After a super flight (window seat, no one sitting beside me, personal tv screen --I watched The Happening!) I arrived at the Vancouver airport and made my way to the hotel.
I dropped off my bags and asked the concierge how to get to the ferry dock. ...apparently it's more of a trek to get to Victoria, so instead she gave me a 'walker's map' and told me where to catch the bus that will take me to the dock to get to Nanaimo.
So map-in-bag, I headed off in general direction of the bus stop.
But first I spotted this pay-phone:
What?! 25¢ to make a call?!!
Why are we paying 50¢ in Toronto?!!
Telus: 1, Bell:0.
Anyways, I got to the bus stop and hopped on the bus.
Here's a brief aside: Throughout my travels, I've noticed a few things about myself. 1) I don't like to appear to be lost. 2) I don't like to ask for directions. 3) I don't mind it if I'm not sure where I am.
These three factors attributed to what happened next...
After being on the bus for awhile it turned off into a residential neighbourhood.... and then seemed to go in a complete circle and head back in the direction that we had come from. (ie, the WRONG direction) so I got off the bus.
It looked like I was close to the water anyway, so I headed down to the shore.
This is what I found:
pretty eh?
So I walked around and took some pictures.
It was here I was approached by two men named Art and Curt. (haha, does it sound like I'm making this story up? :)
They were friendly and comical, so we chatted for a while. They asked where I was from (figured I was a foreigner cause I was taking pictures) and other things.
After a few minutes I popped the question: "um...so.... where am I right now?"
Art: "you're in Dunderave! (pointing) Over there is UBC and over there is downtown..."
me: "oh, I see.... Where's the ferry dock?"
Art: "See that lighthouse over there? The dock just past that."
This is the lighthouse he was referring to:
It might be a little hard to see. Here, I've circled it:
Here it is via super-zoom:
Needlesstosay, there was no way I was going to walk there.
Anyways, to end the Dunderave story, Art and Curt offered to take a picture of me, so I could show people I was there, but instead, I took a picture with Art:
This picture makes me laugh. We're shaking hands.
After leaving the water I headed to Dunderave's main street. I had to decide whether to wait for the bus to take me back to downtown Vancouver, or to try and continue on to the ferry dock...somehow...
I decided to pop in to the Starbucks for a quick coffee and some directions/guidance on how to get to the dock.
(aside: Vancouver has a huge-o population of Starbucks. This is to be expected I suppose... given it's proximity to Seattle. But still, my sis and I were blown away by the number of them! 1 Starbucks on every street corner! (no exaggeration!) Even full Starbucks cafes on opposite sides of intersections! ...so the question is, where was Tim Hortons? ... on my second last day in the city I FINALLY saw two Tim Hortons. TWO! That's it?! ...also interesting is that there were many independent and small-chain coffee shops around too.)
So I finally made it to Horseshoe Bay! (aka, the ferry dock!) success!!
The ride to Nanaimo is about an hour and forty minutes long.
It was a bit too cold to be out on the Sun deck, but I didn't care.
the view
was worth it.
So I arrived in Nanaimo and realized that if I wanted to get back to downtown before dark, I better turn around and take the same ferry back across the water! ...so that's what I did!
Somehow, I found my way back to the hotel and checked in.
Look how cool our little room was!
I was impressed.
So the next day, my sis and I headed to Granville Island! ...apparently a place for crafts and other handmade/unique things.
Maybe it was because I had the map, but somehow I was in charge of getting us to the island (mwa ha ha ha ha!).
I decided we should do the 30min walk over there, across the Bridge Highway of Death. It wasn't really that bad. My sis wasn't a fan of it... but that's because she doesn't regularly walk across highway bridges that don't have railings protecting you from oncoming traffic.
The railing protecting us from falling off the bridge and down onto concrete and water wasn't too high either.
It was pretty though.
This is Vancouver!
(je pense...?)
The Granville Island marker was fun. Somehow, we wandered for a while without finding the cool stores, but when we found them it was great!
This is the part of the trip when my memory starts to fade.... (what exactly did we do..?)
so some highlights:
Nanaimo trip #2:
When my sis heard that I went to Nanaimo she decided that she wanted to have a nanaimo bar in Nanaimo. So I went there for a second time!
The dessert was good. Not really different from nanaimo bars I've tasted in the past, but it was good.
Stanley Park:
I went to Stanley Park with the intention of renting a bike and riding around for a while. Turns out that I couldn't find the bike rental place (the bus drops you off inside the park, but the bike place is a few blocks outside of the park) so I ended up walking around the main lagoon instead. And it was great! ...who can resist water?
there was family of otters:
And a Great Blue Heron:
(i think?)
And ducks:
All in all, it was a fun relaxing vacation! Just what I wanted!!