Josh's Travel Blog

Hey guys,

We have almost finished our stay at Vancouver, I will be sad to see it go. Tomorrow we will be jumping on the cruise. In Vancouver, the first day we flew in, we were picked up by Jane and Ben Pickles, our friends from Vancouver.

https://www.imdb.com/name/nm6045993/

https://tardis.fandom.com/wiki/Ben_Pickles

Ben does special effects for movies and TV Shows, specifically Doctor Who.

Our first day we went to visit some gardens in Queen Elizabeth park, and there we saw multiple brides getting wedding photos, near a very popular wedding venue.

 

 

 

 

 

 

We then had an AMAZING dinner cooked by Tom Pickles, Jane’s wife and Ben’s dad. We had salmon and three different salads which were all incredible! (especially the potato salad)

The next day we went for a nice walk through the bush in the endowment lands.

We went for a lovely walk around the Vancouver beachfront around Stanley Park. The water was nothing like back home, it was quite brown at the start and then got bluer as we went around. There were sea planes taking off all the time, and all together, we walked more than 20 kms. I jumped down on the beach to walk while everyone else was boring and walked on the concrete pathway above.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We went out to Prospect Point to lookout over the city and had some ice cream at the top. We saw a really cute racoon climb into a rubbish bin, and then came out with his dinner.  We later saw another climbing through the river. From there we saw the famous Lions Gate bridge, looking towards The Lions, the twin peaks in the distance.

That night we had dinner on the beach with some delicious sushi. We also took some Bennett’s Feijoa Chocolate (which our friends politely told us they didn’t want any more of). We also saw some super cute squirrels.

On the way home we had a walk around the University of British Columbia and Museum of Anthropology on the endowment lands.

On Thursday, we took a bus down to Granville Island (which is not actually an island) Markets. We walked around some shops and I bought my first postcard ever. We went into an art gallery full of indigenous art. Because I am so uncultured, I started to video some of the art, to which the curator politely told me to take off my backpack and turn off my camera. From there we walked all the way down false creek towards the World of Science. There was a lot of what we thought was art, and a little island. Dad and I spent a few hours in the World of Science, which we later realised was aimed at a demographic just a tad younger than us. I went on a cool VR flight, where I was a bird flying around New York City.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dad and I jumped onto a water taxi, where we cruised back up False Creek past all of the places we just walked past.

We met up with the rest of the group who had gone ‘Thrift Shopping’, following a random stranger they met to North Vancouver. We walked to the Cactus Club where we had dinner and watched the sunset.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Friday we went up Grouse Mountain and had some lunch up there, I had pulled pork poutine. We saw some bears up there as well.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We took a chair lift up to the top of the top of the mountain.

I then took an elevator up to the top of a massive wind turbine with a 360º viewing platform and a tourist helicopter flew past.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We took the chairlift back down, then the gondola, then drove back home.

Tom again cooked an incredible dinner – chicken adobo on rice.

The next morning we packed up and got ready to leave Vancouver. We went shopping.

Sad to see Vancouver go, but so happy to jump on the cruise!