Hello From Vancouver – Part 5 – Gastown and My Final examinations
Hello from Vancouver (5): Gastown and My Final examinations
After my very interesting walking tour of downtown East Side, I decided to complete my exploration of the city with another bike ride. In my opinion, cycling is the perfect way to discover a city, gives it more scope to walk, no need to wait for buses, and exercise at the same time-bonus!
I realized I had not Gastown seen, however, which gave me the perfect excuse for another round of exploration. I went to rent bicycles, radios again, I talked with Phil who had been so helpful Saturday for me in my exploration of Stanley Park and went for another couple of hours to see a bit more of Vancouver before I had to leave. I decided to ride back to the Downtown East Side as it was not able to take pictures during the walk. I rode along the waterfront road past Canada Place and the Center Harbor to the east of the city.
I close my steps to walk this morning on the bike and took some photos of some buildings along the road. One place that definitely highlighted was the Sun Tower, a building created between 1911 and 1912 used to be the headquarters of the Vancouver Sun. I walked back to Chinatown, which still had such an unusually orderly and organized feel to it.
Then explored Gastown, one of the most historic areas of Vancouver. Its founding father owned a salon loquacious: John "Jack Deighton grisu who, in 1867, built a hall near the corner of Carrall and Water streets for the benefit of local factory workers wood and gold seekers on their way to the Yukon. In the 1870s, Gastown was a multicultural community, with lounges, hotels and grocery stores, brought to the city Vancouver, because he had been chosen as the Canadian Pacific Railroad terminal.
In 1886 there were 1,000 buildings and 3,000 residents. Then in 1886, a fire broke out and burned the village to the ground. Despite the destruction of the city, the fire started the largest building boom in the history of the West Coast. After a decline economic in the first part of the 20th century, Gastown became a virtual backwater from the 1930s to 1950 to a group of local merchants and property owners to back on the map in the 1960s by renovating the historic buildings and turn them into a major tourist attractions of the city.
One of the most Gastown Steam Clock is the first in the world, created by Raymond Saunders, who has a small store nearby. Live steam extracted from a plant which is heated to over 100 downtown buildings, operating the mechanism of clocks and whistles blows. At each quarter hour the clock sounds the bells of Westminster, while the great whistle announces the time. Gastown Steam Clock is one of the favorite places for tourists to photograph. Gastown is also home to one of the main attractions Vancouver: an innovative educational and cultural experience called Storeyum: sample is 100,000 square foot venue inside the colorful history of the West Coast of Canada in live performances.
Of course I did not have time to explore Gastown and all its shops and restaurants in detail, since my plane would leave in a few hours and I still wanted to return to Stanley Park again to take another look at this beautiful urban green space. So again I cycle past the construction of new convention center and again at the waterfront in Stanley Park. Since this was my second time at the park, I took a couple of things I missed the first time I saw the girl Wetsuit into a sculpture, created in 1972, a bronze statue of natural size of a woman in a wetsuit, with flippers on their feet and her mask pushed up on the forehead, and sits on a tidal rock near the coast of Stanley Park.
I was not around the park but not cut through it after breaking a good ice cream low in the stand of timber concession Arc and I went through the beautiful gardens of Rose and Shakespeare Garden that form the backbone of the flower beds and trees perennials and ornamental shrubs. Stanley Park is truly a spectacle, and offers many opportunities for recreation and relaxation. The park also has a pen children and trains.
My last stop on the Lost Lagoon Park, a large pond with a fountain at its center, against the magnificent background of forests, flowering shrubs, with towering mountains in the background. The amount of visual beauty of this area is almost overwhelming and I was starting to feel a little sad that I had to finish my visit as they had to do back to UBC on the other side of town to retrieve my baggage and go to the airport.
I had originally planned to go cycling until 5:30 pm, considering that my flight would not leave until almost 9 pm, but then I realized it is Monday and peaking will start shortly. So I took my bike back soon, said my goodbye to Phil, who has been very helpful all the time, and he gave me the words of a little more local councils in that bus routes to take and went to take a bus to Burrard Street. The intersection of Burrard and Georgia was totally crazy, because the city was repaving and police directing traffic manually. I was glad I had taken my bike again soon, at least I do back to college at the time of my departure to the airport. Finally, Bus # 44 came and I could relax. I was really surprised that only took me 25 minutes to get to college that left me extra time to complete some Travel reports via the Internet.
However, Victoria and Vancouver have been an awesome experience. I had absolutely perfect weather: 25 degrees sunshine and absolutely no humidity. I had a fabulous meeting in Victoria with my colleague Clare, two very interesting and a half days in Canada and the U.S. Servas Conference where he got to know some of the most generous and dedicated people I had the opportunity to learn, and time between there was an opportunity for explore Vancouver, a vibrant and exciting city full of contrasts, set in one of the most physically impressive anywhere in the world.
Ha been a short trip, and all I can say – I'll be back …..
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About the Author
Susanne Pacher is the publisher of Travel and Transitions (
http://www.travelandtransitions.com
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