Vancouver part deux

On Monday we went to North Vancouver on the Seabus. It is a short ferry ride, but the ferry is totally enclosed. I guess they don't want people falling or jumping into the water.

We first walked around Lonsdale Quay. It was nice, but not anything special. We then caught a bus to Lynn Canyon Park. The park has a suspension bridge, similar to the Capilano Suspension bridge, but it doesn't cost $30 to walk across. The park is beautiful. There are many paths to walk, waterfalls, and swimming pools. We didn't see those things though because we didn't have much time there. We ate at a funny cafe at the park run by an Indian couple. I say it is funny because it seems strange to find a full blown nice restaurant in a park. We checked out the Nature Center at the park, which had tons of ecological information (although mostly geared towards kids).

We jumped back on the bus and had a nice chat with a Scottish lady who runs a B&B. We thought about going to Grouse Mountain (we probably should have gone). We ended up heading back to Vancouver on the Seabus (after looking for a bar listed in the guidebook for about 20 minutes!).

We got on the Sky Train (aboveground subway) and took a ride to Commerical Ave. We were heading to a Belgian Fries place. Duane had an unfortunate encounter with a woman who was on some kind of drugs (Vancouver has safe injection sites). Duane thought she was trying to tell him something, but she really wasn't. The Belgian Fries were awesome, although they did not have Storm beer as the guide said they did.

We were off to Dix BBQ & Brewery for some beer. There was hardly enough in the place, but the bartender was not interested in talking to us. We had Red Truck Ale and Red Truck Lager. Ok, but nothing special.

We walked down to Chinatown to see the skinniest building, the Sam Kee building. We then headed over to Gastown (walking through hobo land). We ended up at the Black Frog (I had to go to the bathroom). There was also no one in this place and the bartenders were more friendly. We ended up drinking way too much beer (4 each, but we had 2 each earlier). The beer was good, although I can't remember exactly what we had.

We stumbled out of the Black Frog to head up to a hotel with a revolving bar on top. It was on top of the Westin Bayshore and called Vistas. While we walked up Hastings, we encounter a crime scene. There were cops and news crews and we didn't know what had happened. We got to the revolving bar and ordered our beers (Stella as they didn't even have any good CA beer on tap!). We argued about whether or not the restaurant was really moving (Duane was being silly), but it really was. We contemplated ditching the tab when we found out it was $16 for 2 beers. We figured someone would catch us downstairs as we had to go down 42 to stories. We headed back down Hastings and ended up at a steak place for dinner. I had an awesome rare fliet mignon with a blue cheese crust. We were pretty loopy by this point. We made it back to the hotel where I found out about what had happened earlier that night. There was/is a person in Vancouver who had been attacking homeless people. That night was the fourth person that was attacked and they had had their throat slit (they didn't die though). Freaky.

We got up Tuesday and made it to the airport. We weren't feeling too bad either. The Vancouver airport is beautiful with lots of glass, waterfalls, and open spaces. When you have an international flight and go through security to your gate, they sequester you in this area with only a few restaurants and shops. You can see all the cool shops and restaurants, but you can't get to them!

I will get to posting some pictures soon.