Vancouver

After a 6 year hiatus from blogging, apparently I'm back to share pictures of ourtrip out west!

We left the house early Saturday morning to drive to TO

Quick stop at Bass Pro to pass some time since we ended up being pretty early.

Airport shots!

One funny moment at the airport was when a guy in a gift shop asked me if Canadians truly eat ketchup chips or if it was just something they sold in touristy areas for tourists to try.  Then he asked me if it was true that we got milk in bags!  Haha!

First entry in their journals.

Anna and I passed the time doing an airport scavenger hunt.

Sushi for dinner!

The flight left an hour late, was 5 hours long and got in at about 1am Sudbury time so there were some pretty tired kids!

The plane was so nice!  So many movies, tv shows, and even games you could play on the screens.  There was also decent legroom and the biggest overhead compartments I've ever seen!  It's the first flight I've ever been on where the flight attendants weren't rearranging for 15 minutes before they could fit all of the carry on.  

We took an Uber to the hotel and finally crashed at about 2:20am Sudbury time (11:20pm Vancouver time).

I was up early at 5am Vancouver time (which is 8am Sudbury time so not all that bad).  The kids and Trev got up about an hour later.  This is the view from our balcony.

We spent some time reorganizing our luggage from 'convenient to get on the plane (separated liquids, checked baggage with everything that we 'could' live without, to a more functional 'makes sense' method.  The 'covid' breakfast at the hotel was, select your items on a paper, bring it to the lobby and then they make your breakfast and call your room when it's ready.  You couldn't drop off the slip until 8am and Anna and I were there right at 8am.  They didn't call us until 8:40am.  I was very impatient as I wanted to get out exploring (and I had been awake since 5am!

We are navigating Vancouver by bus, which seemed pretty intimidating at first, but is actually super easy.  Google Maps tells you exactly what bus to take and what stop to get off at.

First stop, Science World.  We used the reciprocal agreement with Science North to get in free with our Science North Membership!  I was afraid it might be pretty much exactly the same as Science North but there were almost no exhibits that were similar!  I was amazed.  It was a really nice science center!  The ball in this pic is the Science Center.

The weather was a bit cool and overcast in the morning but turned into a beautiful sunny day by the afternoon!

The hotel we are in gives little ducks to the kids with a letter explaining that the ducks like to have their pictures taken around Vancouver.  So Owen and Anna have had the best time taking pictures of their ducks with everything!

This climbing wall turned as you climbed!

How long can you hang on?

How high can you jump?

Many Owens and many ducks!

Using snatch blocks to pull your weight.  

There was a very cool dinosaur exhibit!  It focused on how T-Rex grew from a baby to a full-grown adult and it was really interesting!

There was also a nice Science Park outside.  This exhibit was a house made of garbage and represented the weight of garbage an average Vancouver family produces in one year.  Then you could try to lift it.

After Science World we took the bus to China Town.

Many duck Selfies today!

We visited Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Classical Garden.  It was so beautiful.  Owen is really into anime and all things Japanese and while this was Chinese, he still really loved it!

We then walked over to the GasTown Steam clock.  Parts of this clock are powered by steam.  We waited around with a million tourists for it to 'go off' on the hour and listened to the 10 second song it played.  It was sort of funny!

We walked over to get a better look at a giant cruise ship that was in port and on the way saw this statue guy!

After that we took the bus over the Granville Market.  Unfortunately we got a bit confused and got off at the wrong bus stop but it turned out great because the walk to the market was beautiful!

First we went to the Kids Market which was mostly just a bunch of toy stores.

But the kids did get to try out 2 virtual reality simulations (a waterfall and a minecraft rollercoaster).  They all thought it was really fun!

The we went to the actual Granville Market.  We browed all the vendors before deciding what food we wanted to get.  We were originally going to get stuff for a picnic tomorrow in Stanley Park tomorrow but it's supposed to rain so not great picnic weather.  

The kids were at the point where we needed a bribe to keep them going so we had dinner and then chose a treat to take back to our room.  The sausages and perogies were so yummy!

We then hopped on a little ferry boat for a 5 minute ferry ride which got us quite close to our hotel.

Had to stop and touch the ocean on our way back to our hotel!

On the way back to our hotel, with very sore feet, this hill was a killer!  Haha!

No screens allowed until the kids write in the journal!  Haha!

Digging into our treats before bed.

Trevor and Joel thought they were pretty smart when they found this whole pumpkin pie for the same prices as the individual treats that me, Owen and Anna picked!  They decided to split it and so each got half a pie!  (Don't worry, there's lots left!).

Here are some random shots from Trevor's camera which I can't get to go in the right order so I will just leave them here at the end.

Everyone was wiped and the kids didn't say two peeps when I said bedtime was at 8pm tonight.  Owen and Anna were asleep in about 10 seconds.  I let Joel stay up a bit later but he fell asleep pretty quickly too!

Plan for tomorrow:  Biking around Stanley Park (in the rain) and the Vancouver Aquarium!