Trip to Vancouver & Seattle - Day 2

Coffee and muffins are served in the lobby of the Met every day from 8 - 11. The coffee is surprisingly good! Also, you can tell this is not America. 8-11 is a much more civilized hour than what we'd get in the US - probably 6-9 or something. After the coffee and muffins we hoped on the Skytrain to downtown Vancouver. The Skytrain is fabulous, and busy. Not even 10 on Sunday morning and it's full of people going somewhere! We got off at Stadium/Chinatown. Stadium is the home of the Canucks apparently, some hockey thing. We wandered over to Chinatown, and again were struck by how much later things get going in Canada than the US. Chinatown was just not that lively. We spent some time in Dr. Sun Yat-Sen's traditional Chinese garden, it was very nice. They unfortunately have a "no feeding the Koi" rule. Aisling still tried to entice them so come close to us by sticking her finger in the water, with no success. We headed out to Chinatown and the shops and malls and it was beginning to wake up. So we stopped and had dim sum for breakfast. It was really good. After breakfast, we walked around Chinatown, shopping, window-shopping, going to bakeries and finally headed over to the Gaslight part of town. It was still pretty chilly, and there were some showers. We browsed some of the touristy stores including a boot shop (very expensive). And we noted a lot of items related to the upcoming 2010 winter olympics, which will be held in Vancouver. Hopefully the Canadians will do better there than in Beijing. We also liked the little inukshuks - a native collection of stones but together to represent man. After we were done in the gaslight section, we headed into downtown Vancouver, where we walked along the waterfront. We then hopped on a bus to Granville Island. The public transportation is great!

Granville Island is very touristy, but fun. Lots of art and funky shops, plus a miniature ship and train museum and a public market. We stopped for a drink and some food at a place called Sammy Peppers and sat on the patio overlooking the dock. Our waitress was probably the least friendly waitress I've ever had, and probably the least friendly person in Canada. But the drinks and food were fine. We then walked around Granville Island a little more. When we were done we took a bus back into Chinatown. The Vancouver Chinatown night market was just getting started - it runs from 6 until 11 on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. It's very cool, lots of stalls selling interesting food and other items. We spent a little time there and then took the Skytrain back to our hotel. Aisling and I went for a short drive around New Westminster, just to get a sense of the place, before we went to bed.