vancouver canada

Her View

Vancouver - Caywood's perspective

Vancouver, Canada: a great city for outdoor activities. We added Vancouver to our list pretty late in the game, but when I realized we were less than three hours away when we were in Seattle I knew we had to make the drive across the border. Surprisingly to me, we had no trouble at the border - even with our converted van where the back windows are tinted black and don’t roll down. Our first stop in Vancouver was Lynn Canyon Park in North Vancouver. One of the things Vancouver is known for is their Capilano Suspension Bridge, which looks AWESOME, but is $36 Canadian dollars per person. I found a smaller suspension bridge at Lynn Canyon for free. So obviously we went with the second option. The suspension bridge was so cool. I had never been on one, and underneath flowed a beautiful river and waterfall. We also were pleasantly surprised when there was actually a lot of hiking to do on the other side of the bridge, all in Canadian forest. This was one of my favorite hikes. It was off the beaten path quite a bit, had a couple hundred stairs at one point to climb, and a good bit of our hike we were by running water. Check the photo out below of Feliks’ balancing rocks. My fiance is cute.

After driving around downtown a bit, our main attraction in Vancouver was at Stanley Park. This park is huge, and right on the bay. We saw a hollowed out tree, a couple small beaches, some beautiful forests, and more. They offer horse drawn carriages here, but we’ve done those before so we opted out of those. Once it started to rain, we hopped in the aquarium to enjoy some dryness. This was a great aquarium. A lot of the time, all aquariums are the same. (FYI, we haven’t done one yet on our trip until this.) But this aquarium was different than others I have been to - nearly all of their exhibits were focused on animals of their region in British Columbia. So a lot of the animals were new to us. We saw way more jellyfish, lots of fish and other ocean life we haven’t seen before, and a kind of dolphin I’ve never even heard of. Of the shows they offered, we stuck around for some of the sea otter show and the full dolphin show. They were great. We also got very lucky, and saw feedings for a lot of the fish, as well as the caymen.

After finishing up Stanley Park we met a previous co-worker of mine for dinner. David, a Canadian originally from Toronto who married a girl from Vancouver, met us at the River House Restaurant and we enjoyed a delicious meal right on the water. After catching up for a bit, it was time for Feliks and me to start our drive that evening of about four hours. I liked Vancouver, my favorite part definitely being Stanley Park. However, I really want to go back with more time because I know there’s so much more to do there. Vancouver Island has so much to offer after a ferry boat ride over, as well as the city itself has a great variety of outdoor activities that you can do for cheaper than normal in the US.

His View

Vancouver - Feliks' perspective

I had no expectations of Vancouver, as I did little research before our trip up there. At first glance the downtown was weird, as half of it looked like it was built by the same person, while the other half was really unique. If you ever go there you will see what I mean, because half the buildings look identical. As we drove through downtown Vancouver it was hard to tell that you were in a different country, minus the flashing stoplights. Other than that, you had typical franchise restaurants that you’d see in any American downtown, and there wasn’t a whole lot different. Our first stop was the Lynn Canyon Park, which was a nice afternoon hike along the river and through the woods, and across the suspension bridge. We got really lucky, because as we were leaving about 200 tourists rolled up in a couple tour buses; I can’t imagine the park having the same feeling with them there.

Our next stop was Stanley Park, and I’ll tell you that Canadian traffic is no different than American traffic. It took us almost an hour to travel ten miles. Once we got to the park it was a nice drive. Make sure to get an online map on your phone or something, because the maps are not easily accessible. The road that goes around the park is one way, so if you pass something you have to drive all the way around to get back to it. And it’s not a small park. I do like that there were plenty of signs for the random activities and trails in the park, so even without a map you could still find some cool things. We did decide to do the aquarium, which had recently been renovated. I’d never been to an aquarium in a different country, but Canada did a very good job with the different exhibits.

After the park, we met up with Caywood’s old coworker for dinner, who told us more about life in Vancouver. I really like the fact that it rarely snows. And even though we didn’t get to go, Vancouver Island sounded like a place I would really enjoy.

Overall, Vancouver did not seem like Canada, or America - kind of a mixture of both. I definitely would not mind coming back again. I like being surrounded by mountains and water, and for the most part really nice people. Canadians are definitely just as aggressive drivers as any major US city, so you will feel right at home. Parking wasn’t a big deal, but traffic did get really bad at some points. If you go, I would not stop at the duty free shop outside the US border, as their prices were not anything to get excited about.

Vancouver Aquarium - jellies	Lion Gate Bridge
Vancouver Aquarium	Lynn Canyon Park
Lynn Canyon suspension bridge	Vancouver Aquarium - beluga whale
Lynn Canyon suspension bridge	Lynn Canyon Park
Vancouver Aquarium - monkeys	Vancouver Aquarium - coral
Vancouver Aquarium - porpoise	Vancouver Aquarium - frogs
Hollow tree @ Stanley Park	Harbor view of downtown
Vancouver Aquarium	Vancouver Aquarium - dolphins
Vancouver Aquarium - dolphins	Lynn Canyon Park
Vancouver Aquarium - nemos!	Lynn Canyon Park