new court buildings were built nearby. I found the various installations to be pretty dull; I think John had a better time here.
We went south to the VanDusen Botanical Gardens. We intended to stay a little longer here because there was no “No Pets” policy on their website. But when we arrived we were greeted with a “Guide Dogs Only” sign. So we did a quick walk through, feeling guilty about leaving the dogs in the car already while we were at the museum. It was pretty, though nothing compared with our trip to Wisley in Surrey.
This little family politely almost seemed to pose for us.
There was a Korean garden here, and it was quite lovely. I wish the concept of Korean gardening was a little more apparent to my Korean neighbors who seem to favor concrete paving as their landscaping of choice.
Today we did find the dog beach that we missed yesterday. And it turned out that it is huge, stretching nearly a mile along the south bank of the English Bay near Pacific Spirit Park. The dogs did have a good time here.
Our final stop of the morning was a bit off the tourist trail. I had read about Commercial Drive and was a little intrigued to explore it. Commercial Drive is the last bastion of the counterculture in Vancouver. It proudly has no chain stores or restaurants. It has coffee shops which proclaimed that they are “Worker Owned!” and you can buy your books at the “People’s Book Co-op”. It just brings back warm memories of Berkeley or Ann Arbor in the 1960’s and 1970’s. We found this band rehearsing in a small park just off the street. They were playing something with a bit of a Caribbean feel to it, though I do not usually associate tubas and euphoniums with the islands, mon….
Part of the band were a group of counter culture red hat ladies. Instead of purple dresses and red hats, however, they favored parasols which they twirled and danced with as the band played. They were fun!
All of this attracted a small crowd including this young visitor for England. She was enchanted by the dogs, particularly Edie.
Edie liked her new friend and loved to watch the ladies dancing and twirling their parasols.
We had dinner at Havana, a great little restaurant there on “The Drive”. I had some amazing tostones and ropa vieja, all washed down with some local lager. A pleasant end to a pleasant day.
