3rp.net Blog

Wednesday was spent at the Vancouver Aquarium. I have some pics, and yes I will post them…but not tonight. [edit: here they are! 1/22/05]

Thursday morning, thinking that it would be raining (again), we went off to a museum called “Historyeum”, which is a multimedia presentation of Vancouver’s history. It didn’t rain. All. Day. Which was cool, cuz we got some more cool pics of the area in Vancouver called “Gastown” and had a chance to ride mass transit here on our way to meet with Andy Park. More on that later…

We met this guy at the aquarium. His name is Tag. For some reason, as I was thinking of him, I was registering his name as the first part of that famous watch maker, Tag Heuer…not as the kid’s game. Go figger! What a personality on this guy! Karen and I both enjoyed the animal shows very much. AND we got a discount for being Hostel members. How cool.

Here’s a closeup of Tag’s head. I got the sense that he really liked posing for pics…:

Cutest little sea otters you’d ever wanna meet:

Now THIS is cool. Check it out: Jellyfish in action!

And, another angle on the Vancouver skyline for good measure.

Here’s a shot of what the locals call “North Van”. This picture was taken from the north shore of Vancouver City.

Take a lookee here…

Arrived in Vancouver last night at 7pm local time…felt like 10pm to us, and then we waited in vain for our checked luggage to come through. We’d had a stopover in Toronto (damn cold, but pretty airport…) and only a little less than an hour between flights. So…got into our hostel in Vancouver with no more than our carryons. Heh. Canada customs were very nice though. I half expected to get a thrashing for re-electing GWB…well not really, but you never know.

What a difference between Toronto/Detroit area and Vancouver. When we got over this side of the continent, there were impenatrable rain clouds…on the ground it was 50F and pouring rain. Got to bed at 1:30 EST, and woke this morning to glowering grey clouds…breakfast at the hostel was remarkably good for a “continental” breakfast. It was a good spread, with lots and lots of carbs (*sigh*) and fresh fruit. Atrocious coffee, but I guess you can’t have everything. Checked with the desk and Air Canada had delivered our luggage in the night. Hooray!

Some things are as you might expect, others are strange. Vancouver airport is absolutely georgeous. More European than American for sure. Dairy products are rediculously expensive. Internet time, by contrast is dirt cheap. I’m at an internet cafe no more than 40 paces from the hostel’s front door, and it’s 1.50 CAD for an hour. ( ! )

After getting over my crankiness at Air Canada’s baggage handling, I’m really feeling quite excited about this new stage.

Will keep you “posted” so to speak…