Holiday Day 15 (March 16th) A Day in Vancouver.
Stanley Park, Granville Island and other places
We had two and a half days in Vancouver, not enough time to see everything. Not even enough time to see 10% of “A bustling west coast seaport in British Columbia, and one of Canada’s densest, most ethnically diverse cities. A popular filming location, it’s surrounded by mountains, and also has thriving art, theatre and music scenes. Vancouver Art Gallery is known for its works by regional artists, while the Museum of Anthropology houses preeminent First Nations collections…”
Stanley Park
Forget that. There were other things to see like a Trump hotel (we walked by on the other side, heads turned), a steam-powered clock, an Indian restaurant and other ‘must see’ attractions. Because we’d arrived late the day before, our tour of the city was rearranged for this afternoon, giving us the morning to wander and wonder, and after breakfast, we headed to the waterfront and Stanley Park.
[Stanley Park is a 405-hectare public park that borders the downtown of Vancouver, and is mostly surrounded by waters of Burrard Inlet and English Bay. The park has a long history and was one of the first areas to be explored in the city.]
It was one of the first areas to be explored by us too. It wasn’t a long walk from our hotel in the West End, and it was a bright though somewhat chilly morning. The air was brittle and so clean you could see for miles, as we walked along the shore into the edge of Stanley Park, and took a look at some totem poles which came from ‘remote areas in British Columbia.’
Nearby, we had our first taste of the welcoming attitude of Canadians and found this sign that Little Pad was delighted to see.
He counts himself as a gender diverse kind of bear and was accompanying us on this trip around the city. Older Paddington was having some kind of sulk for a reason I now forget, and pretending not to enjoy himself. You know how bears are.
There’s a photo coming up in a moment that needs explanation, and here it is. Back in 2011, we popped over to Australia to see my brother. I say ‘popped over’ because we were only there for two weeks, but actually, one doesn’t ‘pop’ anywhere from Symi in the winter. Our journey to Australia took several days, one or two in Rhodes, so we didn’t get caught out by bad weather and miss the boat and thus the flight. Then two or three nights in Brighton for the same reason, having built in a cushion before the main flight from Heathrow to Sydney. We then spent a fortnight in Australia with the family and a few days on our own with Kate Mary in Sidney visiting other friends we’d come to know from Symi, and ‘popped’ back home via a three-day journey.
That’s another story, but while we were in Australia, I did some filming with my video camera (this was pre-mobile phone). One of my great tricks with the video cam was to either leave the lens cap on and film hours of nothing, or forget to switch the thing off after filming and record hours of the ground while walking. Well, I’ve included this next photo just for Jenine who finds such errors hilarious, and it was taken in Stanley Park.
Lunch like a local
One of the great things about Canada, I learnt, was that it is not only welcoming to gender diversity but ethnic diversity too. I expect that might be a little rose-tinted and if I lived there, I’d soon pick up on racism etc. that exists everywhere, but as a tourist, I’d rather think good of the place and people. That being the case, finding a place to eat was simple enough, but deciding between a huge variety of foods wasn’t. There was so much choice, from your standard, unhealthy fast (-track to an early grave), to healthy (read: windy), to local which seemed to mean anything from Korean to Chinese, French to Guatemalan. However, our choices were limited by signs on doors saying, ‘Closed due to C-19’ which had started to appear the day before. Rumours of an imminent lockdown had begun to circulate by then.
We found an Indian restaurant that was not only open but also welcoming, empty and obeying new guidelines about distancing and hygiene. I’ve never eaten in America, but I hear their portions are as big as Trump’s personality disorder, and I wonder if they are as big as a Canadian-Indian meal for two. It’s hard to get the scale and depth of our lunch in this photo, but you could have swum in that chicken dish, and pebble-dashed your back-to-back with the rice with enough left over for the outside privy.
Delicious, it set me up nicely for the rest of the day, as long as the rest of the day could be spent sleeping in blissful stuffed-ness.
It couldn’t, we had a rendezvous.
A slightly racist guided tour
You might have noticed that I’m not terribly good at recalling details, and you could be forgiven for thinking I go around with my eyes and ears half-closed. You’d be right, I do, and that’s why you’re forgiven. It’s also why I can’t remember how our guide for the coach trip around parts of the city came to be called ‘slightly racist.’ I think Jeremy started it. I vaguely remember, him, Neil and others talking about something the guide said, but I can’t remember exactly what was taken as being ‘slightly’ discriminatory. I do remember Neil saying that one couldn’t be ‘slightly’ racist. You either were, or you weren’t, and I think the whole thing became a joke I missed the start of. I think it was the way she spoke about the First Nation population or something…
Anyway, aboard the coach, our SR guide introduced herself and began babbling effulgently. (That’s a word from which you can make the anagram, ‘G! Effluently’ should you wish, and if it was a real word). We were toured around nearby parts of the city including the Prospect Point washrooms (gender diverse and very clean), the visitors centre and the viewpoint overlooking Lion’s Gate Bridge which spans the entrance to Vancouver Harbour.
This viewpoint came with dire warnings…
And it also came with a life-sized bear…
Later (or maybe before, you know me), we stopped for an hour or so on Granville Island and the famous Granville Market. Well, some of us did, others who shall remain nameless (Neil, Jeremey et al.) decided they needed a beer to get over the slightly racist guide, and so slunk off for a different kind of local flavour.
Meanwhile, I explored the market and the views, dodged seagulls and anyone coughing behind a mask, and had a lovely, quiet and sober time admiring crafts, homemade feasts, chocolate and delis.
Later, we visited this steam-powered clock I’ve been going on about, an attraction in Gastown, we were told, that did things on the half and hour. We hung around there for a while, but it didn’t perform, not until cameras were put away because it was twenty-five-to by then, and videos were switched off, then it did… something. Blew a whistle perhaps, I can’t remember.
Ah. Here you go: [Built in 1977, this well-known, antique-style clock is powered by steam, & whistles to tell the time.]
There then followed a debate about either walking back to the coach to get a lift to the Top Of Vancouver Revolving Restaurant, or walking there. This was to be our ‘last night group dining experience,’ or similar as promised in the brochure, even though this wasn’t our last night. As it was closer to where we were than the coach, logic won, and we walked.
And this is where another bloody glass elevator comes in, though, by then having the CN Tower’s horror ride under my belt, the ascent to the restaurant at merely 553 feet (as opposed to 1,225) was a breeze. This excursion was included in our tour package, in other words, paid for in advance, and at a reasonable rate – as the whole Great Rail Journeys tour was. I was glad it was inclusive, what with a green salad priced at $16.00, a side of onion rings at $13.00 and spaghetti carbonara at a cool $40.00. (That’s roughly €26.00 for pasta, in case you were wondering.) Mind you, you do get excellent food, great views and, in our case, extraordinary company.
We’d been asked to make our selection from the menu somewhere back around Jasper, so when it arrived, and we remembered what we thought we’d ordered, it came as a pleasant surprise. We also watched the sun go down…
To bed via Amsterdam
Post-dinner, we descended to ground level and were bussed back to the hotel. Everyone went their separate ways, but we were interested in exploring the happy shop a few doors down and called into what we christened the ‘dope shop’ to see what one was like.
Now then, once upon a time in the 1980s, I went to Amsterdam. I’ve been a few times actually. 1) on a ‘works outing’ weekend by coach that was cheap and not too cheerful. 2) to visit an opera singer friend of mine who had moved there. 3) To see said opera singer open as Old Deuteronomy in Cats sung in Dutch… Oh, hang on, there’s a subplot slipping in here…
That’s my mate, Brian, going up on the tyre towards the end of the show. ‘After six months of that run,’ he said, ‘the only entertainment is wondering if Grizabella is going to fall off before I push her.’
The year was 1987, and Cats opened at the Carré Theatre in Amsterdam on July 18th. I arrived the day before, and went to the hotel my friend, Brian, had booked on my behalf. It was one of those tall, narrow, old-city buildings were everything creaks, and you wonder if it will still be standing in the morning. I found the reception on floor five, or somewhere, and presented myself to a very flustered lady dripping apologies onto her clogs.
‘I am zo zorry, Mr Klins,’ she effused as her opening gambit. ‘I put you in my backside tonight, but tomorrow, you have my voorkant.’
Somewhat unnerved, and with no option other than to be homeless in Holland for three nights, I hid my horror, became awfully British, and replied with, ‘How kind.’
After we’d negotiated each other’s language, it transpired that she had given me a room at the back overlooking a very attractive drainage system, but would move me to a canal view and a front bedroom (a slaapkamer voorzijde, apparently) the next day.
O…kay.
I couldn’t work out why until, after the opening night the following evening, I was having a drink with Brian, and he explained.
He’d called into the hotel to book my limited budget room a few days previously, and Madame Voorkant had said she was completely sold out apart from her’ backside’, and that would have to do. He arrived home later and saw himself being interviewed on the TV along with the other stars of the show. A few minutes later, his phone rang, and an apoplectic Madame Vookant verbally prostrated herself in remorse and promised his geëerde gast, his ‘honoured guest’ would be moved to her best room as soon as it became free. You see, it’s not what you know in that sordid business, it’s who’s got the biggest part in Lloyd-Webber’s latest opening.
Where was I…?
Oh, yes, the happy shop. Other visits to Amsterdam included one on the way back from a three-week drive around Europe and one with Neil for my 35th birthday. On at least one of these occasions, I’d been drawn to seedy dens filled with clouds of pungent smoke where weed was sold by dubious dudes in caged booths. Thus, my impression of ‘happy shops’ was one of entering a Turkish prison before you’d done anything wrong; dodgy at best, illegal at worst, but something every 24-year-old had to try.
Well, all I can say is, in Canada, they do things with a lot more class.
That’s a photo taken inside what I can only describe as a cross between Habitat and the perfume hall at Harrods. You get a guided tour of the exhibits, elegantly displayed behind glass under museum lighting, you’re more or less counselled through your requirements by a lady in a white coat bearing medical degrees, and come away feeling as though you’ve just been shopping in Fortnum’s. Classy, I thought, and our shop assistant was such fun, I felt we’d made a friend for life.
We took a slow wander back to our hotel, where lifts once again enter the story, and, heading up to the tenth floor, took more notice of the posters covering the lift walls.
I wished I hadn’t. The first one brought on a mild sense of paranoia after where we’d just been…
The second was just typical of Canadian openness and brought on a fit of the giggles…
Later that night, I got lost trying to get from my bed to the bathroom. I found a door in the darkness and was about to open it when I realised it lead to the corridor, and only just saved myself the humiliation of being found wandering naked around a five-star hotel.
I will leave the story there, and let you make up your own ending to our first day in Vancouver because I certainly don’t remember any more of it.
