The Adventures of Brandon and Amy: Vancouver, British Columbia!!

Last weekend I decided to plan out a nice little trip to Vancouver, British Columbia. Amy's friend is coming out this coming weekend, and we still have a bunch of events that we want to plan on our weekend trips, so I decided this was as good a weekend as any. Vancouver is going to host the 2010 winter olympics, so the city was a bustle, with construction and renovations of buildings and the construction of the first underground subway. We packed on Friday and woke up early on Saturday and drove 3 hours north towards

Vancouver. We bypassed downtown at first and drove straight to the Capilano Suspension Bridge just north of the city. The Capilano Suspension Bridge, Vancouver's oldest tourist attraction, originally built in 1889, stretches 450 feet (137m) across and 230 feet (70m) above Capilano River. At first sight it looks awesome hanging and swinging over the canyon, shaking with every step someone takes. It shakes and sways as you hang 230 feet over the river below. We also did the Treetops Adventure which consists of seven suspension bridges through the evergreens taking you up to 100 feet (30m) above the forest floor. High up in the trees, you get great views of the park and the trees from an even higher

altitude! It was a fun little pit stop. Afterwards, we drove down to the Cleveland dam that feeds the capilano river. At first site you look down and see thousands of gallons of water crash below in a heavy mist, feeling the power of the falling water and the mist that rises up.

Then, we took the advice of one of my coworkers and tried to do a little hike up Grouse Mountain. My
friend had drastically talked down the difficulty and intensity of

the hike, as he said he did it in an hour. An hour hike, I thought? Should be no problem! We changed into sneakers, brought up a single bottle of water and Amy's camera and started up the mountain. It didn't seem that difficult as we started, as I compared the hike to the Kilalau Trail in Kauii. However, 1 hour into it, and many breaks later, we had not even hit the halfway mark. The mountain is an intense hike, straight up, comparable to doing steep stairs on rough terrain for hours. After we hit the halfway mark 1.3 hours into the hike, we were already sweaty, exhausted, and thirsty as we had limited water reserves. My

legs were already

feeling like jelly, and I had only gone halfway! Amy was lagging

behind a bit, so as we went up the mountain I had to periodically stop and wait up for her, as she didn't appreciate me pushing her from behind. The last leg of the mountain wasn't far, but steep, and we managed to get to the top of the mountain in about 2 hours. Exhausted, thirsty, and hungry we triumphed at our success of treking the 1.6 mile hike straight up the mountain. Pictured is Amy, ecstatic, and exhausted at the top of the mountain. We sat atop the mountain and took some beautiful pictures of downtown Vancouver below, taking in the scenery and enjoying the fact that we didn't have to walk up any more. We quickly went to

the lodge to buy some water and food, where we

found that the cruel engineers also put 3 flights of stairs to get to the top of the building!! We quickly scarfed down some lunch and enjoyed a well earned cold beer. The Grouse Grind is a 2.9-kilometre trail up the face of Grouse Mountain, commonly referred to by Vancouverites as “Mother Nature’s Stairmaster.” There is however, a skyride that brings you to the top of the mountain for $35, but that's for lazy people. Amy and I survived the Grind...and we have shirts to prove it. At the top, besides breathtaking views of other mountain ranges, they have a

lumberjack show, a bear habitat, a nature hike, and a sky ride lift using the skiing lifts that they use in the winter time. The bear habitat was fun, and the bears were cute. They played with each other, and one of them walked to the fence turned around to the crowd, popped a squat and pooped. Then, we caught the lumberjack show, which was entertaining. We watched the lumberjacks compete against each other in log chopping, tree scaling, log rolling, and sawing. We also had fun on the sky ride which took us around the mountain on the ski lift. We even saw a guy fall off the chair

lift with his tibia sticking out of his skin!! After the days end, we stood in the long line to take the big sky ride back (which honestly was scarier than walking down).

the main street for shopping, in downtown Vancouver. We showered and went to dinner at a nice japanese restaurant, then met up with my coworker Li eon and his girlfriend Yandi who are from Vancouver. They took us to a night time asian outdoor market, much like the ones they have in Hong Kong. They had great little bites of authentic chinese cuisine and a bunch of booths where you could buy anything from batteries to ladies underwear. Then we went back to the hotel for some much needed rest after a loooong day. The next morning we slept in and woke up to rain. We decided to do the hop on hop off bus tour that they have in all major cities. We had dim sum for brunch and then got on the bus tour. We saw the major sites around the city, we got off in Chinatown and saw Dr. Sun's Chinese Garden which was a beautiful asian inspired garden in the middle of the city with a huge coi pond and bamboo forest. I Also saw a guy shooting up in the

back corner of the garden too...Chinatown wasn't in a

very safe part of the neighborhood so we quickly took our pictures and got back on the bus. Here is a picture of the arches of Chinatown in Vancouver. We then went to Gas town which was the major import export part of Vancouver in its initial growing phase. Gas town has a lot of little shops and we walked around for a bit and window shopped. Then we went to Granville Island, which is kind of like a tourist trap. It's a small part of the island with more restaurants, the Granville Island brewery, bakeries, art galleries, and fisherman docks. We walked around for quite a bit, visiting the

Lobster Man shop, which is a big fresh seafood store

with all kinds of different shellfish. Here is a picture from the shoreline at Granville Island, and a picture from Stanley Park of downtown Vancouver. Granville Island was very family oriented, and nice with a large indoor market with fresh fruit and vegetables. We did some beer tasting at the local brewery, and then took the bus back to the hotel. I took a quick nap and then awoke to a very hungry Amy, so we walked

down Robson to a Ramen restaurant which was highly recommended. The restaurant Kintaro hand makes Ramen noodles and cooks them to order in a miso based soup with BBQ beef. Cheap, and very delicious. Much like a lot of the things we ate in Vancouver. The next morning, we grabbed a quick bagel at the nearby cafe' and walked down to Stanley Park, which is comprable to any big city park. It lies on the water with a seawall all around the western part of the island and is absolutely beautiful. It has a nice rose garden and many different trails for running, walking and biking. From the park, we also got to see a crew filming a TV chase scene. From there, we were advised to try 2 other food stands. 1. Fritz Fries whose artery clogging fries are covered with gravy (and mayo if requested). We did miss that however, as they were closed. 2. Japa dogs, a hot dog stand with a japanese twist as seen on the Food Network's show, Anthony Bourdain's No Reservations. Basically, hot dogs with seaweed, onion, and miso mayo. It was very good! Probably one of the top hot dogs I have ever eaten.....minus the mayo. We walked back down Robson and checked out some shops, bought some souvenirs, and then started the drive back to the US. After a 1.5 hour wait at the US border,(where we found the guy below selling ice cream to all the people in line! Crafty Canadians...) and a 4 hour drive in the rain, we made it back home safetly. Another great trip in the books. Amy's friend is coming in this Thursday, and we will be checking out Tacoma and Bumbershoot, a huge outdoor music festival!! Until next time....

Here are pictures of the views from the ski lift. If you look close enough to the sky ride picture, it looks like the people inside are trapped and are trying to get out.