Colorado Cruiser: Vancouver British Columbia

It's Sunday and I' m on vacation far away from home.

But rather than sleeping in and relaxing, I got up at 6:30. After a nice breakfast in the hotel, Mike and I headed for the Mormon chapel about 15 miles away to attend church. We actually arrived almost 15 minutes early because we had no idea how the roads would be. There is road construction everywhere in this town and we were worried that one or more of the bridges would be closed causing us to reroute all over the place.

We were so early in fact that neither of us wanted to go in yet. When strangers arrive at a Mormon church, they don't look at you with suspicion. No!! It's worse than that. They look at you like they really want to be you friend. They ask where you're from. In fact, they welcome you with open arms and caring. And who wants that at 9:00 in the morning??

We drove around some of the nearby neighborhoods admiring the beautiful homes. We saw everything from old Victorian style homes to very modern homes. Green GREEN grass was everywhere with full trees, hedges, and many flowers. It looked like a paradise of living things.

BUT OH MY THE ROADS! They were tiny. Many roads were just filled with parked cars lining each side of the road and barely leaving 1 lane of traffic space down the middle. I'm not sure a full size American truck could have fit down those roads. There were a couple times where we saw an oncoming car and had to wait at the far end of the block until it had come past us before we could proceed. I remember roads like this in many parts of England, but they were usually in tiny villages, never in major cities.

After we wasted some time, we returned to the chapel. We sat out in the foyer as the meeting began. We saw a few people glance out at us, but we'd left them no chit chat time. The missionaries especially eyed us and we waved a cheery greeting to them.

After church (or at least, after about 45 minutes of the first part of church), we took a couple pictures, then headed to our fist stop of the day, Granville Island. Its not really an island, it more a large protrusion into the bay, but it's filled with small shops and a large market.

The first thing we passed was a broom store. Yes, a real honest to goodness store where they hand build and sell brooms. The girl was in the middle of building a broom as we glanced in, so we entered and chatted for a while. They buy their bristles from Mexico. Some sort of corn stalk, and they get most of their handles from Arizona. I'd bet this place was very popular during the Harry Potter phase because many of the brooms looked like a witch's broom.

From the broom store we walked over to an area where they carve totem poles, but the workers weren't there today. There were some interesting shapes on logs, but without the colors, some where hard to identify.

The market we'd come to see was packed with people. There were cheese shops, trinkets, sausages, fish, jewelry, sushi, tacos, crepes, and about every other booth you could imagine. We wandered up and down the isles oggling the food, but not really buying anything. We did buy a couple crepes at one point because I've been bugging Mike about one of our previous trips. We were in Paris. We'd been to the Louvre and were walking past some crepe stands. I was hungry and said I'd like a crepe, but he said they weren't very good and we'd get better crepes later. I never did get a crepe and we left the next day.

So here, in Vancouver Canada, he bought me a crepe. He got one with pure maple syrup on it and I got one with free squeezed lemon and sugar on it. The girl that made them wasn't very good at it. She tore mine a couple time and had to pour more batter on it to fix it. But they tasted great.

We continued browsing for a while until we heard singing. After the Jazz Festival yesterday, we thought it might be another venue, but it was just a young couple who'd setup a microphone and a keyboard out by the water and were playing for donations. We listened for a few minutes, but they weren't very good so we returned to the marker. It was after noon by now so we started browsing for something to eat. Mike has picked for the last few meals, so I picked some Sushi and Thai.

We walked to a raised platform with tables and chairs to eat and listen to yet another group of musicians playing. The sushi was great, but the thai was dry and not very good. Since I'd picked, I tried to eat everything but wound up so stuffed I almost felt sick and we still had to throw a few california roll slices away.

Next we thought we'd go to a park just north of the city. We found ourselves in a huge traffic jam where we'd only move a couple car lengths per minute. It turns out that there is only one road out the North side of town and everyone was trying to go that way. After 30 minutes we gave up and turned around. Instead of the park, we decided to return to the Jazz Festival.

We parked on the street at a parking meter. It cost $10 (can) for 1:40 worth of parking. Once Mike bled into the meter, we walked over to the festival. A group was just starting their set and they were great. It was true Jazz finally. Lost of improv with a great Saxophone, Drum, and Base behind the vocals.

We sat listening for 30 minutes until the sun really came out and started to heat us up. We walked over to some shaded chairs and sat for a while longer, then decided to get a drink and go check out the next band. I'm not sure just what type of music the other band was playing, but it appeared to be the type where every musician plays whatever they feel like as loud as they can, and with no coordination with any of the other musicians. I'm sure my kids would love it.

We returned to the first band and listened until their set was done, then left to find some dinner before our show. We wound up at a greek place where I had a simple salad because I was still stuffed from lunch. After that we then returned to the hotel for a rest.

After a short rest, we set off to walk around China Town. It was a little disappointing. Nothing really eye catching or inviting to any of it. As we were meandering around, we spotted what looked like an open market. But what it turned out to be (or seemed to be) was a swap meet for the city's homeless. There were obviously some people that paid to be there and show their wares (very poor ones), but there were many many who simply had a bag or shopping cart filled with junk and were swapping amongst themselves or trying to sell some ragged coat or shoes.

The farther we walked, the more I held onto my camera and cell phone because I was being pocked or tugged to look at this item or that. Nothing threatening, just people hoping that I'd buy their stuff. We hurried along as fast as we could to the end of the street, then has to work our way out of the thick of the pack and finally got across the street.

A little more walking brought us to some Chinese gardens. They were very pretty and restful. We took a break among the ponds and discussed the relative beauty of lilly pads. Mike doesn't get the beauty or fascination of floating flora.

At 6:00 we drove to a park South of town to watch a Shakespeare play. We had tickets to watch A Mid Summer Night's Dream.

The play was fantastic. They used allot of modern music to emphasize various comedic elements of the play and to set the mood. Just short snippets of songs and just long enough to call to mind the rest of the words and make you laugh.

The venue was called "Bard at the Beach" because the stage had no back wall and you could see a beach and waterway behind the actors. I thought it might be distracting with the bright light behind the actors, but it wasn't. Every so often you might see a yacht cruising past, or see someone jogging, but it really wasn't noticeable, and as the evening wore on and they sky darkened, it added allot of drama to the conclusion of the play. I'm a fan.

I've loved watching Shakespeare plays ever since I watched my first in England after my mission. I don't know that this was was better or worse than any others I've ever seen. It was different than all the others and it was great.

Vancouver Chapel