Day 2 in Vancouver

First a few things I forgot about yesterday!  We stopped at a sushi place in Chinatown for lunch and it was really good.  But if you can believe it, I got no pictures of the sushi!  😮

Also yesterday mid-day, when we went to go from Chinatown to the Gastown Steam Clock, we ended up walking through a very rough part of town.  It was very sad.  So many homeless people and so many dazed people walking around totally out of it.  It's probably one of the worst areas I've ever walked through.  Joel really didn't like it and at the end of the day he said he had a good day but he wants to leave Vancouver.  He doesn't like the city.  He said he really didn't like that part of town and also didn't like all of the noises of the city.  I don't think this kid will be moving to Toronto any time soon.  Today we were less in the city and more in the parks so Joel liked it a bit better.

I also forgot to mention how many Teslas there are here.  It's crazy.  Owen started noticing them on the drive home from the airport and I think we counted 8 or 9 on the 25 minute drive.  Yesterday Owen counted every one he saw and I think he got to 36?  There are so many!

Oh yeah and we left the kids at the hotel last night for 20 minutes or so so Trev and I could pick up some beer/coolers for the room.  It's nice that they are at an age we can do that!  I got an interesting Mango Mule that I've never seen in Ontario before which is pretty good!

Today was pouring rain when we woke up but it was supposed to clear up so we kept with our plan to rent bikes!  It drizzled a teeny bit just the first half hour or so but then it cleared up and the rest of the day was quite nice!

Leaving the bike rental place:

Riding through Stanley Park to get to the Aqurium.

The aquarium was a bit smaller than we expected and I don't think it was as nice as the Toronto Aquarium but we still had a fun time!

The highlight was this sea lion show!

We toodled around the aquarium a bit.

Nemo and Dory!

Then we checked out a 4D movie that they had there.  The movie was about Salmon and there was wind, vibrating chairs, mist, bubbles, etc.  The 4D part was a bit meh but the movie was pretty good.

We needed to make it to lunch so the kids got these fish waffle cones.  The cones were homemade waffles and were delicious (they shared a bite!)

We left the aquarium around 1pm and Trev found us a great little chip-stand-like place for lunch.  This is Owen being a goof.

Eating our lunch!

Then we started on the real adventure of biking around the Stanley Park Seawall.  The kids did amazing and all together we biked/walked about 30 km today!  The scenery was just so beautiful and the bike path was flat and amazing.  Every corner was another beautiful view.  We all really enjoyed it!

These totem poles are in Stanley Park.

We stopped to see this light house and while were were there Joel saw a seal in the ocean! (no picture)

There was a spot where you could go down because the tide was out and the kids explored around a bit and found this sea star!

Then Joel spotted another seal!  This time you can see him in the photo if you look carefully in the water about halfway up vertically and on the left hand side.  Very cool to see seals in the wild!

Stopped to play on the beach.  Owen tasted the water and declared that it really was salty!

We then went over to Canada Place where the cruise ships dock.  We got to see the Disney Wonder docked there which was kind of cool since we've been on it before!  They were having their sailing away party as we were there and we got to watch them take off with all of the passengers waving!

While we were at Canada Place, we bought tickets to Fly Over Canada.  If anyone's every been to Disney, it's the Canadian version of the ride Soarin'.  Soarin' was our very favourite Disney ride and so we knew we had to do it!  I honestly think it's the coolest ride every.  You sit in a row of chairs and buckle in.  Then the room goes pitch black and you can feel the whole device moving but you have no idea where.  Then when the lights come on you are surrounded by a 360 degree screen with Imax-like images projected onto them.  The seats move back and forth with the images as you fly through many scenes across Canada.  It feels SO real and it's not super scary but just a really amazing feeling.  And there are a couple of parts where there are some very high scenes with some drops that really feel like you are up high!  It's so cool!  Pictures are not allowed so here are some pictures I stole from online.

                                         

Finally at about 6pm we biked back to the rental place to drop off our bikes and then took a bus back near the hotel for dinner.

Our hotel is in a really great neighbourhood.  It's the gay village with rainbow crosswalks, rainbow flags everywhere and a really great atmosphere.  Tons of great restaurants nearby.  The kids had their eye on the Denny's at the bus stop though so we did breakfast for dinner tonight!

Tomorrow we are up bright and early to head to Victoria on Vancouver Island.  We decided to pick up lunch stuff so we can picnic on the ferry.  So after dinner, Trev and the boys headed back to the hotel and Anna and I walked to a grocery store to stock up on supplies!  Now we're pooped and ready for bed since it will be quite an early morning tomorrow.  We have an Uber booked for 7:30am to take us to get our rental car.

Ending with a dump from Trev's camera!

Here are 3 videos of the biking which showed up in the middle of the blog and I can't figure out how to move them!  Haha!

I forgot to start Strava when we got on our bikes and this also doesn't include our walk to the grocery store and back to the hotel so we were definitely at about 30 km today!