We timed this well. Vancouver is experiencing the best weather of their summer and in bright warm sunshine it’s all very pleasant. As a kick off point for this tour it couldn’t be better. We walk many miles over the two days we are here, all along the seafront from the newly restored Canada Place – where the famous sail roofs are, survivor of Vancouver’s Expo in the eighties – through to Stanley Park, where you can get a great view back to the centre. No wonder Hong Kongers have moved here in such numbers: the steady proloferation of residential tower blocks, the water, the mountains behind, a more prosperous, cleaner echo of their home. In the sparkling clear sunlight it is a very attractive sight. Cue Lou Reed and ‘Perfect Day’.
There is a new congress centre on the water front (also an echo of HK, though with a huge landscaped roof as big as a meadow) and the whole place looks well kept, prosperous and lush. The harbour is buzzing with sea planes and yachts and the boardwalks busy with joggers, tourists and locals meeting up at waterside bars and restaurants.
We find a very pleasant pub where the locally brewed Granville Island IPA goes down a treat as we rest our sore feet.
We are staying in the Davie Street area, ‘Vancouver’s West End’, or popular with ‘seniors and gays’ as one restaurant review we saw had it. Well, it’s a lively area at night, certainly, with many ethnic restaurants, some with long lines on the Friday night. We happen on a really good Indian restaurant – as good as any in the UK.
And so – early – to bed, leaving them all to it: the streets may be buzzing but all that walking and the jet lag mean that we feel more senior than gay…
Love the post "...more senior than gay"
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