Vancouver – Day 5

I have booked another tour with the amazing Erik today – but this time I have a waterproof jacket! As The Who song goes “... won’t get fooled again.”

After grabbing a quick breakfast I then went & joined the tour party for the trip to Lynn Canyon. Like Erick’s last tour we started off walking into downtown Vancouver, this time stopping at the Courts of Justice via the University of British Columbia campus just along Robson Street. Next came the only overlap on the two tours – Vancouver library – but as it was the only one I wasn’t complaining.

As we were walking through downtown streets to our next destination I had to undo my jacket as I was getting warm. About two minutes later one of the guys in our group came over to me and said “Here mate, what football shirt is that?” I just held my jacket open and said “My home team Southend United.” “Bloody hell” he said sticking out his hand, “I was born & raised in Rayleigh!” We waxed lyrical about Southend and its environs for a while. Ian, that was his name, now lives in Manchester with his wife (whose name I didn’t catch) and is also on an extended travelling trip having gone by way of Thailand, Singapore, Australia, America (the real one according to Team America) and Canada before heading back to the UK. From Vancouver they were going to be heading east as far as Quebec before going home. [I told you the setting was wrong when we did the “world wash”.]

This time we walked through Chinatown. Erik had warned us about the dried fish, which does smell rather strong, but whereas Chinatown in Toronto was a mixture of all Asians this was solely Chinese. There are a lot of Chinese migrants in Vancouver and a lot of Chinese Canadians. This stems back to when Canadian Pacific Railway brought over, initially 150, Chinese workers to work on the railways. Effectively they were paid slaves as they got to do all the “serious shit” like the blasting, handling of unstable dynamite and clearing all the rock falls in the “Avalanche Alley”. Basically as a few of them got killed CPR would just bring in some more. When the railway was finished the Canadian government wanted to ship them all back home as they had fulfilled their usefulness. Needless to say, these people didn’t want to go as they had settled, made homes and families and although they were paid less wages than their white masters they were rich by homeland Chinese standards. As more migrants kept coming from China the government levied a “head tax” on Chinese immigrants (just the Chinese ones) which was raised every year to a staggering $500, which was the equivalent of two years wages. It seems the Canadian government had learned well from their former colonial masters! (That’s the British in case you can’t work it out!) This isn’t just me venting some venom, the Canadian government realised the errors of their ways; erected a monument to the Chinese Rail workers and the Chinese servicemen who fought as Canadian forces in WW2 and issued an official apology to their Chinese citizens and China. They also paid for a Chinese garden to be built in Chinatown in the proper ancient style, i.e. it was hand built.
The plethora of meats, fishes, vegetables, herbs, spices and fungi available was staggering and a total riot of colours and smells.
The last bit we saw in Chinatown was the world’s narrowest building – as confirmed and listed in the Guinness Book of Records. It is only 2 metres wide! This also came about due to the mistreatment of the Chinese by the authorities and was built out of spite. The original landowner, a Chinese man, had purchased the land and had received planning permission to build a proper full sized building on his own land. However, the city authorities “changed their minds” as they insisted the road needed widening and so reclaimed all but two metres of his land. As he had been granted permission to build a structure on his land, he did so on what was left to him – 2 metres! (The building alongside it didn’t exist when the narrow building was completed – so it stuck out like a sore narrow thumb – and obviously meant more of a protest when it stood alone.)

After a bit more walking we boarded the bus which took us out to North Vancouver. It is quite amazing at just how vast & spread out the city is. I suppose it is not unlike any major city but Vancouver is surrounded by mountains & water and when seen in relation to these it probably appears bigger than it is – although it is big, Stanley Park itself is 100 hectares in size and contains its own forest.
We alighted in the Lynn Canyon Park and had a wonderful hike through part of the forest. A few people stopped to take pictures of the sign stating “Bears active in this area” but as there were a group of 22 of us there was no chance of seeing one – at least nowhere close. Contrary to popular misinformed belief bears will not attack humans for the fun of it. They will only attack if startled; that is you approach them very quietly from downwind so they can’t smell or hear you (they have very poor eyesight) but most individual hikers wear a “bear bell” which will warn of one’s approach and the bear will give anyone a wide berth – they are as frightened of us as we are of them. The only other time they will attack is if they have young cubs – but then one only has to threaten any caring mother’s offspring and see what happens! They do have an excellent sense of smell though and can smell any food one might be carrying up to 3Km away.

After a reasonable hike we stopped at Mirror Lake for lunch. This has some viewing platforms built around it which were left by the film crew after filming parts for the film “Are We There Yet?” I haven’t seen it personally so don’t know what it is like, but the lake setting is beautiful. Another bit of useless information: Vancouver is the third most used film location after California and New York and has the nickname of “Hollywood North”. Erik told us there are several of these structures film crews leave behind as gifts to the city – all very useful. One in particular was a log cabin which is now used as a Nature Appreciation Centre for children and hosts many school trips – we walked right past it but I didn’t catch which film it was used for. Another claim to fame was the waterfall jump in “Kiss The Girls” (The scary film starring Morgan Freeman & Lesley Judd) which was filmed in Lynn Canyon. As an added note; the stunt woman who performed the jump (of course Ashley didn’t do it) broke three ribs in the process. Lynn Canyon happens to hold a macabre record for deaths. The majority of these are teenage boys between 13 & 16 who go “canyoning” and don’t make it. (I can remember back to the time when one was immortal and invincible – I was just lucky enough to live through it!)
Anyway, leaving aside the macabre, Lynn Canyon is very impressive and, in places, just like a large axe cut through sheer rock. The suspension bridge across it is nowhere near as high or long as Capilano, but still impressive in the views one gets of the canyon below. I was chatting to a young Belgian girl, Cherese, prior to getting to the bridge and she was kaking it on the crossing over but managed it with some coaxing and reassurance. Imagine her chagrin when after ten minutes on the other side Erik said: “Right, now we cross back over and head off up the path.” I started talking to Cherese about Belgian beers, the proper trappist brews not the fizzy piss Stella stuff that the Belgians just export to people with no knowledge or taste and don’t bother drinking themselves. She instantly went into raptures and started giving her analysis of the best ones (Kwak being amongst them) and was still going on about them after she reached the other side. I just happened to comment “see what beer can do for you” and then she realised she had crossed the bridge and hadn’t even noticed. [I have to hand credit to my good mate Liz for the knowledge of Belgian beers and to introducing me to them – in the correct glasses! Thanks Lizzie darling xx]

After a good old up hill & down dale trek we finally came to a paved surface and a toilet stop. I was saying to Chris (Aussie from Brisbane) he should feel at home with these as they were just posh dunnies – which they were – and I kindly surrendered my place to Dianne, an American lady from South Carolina. This was a good cue to get chatting (after we had been to the toilet) and so we had a good three way chat going with Chris, Dianne & myself – lots of laughs were had too.
After boarding another bus we alighted at the water bus terminal to be ferried across the harbour. These water busses are brilliant. They can unload & load 600 passengers in three minutes! This is achieved by having one side for disembarking (those doors open first and are clearly marked “Exit this side”) and then the embarkation doors open and let everyone on. I see no reason why our one was special, so I make the assumption for the rest of the service, this thing didn’t hang about. Seeing as it is used as a commuter service I’m not surprised. If you want sightseeing, get a slower boat with someone on it giving a commentary. Erik supplied us with points of interest on the crossing. When we docked we just walked straight through a barrier onto the Sky Train platform and caught the Sky Train.

Wow, these are little trains, just like the DLR in London, only three carriages long and driverless. That is where the similarity ends. These things are like little rocket trains and have the acceleration characteristics of a large sports motorcycle – if one is not sitting down or hanging on, you’re on the floor at the back of the carriage! These things really shift. I am going to ride one round the whole loop just for the fun of it, especially as it is possible to see out of the front window with an unobstructed view.

After disembarking the Sky Train we were in for more walking, this time to Gastown. This was the old industrial part of Vancouver – in case one couldn’t guess from the title – and is now all beautifully paved in “modern cobble”, i.e. it is flat and level, and the old warehouse buildings now house shops, pubs & restaurants – oh, not to mention a few souvenir shops! The great attraction of Gastown is the stream clock. Yes, it was but isn’t now. It was powered by the steam which was piped around the old warehouse district and built by a clockmaker in the area to utilise this for timekeeping. Today, however the clock is actually run on electricity and only the “chimes” operated by steam – it actually pipes the Westminster chimes and the hours, on the hour of course. It is quite a novelty seeing this steam venting from the top of the clock until it gets going and pipes some notes.

Following this we headed up the road to catch the bus back to the hostel. So all in all during the day we had travelled by diesel bus, electric bus, water bus and Sky Train, plus feet of course. A thoroughly enjoyable tour, just like Erik’s last one. I have been recommending them to everybody I see looking at the notice board.

Anyway, having got back to the hostel there were a bunch of vans, trucks & hoists arrayed around the corner of Burnaby and Thurlow Streets which looked very much like a film crew. The big lights being unloaded were a bit of a giveaway. Chris had run off earlier to meet some mates as they were buying a van for their road trip to Mexico – I was having a chat to Dianne and she suggested getting something to eat – damn good idea as I was hungry. We found a lovely Thai restaurant in Rainbow Town (Davie Street) and had a good chat about all sorts of things and generally put the world to rights. It also appears that not all Americans are ignorant morons. Dianne agreed with all my opinions of George Warmongeringwanker Bush and even threw a few more in on top. She could also give me an inside line on the corrupt & bent Senators & Congressmen greasing Bush’s arse in order to curry favour or secure sponsorship money – “it’s all about the Yankee dollar honey!”, her words not mine.
When we go back to the hostel it seemed the film crew were in full swing. Hollywood North was open for business it seemed.

After a splendid repast and good conversation we exchanged email addresses and bid each other good night.
I slept soundly having had a most enjoyable day.