Three decades under my belt and three introductions to Vancouver.
So my three introductions to Vancouver were:
Waking up at 5 am this morning to discover we were at the station already.
Meeting Joy my Airbnb host.
Getting my first bus.
But let's go back a bit first to where I started my notes for this post. Back to Saturday. Well the good news is it seems like the worst of the cold is gone. That's a relief. I didn't really want to be struggling through the final days of my trip.
Also good news, I ran into the guy from the tour yesterday at the train station and was able to read his name tag - he's Jeff, so if I leave a review now I can name them both.
The bad news is I woke up this morning to see the train which had been on schedule yesterday was now 4 hours late. In Jasper that's really not a problem, I just checked my bag in and then went to find coffee. No where in Jasper is more than 5 minutes from the train station so you're pretty safe to go wandering. As it was the train turned up an hour earlier than initially predicted. It left the station just over an hour after scheduled so that's good. Hopefully it'll stay closeish to schedule as I don't want to lose to much of my day tomorrow. There are thunderstorms scheduled for the afternoon so I want to get through the walk I have planned as soon as possible.
Further good news is that I have the berth to myself once again. I also asked my attendent if I could use the lower berth which would mean I would have the window. She's going to ask her manager but hush hush it'll probably be fine. I'm not worried if they decide they can't, but if I can have a window to lie in bed and watch the sun go down and come up again in the morning that would be nice.
So no sunrise, we ended up getting into Vancouver at 5am. Luckily(?) they can't open the train till 6.30 so I was able to sleep till just before 6 once I realised we were in the train station and not going to be seeing much of anything. I did get to watch the train travelling in the growing dark last night though. I can't tell you how magic it is to watch the front of the train you are on leading the way along the edge of the river with it's headlight lighting up the trees and the carriages behind with their windows lit up.
I spent almost the entire day yesterday in the Panorama car which offered great views and was convieniently close to my carriage. It also had a bar (of sorts) so at 5pm I asked if they had any sparkling wine. The girl said "we have it..but not to sell....I could sell it to you like wine if you'd like?" Yes please. So she brought me over a massive glass of bubbles saying "I overfilled it a bit, if you could just take some off the top there". God bless her. So I got to drink bubbles and watch the hills and the river go by as a quiet celebration to the end of that decade.
The landscape started in the Rockies (of course) with beautiful mountains and a waterfall. Then slowly the mountains shrunk, the snow disappeared, things got a bit greener and then fields opened up. So I watched a landscape very like NZ for much of the afternoon.
Dinner was beautiful. I was sat with a polite and happy young South Korean girl who is travelling Canada for SIX MONTHS to improve her English. She's four months in and it's doing the trick her English is great. We also had an older American woman with us and a young girl from Winnipeg who just finished Uni and is off to the West coast for the first time to see a friend, who unfortunately is going away tomorrow, so she will only see her for a day.
Turns out they did do breakfast on the train. I found out just before I was going to get off the train. So I sat for breakfast with the Quebecian woman from dinner last night and the English couple from brunch and had a last meal on the train. It was a little strange being pulled up in the station, but I appreciated it anyway. Off the train I wasted an hour till my Air bnb was ready for me to drop my bags. In that time I tried to research where to get a day pass for the buses etc, and just when I'd decided it was going to be a mission I looked up and realised there was a station right in front of me and sure enough, they had machines I could buy one from. When I made it to my Air bnb it turned out the other people in this room had left early, and my host had rushed about and gotten the room ready for me, which was actually a massive help. I could unload my bags and get my stuff sorted for the day.
My host is called Joy, she is energetic and chatty and very much wants the best for her guests. She gave me a hug about 10 seconds after I walked in the door. And another before she left me in the room.
Once I was sorted it was off to try my hand at the Grouse Grind. It's a thing around here, well known amongst the locals, and increasingly well known by the tourists. They have had to pull a few unprepared tourists off the mountain before so the website is very stern about "you really need to be fit for this. You need to be prepared". So much so that I got a bit worried when I was looking it up a few days ago and almost changed my mind. Luckily Nat was able to reassure me that it was doable so off I went to give it a go. The thing about the grind is that after a certain point, they don't let you turn around as it's a safety issue. So you just have to keep going.
I caught 3 buses over to Northern Vancouver to the bottom of the skytram. The first bus was what I consider my third introduction to Vancouver. I walked a couple of blocks from where I'm staying, a very nice neighbourhood, to a main street. It seemed a little sketchy, but not too bad. I got on the bus and it headed along that street through Gastown, and oh wow, there are so many homeless people in Vancouver. Block after block of tents and tarps and people. Joy had said to me that if I wanted to go to Gastown to walk down her street and then turn into another as the blocks in between *waves hand* "there's a lot of homeless". She wasn't wrong.
The people on the bus were curious too. The main one was the woman who loudly but kindly went and helped an old guy get on the bus, loudly declaring that he was 84. She then very loudly made way for a youngish guy in a wheel chair getting on. Then a couple of stops later another guy in a wheelchair got on and apologetically made her and the 84 year old move as he needed their seats for his wheelchair. She proceeded to swear at him, tell him "you take drugs" and tell him that she didn't think he even needed a wheelchair. It got worse when the first dude got off and he struggled to get his chair past the other. She just swore more at him. I was not sad to get off that bus to transfer to another.
After a bit of mucking around at the bottom of the tram, it was time to start the climb. The sign said 1.5-2 hours. I told myself that if I did it in 2 hours that would be great and to stop as often as I needed to. I passed a couple of people, was passed by a ton of people, stopped often, but made it. In 1 hour 41 minutes too.
The view from up there was pretty great, and I sure did work for it.
At the top I drank half a litre of water, on top of the litre I drank going up, wandered around a bit trying to keep my muscles moving a bit and then decided I really did need food. For lunch I consumed all the 1000 calories I'd burned coming up. And had a cider. Which looking back was probably a terrible idea as I was fighting dehydration.
After lunch I went for a wander as I knew there were bears at the top somewhere. I found the bears, they were HUGE, and beautiful, but a little sad in their enclosure.
Then I got side tracked by a lumberjack show.
After slipping away just before the end of that I was going to head down again (by tram, it's the only way you can get down) but decided that I wasn't going to manage to do anything else today so I may as well wait the half an hour till the birds in motion show. That turned in to 45 minutes but was well worth it. They had a bald eagle, a turkey vulture, a hawk (I've forgotten the type), a horned owl (who flew so close to me I felt the breeze) and a gyr falcon.
Then it was time to head back down and back to the Airbnb. Which turned into a bit of a mission. I started at 3.50 leaving the birds. Didn't get back to my Airbnb till 6.30. Between the line getting down the mountain, the wait for the bus, the busdriver not stopping at my stop, google screwing with me by not giving me the sea bus option until the bus driver had missed my stop, and me deciding to skip the last bus and just walk, it was quite a long journey. But at least I got to travel on the sea bus, which I feel is an integral part of being in Vancouver.
Once home I showered, dressed up, by which I mean put on a little make up and put on the only top I brought which isn't a tshirt, left the backpack and camera at home, and went out for what I had planned to be a fancy meal for my birthday. I went to a place Joy had recommended when I asked, largely because it was after 7 by this point, I was exhausted, and this place was a 10 minute walk away. It ended up being almost perfect. It was called Juniper. I should have realised from the name, this meant gin. And lots of it.
It also had interesting food. I had a G&T with a bread platter to start, the bison, yes that's right bison, with a Rose for main, and another G&T for desert. The G&Ts were both very good, but the second called a Bear's Claw was the best. The bison was very good. Like a good (beef) steak but more tender. If they could only have subbed out the fries for roasted potatoes it would have been perfect. But then who wants perfection anyway.
Waking up at 5 am this morning to discover we were at the station already.
Meeting Joy my Airbnb host.
Getting my first bus.
But let's go back a bit first to where I started my notes for this post. Back to Saturday. Well the good news is it seems like the worst of the cold is gone. That's a relief. I didn't really want to be struggling through the final days of my trip.
Also good news, I ran into the guy from the tour yesterday at the train station and was able to read his name tag - he's Jeff, so if I leave a review now I can name them both.
The bad news is I woke up this morning to see the train which had been on schedule yesterday was now 4 hours late. In Jasper that's really not a problem, I just checked my bag in and then went to find coffee. No where in Jasper is more than 5 minutes from the train station so you're pretty safe to go wandering. As it was the train turned up an hour earlier than initially predicted. It left the station just over an hour after scheduled so that's good. Hopefully it'll stay closeish to schedule as I don't want to lose to much of my day tomorrow. There are thunderstorms scheduled for the afternoon so I want to get through the walk I have planned as soon as possible.
Further good news is that I have the berth to myself once again. I also asked my attendent if I could use the lower berth which would mean I would have the window. She's going to ask her manager but hush hush it'll probably be fine. I'm not worried if they decide they can't, but if I can have a window to lie in bed and watch the sun go down and come up again in the morning that would be nice.
So no sunrise, we ended up getting into Vancouver at 5am. Luckily(?) they can't open the train till 6.30 so I was able to sleep till just before 6 once I realised we were in the train station and not going to be seeing much of anything. I did get to watch the train travelling in the growing dark last night though. I can't tell you how magic it is to watch the front of the train you are on leading the way along the edge of the river with it's headlight lighting up the trees and the carriages behind with their windows lit up.
I spent almost the entire day yesterday in the Panorama car which offered great views and was convieniently close to my carriage. It also had a bar (of sorts) so at 5pm I asked if they had any sparkling wine. The girl said "we have it..but not to sell....I could sell it to you like wine if you'd like?" Yes please. So she brought me over a massive glass of bubbles saying "I overfilled it a bit, if you could just take some off the top there". God bless her. So I got to drink bubbles and watch the hills and the river go by as a quiet celebration to the end of that decade.
The landscape started in the Rockies (of course) with beautiful mountains and a waterfall. Then slowly the mountains shrunk, the snow disappeared, things got a bit greener and then fields opened up. So I watched a landscape very like NZ for much of the afternoon.
Dinner was beautiful. I was sat with a polite and happy young South Korean girl who is travelling Canada for SIX MONTHS to improve her English. She's four months in and it's doing the trick her English is great. We also had an older American woman with us and a young girl from Winnipeg who just finished Uni and is off to the West coast for the first time to see a friend, who unfortunately is going away tomorrow, so she will only see her for a day.
Turns out they did do breakfast on the train. I found out just before I was going to get off the train. So I sat for breakfast with the Quebecian woman from dinner last night and the English couple from brunch and had a last meal on the train. It was a little strange being pulled up in the station, but I appreciated it anyway. Off the train I wasted an hour till my Air bnb was ready for me to drop my bags. In that time I tried to research where to get a day pass for the buses etc, and just when I'd decided it was going to be a mission I looked up and realised there was a station right in front of me and sure enough, they had machines I could buy one from. When I made it to my Air bnb it turned out the other people in this room had left early, and my host had rushed about and gotten the room ready for me, which was actually a massive help. I could unload my bags and get my stuff sorted for the day.
My host is called Joy, she is energetic and chatty and very much wants the best for her guests. She gave me a hug about 10 seconds after I walked in the door. And another before she left me in the room.
Once I was sorted it was off to try my hand at the Grouse Grind. It's a thing around here, well known amongst the locals, and increasingly well known by the tourists. They have had to pull a few unprepared tourists off the mountain before so the website is very stern about "you really need to be fit for this. You need to be prepared". So much so that I got a bit worried when I was looking it up a few days ago and almost changed my mind. Luckily Nat was able to reassure me that it was doable so off I went to give it a go. The thing about the grind is that after a certain point, they don't let you turn around as it's a safety issue. So you just have to keep going.
I caught 3 buses over to Northern Vancouver to the bottom of the skytram. The first bus was what I consider my third introduction to Vancouver. I walked a couple of blocks from where I'm staying, a very nice neighbourhood, to a main street. It seemed a little sketchy, but not too bad. I got on the bus and it headed along that street through Gastown, and oh wow, there are so many homeless people in Vancouver. Block after block of tents and tarps and people. Joy had said to me that if I wanted to go to Gastown to walk down her street and then turn into another as the blocks in between *waves hand* "there's a lot of homeless". She wasn't wrong.
The people on the bus were curious too. The main one was the woman who loudly but kindly went and helped an old guy get on the bus, loudly declaring that he was 84. She then very loudly made way for a youngish guy in a wheel chair getting on. Then a couple of stops later another guy in a wheelchair got on and apologetically made her and the 84 year old move as he needed their seats for his wheelchair. She proceeded to swear at him, tell him "you take drugs" and tell him that she didn't think he even needed a wheelchair. It got worse when the first dude got off and he struggled to get his chair past the other. She just swore more at him. I was not sad to get off that bus to transfer to another.
After a bit of mucking around at the bottom of the tram, it was time to start the climb. The sign said 1.5-2 hours. I told myself that if I did it in 2 hours that would be great and to stop as often as I needed to. I passed a couple of people, was passed by a ton of people, stopped often, but made it. In 1 hour 41 minutes too.
Encouraging sign at 1/4 mark.
Heart rate at 180, legs begin to seize up.
This would be a better sign if it said the end.
Made it.
The view from up there was pretty great, and I sure did work for it.
At the top I drank half a litre of water, on top of the litre I drank going up, wandered around a bit trying to keep my muscles moving a bit and then decided I really did need food. For lunch I consumed all the 1000 calories I'd burned coming up. And had a cider. Which looking back was probably a terrible idea as I was fighting dehydration.
After lunch I went for a wander as I knew there were bears at the top somewhere. I found the bears, they were HUGE, and beautiful, but a little sad in their enclosure.
Then I got side tracked by a lumberjack show.
After slipping away just before the end of that I was going to head down again (by tram, it's the only way you can get down) but decided that I wasn't going to manage to do anything else today so I may as well wait the half an hour till the birds in motion show. That turned in to 45 minutes but was well worth it. They had a bald eagle, a turkey vulture, a hawk (I've forgotten the type), a horned owl (who flew so close to me I felt the breeze) and a gyr falcon.
Bonus barn owl as we were waiting in line to get the tram down.
Then it was time to head back down and back to the Airbnb. Which turned into a bit of a mission. I started at 3.50 leaving the birds. Didn't get back to my Airbnb till 6.30. Between the line getting down the mountain, the wait for the bus, the busdriver not stopping at my stop, google screwing with me by not giving me the sea bus option until the bus driver had missed my stop, and me deciding to skip the last bus and just walk, it was quite a long journey. But at least I got to travel on the sea bus, which I feel is an integral part of being in Vancouver.
Once home I showered, dressed up, by which I mean put on a little make up and put on the only top I brought which isn't a tshirt, left the backpack and camera at home, and went out for what I had planned to be a fancy meal for my birthday. I went to a place Joy had recommended when I asked, largely because it was after 7 by this point, I was exhausted, and this place was a 10 minute walk away. It ended up being almost perfect. It was called Juniper. I should have realised from the name, this meant gin. And lots of it.
G&T list,
That's all gin.
Sky on the way home.
Now it's time for sleep. After a rough sleep, a 5.50am start, the grind and a rush home to get out for dinner, it'll be a miracle if my head reaches the pillow before I'm asleep.
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