Thoughts on Vancouver, Our Hotel and Mr. Strokey

Thoughts on Vancouver

• Vancouver is a lovely city with lots to see (I would definitely go back, I want to see more!)
• There were more hills than we anticipated.  I knew it was on the coast and that there were mountains close by, but wow, there were some crazy steep hills.
• There are no freeways in Vancouver.  Seems so odd to see a city this size without a large network of freeways.
• For the most part, we found the traffic fairly manageable.  There were times that it was slow moving, but it did seem to move.
• I was surprised to be able to find parking easily everywhere we went.  I was also surprised at times to find free parking (ex Granville Island and Vandusen Botanical Gardens)
• It was cool to be surrounded by such diversity.  There were a number of times we looked around and were definitly in the miniorty as caucausians.  We have had a pretty sheltered life in Saskatchewan, though we do have a lot more diversity than we used to.
• It was my first time seeing the ocean.  It was beautiful (though, I would like to see a tropical ocean...).  I enjoyed being at Stanley Park, Granville Island, etc where there was water and lots of boats docked.  Just something you don't see on the prairies.
• I assume it's because of all the big hills in the area, but we found in Vancouver and Seattle they had some really tall bridges.  It was kind of freaky going over a bridge that was so high!
• We were a little confused at first with all the green blinking traffic lights.  But soon figured out that they were places where there was pedestrian controlled crossing.  So they would blink green until a pedestrian pushed the button then they would turn red to allow them to cross.  There were also a lot of speed bumps on roads in residential areas.
• I had heard about the number of homeless people there from friends who had been.  We were asked a few times for spare change, mainly when we were down by Canada Place.  But we did see a sidewalk just full of homeless people as we drove by in another area.  Definitely something that we don't see a whole lot of in Saskatoon...

Our Hotel
We stayed at the Holiday Inn and Suites North Vancouver.  I tried to research each hotel for our holiday and found a couple of options in the Vancouver area that seemed to offer good accessibility.  In the end it came down to the Holiday Inn because I liked it's location better, and it seemed nicer overall.  When we pulled in Sunday night I was immediately impressed by the exterior of the hotel.  There were beautiful flower gardens and big evergreen trees all around.  Right by the front entrance there was a fountain and just across from that was a little man made waterfall next to a totem pole.  The lobby was very classy looking.

 (Biggest hosta I have ever seen!  It was probably 2-3 feet tall!)

Whenever we stay in a hotel on a vacation I always hold my breath until we see the room.  You can only tell so much about a room from photos online.  I had emailed with a staff member a couple of times to learn a bit about the setup of their accessible room with the roll-in shower.  It looked like a spacious room with an ideal setup.  When we entered the room we were not disappointed.  The bed height was perfect!  We have learned that the height of the bed can make or break a hotel experience for us.  If Jay cannot get into the bed, or really struggles to get in/out, it really makes for a frustrating experience.  We also realized that if the bed is not the right height, it makes it impossible for him to get in and out of his shower chair.  Thankfully the bed height in our hotel was ideal.  The room was very spacious with a king sized bed as well as a couch that could be pulled out for more sleeping space.

 (The view from the door of the room.  The door on the right is the bathroom door.)

 (Nice granite vanity with a roll under sink.  They provided a basket of extra bath mats because as you see in the next photo, the shower curtain was too short so you ended up with a bit of puddle on the floor after showering.)

 (An extra little 'kitchen' area with a microwave, fridge and sink.  It was handy to have an extra sink.)

 (The height of the bed and distance from the wall.  If you look closely you can see that the bed should be against the night stand, based on where the headboard is mounted on the wall.  Thankfully the bed was on legs so I could slide it over a few inches.)

 (Nice, spacious room.  Under all of our stuff was a foldout love seat and a coffee table.)

 (There was a nice desk/office area and another small table for sitting to eat.)

I think the only down sides to the room were that the roll in shower was a bit small, and the setup of the shower was not ideal for use with a shower wheelchair.  However, we were able to make it work and Jay was able to shower.  Also, the side of the bed that Jay is most comfortable transferring into was a little too close to the wall.  Thankfully, I was able to slide the bed over a few inches, which allowed him to get his chair beside the bed.  Other than these things, the room was so quiet and the bed was comfy.  Even though on two of the nights we stayed, there was a group of high school kids staying in the rooms around us, we heard them a bit until 10pm then it was quiet (the hotel gave me a call shortly after I had booked it, to let us know that this would be the case).

Mr. Strokey
 That is the nickname we gave to the GPS that we borrowed from my parents.  I know we could have used our phones for GPS while in Canada, but thought we would conserve battery life for other things, and use the GPS.  It did well, as long as you had an address for it to navigate through.  However, we found that it had difficulty when we got into downtown Vancouver.  I don't know if it was the tall buildings, or just too much interference from other electronics, but it would lose it's position and you would be in the middle of a road, nowhere near a corner and it would be telling you to turn right, etc.  We commented that the GPS was stroking out, and from there started to call it Mr. Strokey (it has a male voice).  Thankfully we also had a paper map, so we had an idea of where we were headed, but it was nice to have the GPS when we missed a corner or something, so it could reroute us quickly.  We did not ever end up getting a paper map of Seattle, so we depended on Mr. Strokey entirely in that city.  We would usually look at a map online before leaving the hotel, so we had an inkling as to what direction we were headed, but the GPS was our navigator.  After driving in Seattle, I believe that having a paper map would have been next to useless with all the exits/on ramps/weird corners, etc in that city.  Thankfully he did not seem to have a problem in Seattle, and we made it to all of our destinations in one piece.   

West Coast Vacation - Vancouver Day 4

This was our last full day and only rainy day in Vancouver.  It wasn't pouring, but it was a steady rain for the better part of the day.  We decided it might be a good day to check out a museum.  I had heard about the Anthropology Museum and the Biodiversity Museum at UBC in my reseach for activities to do in the city.  They were places that we probably would not have sought out, had it not been raining, but my cousin Rebekah did suggest the Anthropology Museum to us as a neat place to look around if we needed an idea.

We had decided that the Biodiversity Museum would better suit our interests so we put the address into the GPS (I think the GPS should have it's own blog post....haha) and made our way to the UBC campus.  There was some construction going on, and the GPS kept telling us to turn down roads that we were unable to use.  And when we would drive past the roads, it would tell us to turn around and go back, instead of giving us a new route.  We got frustrated, and I had seen that we had driven past the Anthropology Museum, so we just figured we would check it out instead.

(We had to take a picture of these teensy little baskets.  I am not sure what they used such a tiny basket for, but it was maybe the size of the tip of my little finger.)

I wasn't entirely sure what to expect from the museum.  When we first got in, paid admission and started heading toward the main gallery, I felt quite discouraged as there was a huge, steep ramp from the front entry down to where they had displays of very tall totem poles.  With my help, Jay managed to get down the ramp.  The totem poles were neat to see.  We found a gallery of ceramics/pottery.  It was a lot of pottery....but some of it did date back to the 1500s, which is kind of neat.  Then we wandered our way over to their feature display gallery.  I assume the displays in this gallery change on a semi-regular basis.  The one they had on display was a bunch of art by Middle Eastern artists.  I am not usually much of an art person....but it was very interesting/thought provoking stuff.  And some was just shiny/sparkly/bright.  This was definitely the highlight of the museum for me.  After this we found this HUGE room full of displays of different cultural clothing/weapons/masks/etc from all over the world.  I would say we made it through about half of this room before our two hours of parking expired and we figured we better start making our way back to the van.

We had a few different types of restaurants/food that we wanted to try on our trip, they included some fish/seafood, sushi, indian food, and any other ethnic type food.  Since this was our last day in Vancouver, I did some research on Urbanspoon and I found us a sushi restaurant for lunch and an Indian restaurant for supper.  I found a little sushi place in the Kitsilano neighbourhood (since it was near UBC) for lunch.  We had to drive around the block a couple of times because it was a tiny little place with a tiny little sign.  But we found it, and it was accessible and more spacious than I thought it would be from the outside.  We both chose a lunch sushi combo and shared some gyoza.  It was really good!  It was so fresh and had better flavor than any sushi I have ever had here.  We thoroughly enjoyed it.

After lunch we had decided to head over to a mall in Burnaby called Metropolis at Metrotown.  It is the biggest mall in BC.  We wandered around for a while.  It was okay, just another big mall.  We decided to try some bubble tea and a cream puff from Beard Papa.  We had seen the cream puff place at the Aberdeen Mall, but were too full of chinese food to even think about.  I was impressed.  Such a tasty little treat!

The traffic to get back to North Vancouver was a little crazy with the construction, so by the time we were done at the mall and got to North Vancouver it was pretty close to supper time.  I had found another highly rated restaurant on Urbanspoon for Indian food called Indian Fusion.  It was a nice little place that was fairly quiet when we got there, but filled up as we sat and ate.  We had an appetizer of vegetable pakoras, and they were so good.  Much better than the ones we have had at Mogul Divaan.  And such a generous portion.  If we had known how much they would give we probably would have ordered less supper.  Then for supper we had butter chicken, aloo gobi and some naan bread.  It was all delicious and we left there feeling very satisfied.

After supper we headed back to the hotel to start packing up our stuff to get on the road early the next day to head for Seattle.

West Coast Vacation - Vancouver Day 3

There was a good chance of rain in the forecast on our third day in Vancouver, so we decided to plan some indoor activities.  We got up early and made our way over to the Vancouver Aquarium.  I had expected it to be busy, but by the time we got there, right around the time it opened, there were lineups to get in.  We kind of cringed when we saw three or four school buses dropping off kids.  We got our tickets and headed in.

Overall, the aquarium was neat.  Being from the prairies, I had never seen a lot of the fish and sea creatures that they had on display.  I think my favorite displays were the jelly fish.  They were just so neat, kind of mesmerizing to watch.  The belugas were also cool.  I would have enjoyed watching one of the shows, but our parking expired before they started, and I am sure, with all the kids there, we would have not gotten a seat without going and sitting an hour before the start time.

(The first video is obviously some jellyfish.  They had a black light on them and they glowed.  They were so neat!  And the second is the beluga whale.  It liked to make the same lap over and over again.  Such interesting creatures! Note the screaming children in both videos, ugh!)

When we finished up at the aquarium, we were feeling a little headachy and overwhelmed by all the screaming children.  We decided to head over to the Aberdeen Centre in Richmond.  It is a mall that Jay had stumbled upon in his research of things to do in Vancouver.  It is an Asian mall, with mainly Asian stores and all of the food court restaurants are Asian as well.  We didn't have any trouble getting there.  We decided to have some lunch when we got there.  I was quite overwhelmed by all the choices and wasn't sure what we wanted.  We finally settled on something that resembled the Chinese food that we have had before.  We ordered some beef satay and Singapore noodles.  The satay wasn't spectacular, but the noodles were better than any I have had in Saskatoon.  Also the portions were HUGE!  We could have easily shared one dish, and it came to a grand total of $15 for both dishes.  So by the time we were done, we were stuffed.

  (Sitting in front of the fountain, moments before it started it's show.  Thankfully I moved before it started or I am sure I would have gotten wet!)

After lunch we wandered the mall.  Unfortunately it wasn't quite as interesting as we were hoping.  It just seemed like a typical mall, with clothing, electronics, toys, dollar store, etc, but none of the stores were names we had ever heard of.  We made our laps then found the fountain that we had read about.  Every hour they have a fountain in the mall that does a 'show' set to music.  I am not sure how long it goes on, but after about 10 minutes we decided we had seen enough and left.

I have to say, it was interesting being in the minority as a caucasian person.  I think Jay, being white and in a wheelchair felt really unique.  I didn't feel like anyone really cared that we were there, but it was an unusual feeling for us to be a minority, even for just a little while.  It was a pretty busy mall, and I probably saw about 4 or 5 other white people.  Just an interesting observation.  

I think getting back to Vancouver from Richmond was the only time when we really ran into problems with traffic.  There are two main bridges that take traffic across the river from Richmond into Vancouver.  We decided to go to a coffee shop after the mall, and so headed toward the bridge that would take us closer to our destination.  As we got closer there was a lot of traffic backed up, then we finally saw that there was a police officer rerouting traffic around the exits so you couldn't get on the bridge.  So we had to loop around and find our way back to the other bridge.  A friend had mentioned to us an AM radio station that gave traffic reports in the Vancouver area, so we turned it on to find out that there had been an accident on the bridge and that it was closed.  We finally made our way to the other bridge and once we were across we were able to find our way to the coffee shop, Matchstick Coffee.

I had asked a friend of ours, who is a bit of a coffee expert, if he knew of any good coffee shops in Vancouver and/or Seattle.  He gave us a few options and we settled on trying Matchstick because it was not in the heart of downtown and was not too far out of our path of travel.  It was a quiet little place amongst the busyness of the city and was a nice place to sit down and relax with a nice latte and a croissant (Jay had a scone).  Since we had eaten so much Chinese food at lunch, we called this supper and after we were done, we headed back to our hotel to relax for the evening.

West Coast Vacation - Vancouver Day 2

After our very busy first day, we decided that we needed something a little more low key on day two.  We woke up, happy to see that the forecast had changed from a good chance of rain, to a bit of rain early in the morning then mix of sun and cloud for the rest of the day.  We decided that after the busyness of the first day we could handle a quieter day checking out some gardens and parks.

In the morning we headed over to the Bloedel Conservatory.  It is located in Queen Elizabeth Park.  We were really impressed with the beauty of the park, before we even got into the conservatory.  The park is a big hill with beautifully maintained flower gardens and unique trees and lovely views of the city and mountains.

 (The Bloedel Conservatory)

(Queen Elizabeth Park)

 (Queen Elizabeth Park)

 (There were sculptures of a guy taking the picture of his sculpture family.  So I went and posed with the sculptures and Jay took a pic of the guy taking a picture of the statues....haha)

 (Nice view of Vancouver and the mountains from Queen Elizabeth Park)

We explored the area, as much as we dared with the steep paths and then headed into the conservatory.  It was really inexpensive, and they gave Jay free admission because I did need to give him a push a few times up some steeper paths.  I had looked at the website for the Conservatory, but had not realized that they have birds as well.  We got to see some beauitful macaws and parrots as well as some smaller birds like finches, canaries and budgies.

 (A pair of macaws!)

 (A miniature macaw on my shoulder ;) )

 (Unique flowers)

 (This was where the small birds liked to hang out.  If you look closely you can see a few of them.)

 (The dessert part of the conservatory with huge cacti and succulents.)

A few blocks away from the conservatory is the Vandusen Botanical Garden.  I really did not know what to expect from this, as their website is pretty useless.  However, it had great reviews on Trip Advisor and was recommended by people who had also enjoyed the Bloedel Conservatory.  I was impressed that Vandusen had free parking, however they did charge admission (I think about $12 each) to the gardens.  We had a light lunch at the cafe (a nice outdoor table with a view of their pond) and carried on around the garden.  There are three main paths to follow in the garden, and the only one that said it was accessible was the shortest of them, and was estimated to take less than an hour to complete.  The other two paths were 1-2 and 2-3 hours, I believe.  We decided that since the paths were mainly paved that we would venture a little beyond the accessible area.  We managed quite well, though a few of the paths were quite steep.  There was a great variety of unique trees and plants to see.  They also had some wooden sculptures throughout the gardens.  After we spent our time doing a loop around the garden we found a nice spot by the pond and sat for at least half an hour and just enjoyed the peacefullness of it all.  It was really neat to see such a place right int he middle of a residential area.  I believe I read somewhere that the gardens are about 50 acres.  Such a nice place!

 (A nice place to have lunch, and no bugs!!)

 (One of the wood sculptures.  We noticed that it had an electrical socket and wondered if maybe they light it up at night...?)

 (We were amazed by the beautiful flowering trees.)

 (Hedge maze!)

 (Enjoying some shade under a nice shady canopy.)

 (Such beautiful roses!)

 (What a nice peaceful place to rest after walking through the park.)

We had decided that we certainly wanted to try some good seafood/fish while we were on the west coast.  We had asked my cousin for suggestions, and she recommended The Fish House in Stanley Park.  We checked out their website and decided that even though it was a bit of a fancier place, we wanted to give it a try.  We made a reservation, but because we tend to eat supper earlier than average, it was not very busy at all.  It would have been nice to eat out on the deck, but there was a step down to get onto the deck, so we settled for having the dining room almost entirely to ourselves.  We had a really great experience there.  We both ended up ordering the chef's choice trio of fish.  That day it happened to include salmon, arctic char and ahi tuna.  Those were all things that I was interested in trying.  I would say out of the three, the arctic char was my favorite.  It is an oily fish, somewhat similar to salmon, or trout, just had a nice richness to it.  It was plated beautifully with potatoes, steamed vegetables and a delicious creamy sauce.  The ahi tuna was unique, it had a very meaty texture, almost like rare beef.  We rounded out the meal with a piece of cheesecake.

 After supper we drove over to a different part of Stanley Park, where we could see that the seawall was more level with the road and we walked a little ways around the sea wall.  Such a nice place!  So many runners, rollerbladers and cyclists there!  They even have lanes on the paths for each type of traffic.

 

West Coast Vacation - Vancouver Day 1

The weather forecasts in Vancouver seem to change often.  When we arrived it looked like Monday was going to be our only sunny day, so we decided to spend the day downtown checking out some outdoor sights.

Our first stop was the Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Classical Chinese Garden.  We found parking close by and walked over.  When I looked at the admission counter, there were a couple of steps to access it, so I wondered if the garden would be accessible (though I was sure I had seen on their website that it was).  We kept wandering and found the free park area and checked that out first, before I went and asked at the admission desk and found out the wheelchair entrance is through the gift shop.  So we paid our admission and spent a while enjoying the quiet retreat in the midst of the busy city.

After spending an hour or so at this garden we decided to go check out the waterfront area near Canada Place.  It was really neat to see the water and all the boats and water planes.  What I found especially interesting was that there were two cruise ships docked.  They were HUGE!  I still think that someday I would like to go on a cruise, so maybe we will end up back in Vancouver to hop on a ship to Alaska :)

We stopped for a quick lunch at a pub (before our parking expired, $12 for 2 hours!) and headed over to Granville Island to wander around.  Granville Island is an area with a lot of little shops and a big public farmer's market.  It seemed strange to me that with the set up there that you were allowed to drive down the streets at all.  I was also surprised that we were able to find some decent free accessible parking there.  It was a warm day, so we wandered through some shops, up and down some streets (though I am pretty sure we didn't see it all) and decided to call it a day.

After that we met my cousin, Rebekah, and her husband Scott for supper at a Malaysian restaurant called Banana Leaf.  It was really nice to see her, and to meet Scott.  Jay hadn't met either of them and said afterward that it felt like they were old friends.  It was easy to chat with them and the food was delicious.  After supper Bekah suggested checking out English Bay which was nearby and had some nice views of the ocean.  We headed over there and weren't disappointed. 

(Not something you see every day....a HUGE tree on top of a condo building!)

This brought a close to our first very busy day in Vancouver.  A couple of first impressions that we had.  We were confused for a while about the flashing green traffic lights, but then realized that they were intersections with crosswalks and the lights were controlled by the pedestrians who wanted to cross.  Also, I did not know what to expect for parking in downtown Vancouver.  I know that sometimes in Saskatoon, finding parking can be really tough.  I assumed in a city so big that it might be a similar situation.  However, we were able to find parking everywhere we went, it just came at a hefty price at times.  We set up an app on Jay's phone called 'Pay By Phone' which was really handy.  You just use the app and punch in a number that you find on the meter and it automatically charges your credit card for your parking.