Oh Canada!

Just got back from my trip to

and will be posting pictures and stories as I can throughout the day. I've set it up so you'll read them in chronological order. I hope you enjoy hearing about it!

Stanley Park!

So I flew out Wednesday. Enjoyed the little tiny plane and the great view of the islands and water between Seattle & Vancouver.



Arrived at my hotel, checked in and met my roommate, a doula from Ohio. Then I went down and met a bunch of doulas at the hotel hot tub.


The next morning I got up bright and early and headed out to see the city. I only had one day, so I wanted to make the most of it. My first stop was Stanley Park, a large penninsula next to downtown that is, for the most part, still close to what it was before the white man came here. I walked the mile and a half from my hotel to the park, and then I started out on the 5 and a half mile seawall that surrounds the park. I soon noticed that there were float planes coming in very low and landing in the harbor nearby.


I soon came to the totem poles:


The nine o'clock gun, which goes off daily, and has for over 100 years. (It's a protective cage/shed thingie now, thanks to numerous incidents of vandalism)

The Brockton Point Lighthouse. It was still pretty early in the morning, so the lighting was either great or lousy depending which side of the lighthouse I was on.



There was an interesting sculpture of a girl sitting on an offshore rock. When I was there, the rock was nearly all exposed, but on the plaque, the water was almost up to her feet. Later when I took the harbor cruise, the captain said that they were having one of the unusually low tides that comes 1-2 times a year. The harbor has about a 15 foot tidal range to begin with!

I couldn't find out any information about what this is, but it was similar to a totem, but at an angle. I liked that you could see the lion's head totem-like thingie, the girl on the rock statue, and the lighthouse all in one picture. Also in this picture is one of the many homeless people in Vancouver sleeping on the park bench.

Then I walked under the Lion's Gate Bridge. It's an older suspension bridge built in the 1920s or 30s. Very tall, very narrow! It barely fits 3 narrow lanes. Only cars are allowed because the lanes are so narrow and the center lane changes direction depending on the flow of traffic.


There's a little "lighthouse" under the bridge, but it's barely taller than me.

The far side of the park was much more isolated and peaceful. Very beautiful! I saw some shorebirds:




A solitary fisherman

And even a bald eagle! (You can click on the picture for a bigger version because he's hard to see. I don't have a telephoto lens!)

Siwash rock was very pretty as well:


It was a very long walk - and I did it in about 2 hours - but it was worth it!

Harbor Cruise

After my walk all around the park, I walked over to the harbor for the hourlong harbor cruise I'd booked. I rode on a paddle wheeler very much like the one I rode on at Lake Tahoe:

We saw all kinds of things around the harbor - good views of the skyline:



Canada Place, the big convention center (not the one where my conference was, though) and the place where cruise ships come and dock as well:

The media center/addition to Canada Place that is under construction where all the news coverage of the 2010 Winter Olympics will come from:

The massive ships and cranes in the port:

Closeups of the float planes landing and taking off:


And some of the things I'd walked by that morning. Here you can see the lighthouse and Lion's Gate Bridge from the water:

Not only was it beautiful, it just plain felt great to sit down for a while and let the cool sea breezes blow over me!

The Aquarium

After the harbor cruise, I walked back into Stanley Park, grabbed some lunch at a small cafe, and went to the Vancouver Aquarium, which is a very nice one! I took a ton of pictures - several hundred! The light indoors made it challenging to get great pictures inside, but I got a few halfway good ones:





Outside was MUCH beter! I used the burst setting to get some nice ones of the dolphins, belugas, and otter. So for your viewing enjoyment, here they are:





The beluga just had a baby about a month ago. In fact, you can watch the birth here:

The water was MUCH clearer when that video was shot than it was when I was there, but I still managed some good photos. It's kind of hard to tell, but in the first one the baby is nursing!


This is the grandmother beluga, she was in a separate smaller tank because she kept wanting to take over and push the real mom out of the way.

As I was leaving, I noticed that the staff was giving one of the dolphins an ultrasound.

While another staff member played with the tank mate to keep him out of the way:


When they were done, the tank mate was happy to be released:

But the one getting the ultrasound was even happier!

And then I took my poor, tired body and hoofed it back to my hotel. I estimate a took 10 miles of walking in one day! Good thing the rest of my trip was pretty much just sitting around....