Vancouver / Seattle Trip - Travel Log

Sunday 5/2/2004

I'm updating from the Vancouver Public Library at the moment.. The line to access the internet was quite long due to some inconsiderate bastards taking more than their far share of time.

The flight and bus ride to Vancouver was uneventful, but I got a fair amount of pictures. I arrived in Vancouver around 5:30pm, after leaving Dallas around 9:30am. The hostel is nice, and quite affordable too. I did have a bit of trouble finding an ATM, but I got one that worked with my Washington Mutual card on the 3rd try. I ate at a nice place not too far from where i'm staying called The Fireside Grill.. The hostess was *HOT* and the bartender was quite rockin' as well.. hehe

I just walked around Granville St for a while and tried to scout out the area a bit. I tried to get into a dance club, but it seems that most clubs there have guest list only nights on saturday. I'm rooming with 3 other guys, one from france, one from japan and one from mexico. I went to bed sort of early as I planned to take a city tour this morning around 9am.

I woke up earlier than I expected, so took my time getting ready. The tour was delayed a bit because a marathon was happening in the downtown area today. We started off going to Queen Elizabeth Park, and I got some nice photos of the gardens there. There were a bunch of chinese people doing tai chi there, and it seems a couple was getting married as well.

We drove around the downtown area for a while and then stopped a few times in Stanley Park. I got a few more good pictures of the Van skyline here, as well as Lion's Gate Bridge.

I'm going to try to see an action musical called "Terracotta Warriors" on May 4th if I can get tickets. It might be sold out. The buses and trains might not be working tomorrow since there's a possibility of the workers going on strike.

Tuesday 5/4/2004

I met a girl i'd been talking to online sunday night. Her name is Vivian and she lives in Richmond. She drove into downtown and we had coffee and talked for a little while. She's a cool person, but not really what I was expecting.. heh I also met a few girls that were staying at the hostel. One was living up in Whistler (a ski resort north of Van) and had come down for a few days. Another was from Australia, and I talked with her for a while longer.

I ended up walking around a lot yesterday. First I walked around and towards False Creek, then took a little ferry over to Granville Island. I walked around there for a bit, then went over to the Kitsilano area. I came across the Vancouver Museum but I had some bad timing since it was closed on monday. I stopped by a little cafe and had a snack since it was starting to rain.. After that I checked out the main shopping area on 4th avenue.

I eventually got back to the hostel about mid-day, so I ate some of the food that i'd bought at a grocery the other day. After that I walked in the other direction, since I wanted to see the Sun Yat-Sen Classical Garden in Chinatown. I got there after a while and it was a nice place.. I got some pictures of it. After that I walked around Chinatown for a bit and then north into Gastown. It was raining heavier around then, so I stopped in another cafe and bought a drink, then read a free newspaper for a while.

After the rain had let up somewhat, I walked over to the Harbor Centre and went up to the lookout there to see the city and take some pictures. I took a series of pictures at evenly spaced distances around the tower, so i'll try to make a panoramic picture of the city. I went back down and found a few malls to bum around in, since I wanted to come back up to the lookout and take pictures at night too.

I got bored of walking around the malls, so I returned to the tower a bit early, and ended up talking with a korean girl named Yaerim for a little while. I went back up to the top and it still wasn't dark, so I looked for some more people to talk to. I found two of the lookout employees there having their dinner break, so I joined them. There was a canadian guy named Ian and a Malaysian/Canadian girl named Phoebe. We talked for a while until they had to get back to work.

I came back after snapping a few pictures at night from the lookout and crashed. I'm going to try going to the University of British Columbia to see their Anthropology Museum today, plus there's that showing of Terracotta Warriors tonight at 8. I leave Vancouver tomorrow, so i'll catch another bus back down to Seattle.

Wednesday 5/5/2004

I took a bus out to the University of BC tuesday morning and by the time I got there it was around noon.. (I got a late start) so I had lunch there in the cafeteria. I walked around the campus a bit and took some pictures, then eventually located the Museum of Anthropology. I wandered around there for a little while, then joined a guided tour at around 2pm. I ended up talking to a canadian guy and three girls who were from toronto. After that, I wanted to see the Nitobe Memorial Garden, which is a japanese zen garden. On the way, I saw an interesting trail to a place called "Wreck Beach" so I followed it. This was a seriously *rough* and *steep* trail. I got some photos of it.. Near the bottom part of the trail had eroded away, so only the frame of some steps was there.. heh Anyway, I walked around the beach then headed back up the trail and onto the garden.

It was probably around 4pm by the time I caught a bus back to downtown, so I got a bite to eat at the hostel then walked over to the library area. I picked up my ticket for Terracotta Warriors, then killed some time in the library since it didn't start until 8pm.

Terracotta Warriors was exquisite. It's called an "action-musical" so there were a lot of martial arts inspired dance moves. There was a very wide variety of costumes, and about 90 people in the cast. I bought some music cd's of this production and the previous one, Of Heaven & Earth. I'll probably get the DVD online when it becomes available.

Thursday 5/6/2004

Yesterday was interesting. It started out with me waiting for the bus. Terribly exciting, no? Well that part was boring, but I met a japanese girl who was also going to seattle. Her name is Naoko Kato. I sat next to her on the bus since it was mostly full of old people.. -_-;; We talked most of the way down to seattle. She was coming down to Seattle to get her student visa for a 2 month stay in vancouver.

The bus driver dropped us off sort of close to the Space Needle, so we had to figure out how to get to our hostels. We ended up taking the Monorail over to Westlake Center and getting lunch, since it was almost 2:30pm by this time and the bus left Vancouver at 9:30. We looked at the map in my guide book and walked over to where she was staying the Green Tortoise hostel. I had planned to stay at the Hostelling Intl place, but changed my mind and stayed here instead.

After we dropped off our bags, we walked around Pike Place market and the waterfront for a while, then visited the Seattle Aquarium and saw an IMAX movie there called "The Living Seas". It was getting sort of late by this time, so we headed back for the hostel. I went out alone later to get some dinner, and I walked down 1st avenue until a saw a place called Jai Thai. That was some good food.. :)

Naoko's busy getting her visa today, but we have plans to see a Mariners game this evening. I'm going to visit the Seattle Art Museum today, and see about getting some pictures of the city from various skyscrapers.

Saturday 5/8/2004

I walked all around the downtown area on the 6th, and went up to the 73rd floor of the Bank of America Tower to get some pictures.. Then I walked over to the international district (Chinatown) and saw the ncie park they had there.. I stopped by an asian grocery store complex called Uwajimaya and had lunch at the deli there.

After that I came back and stopped by the Seattle Art Museum. I had good timing, since the first thursday of the month all of the exhibits are free! I walked around a bit more after that and then went back to the hostel to meet up with Naoko. We set out for Safeco Field but stopped by a place to get some Bubble Tea since we had some time before the game. It was the Seattle Mariners vs the Minnesota Twins that evening. We got to the stadium and got some seats in the lower right outfield, close to Ichiro Suzuki's position.. ;) The game wasn't that exciting since the offense of both teams really stunk. The mariners won by getting two runs, one in the 6th inning and one in the 7th. There were some assholes behind us shouting practically the entire game, alternately cheering and making fun of the Twins' right outfielder Jones.

It was sort of late by the time we got out of there, and we had a hard time finding a restaurant open at 10:30, but we finally found a japanese one called Koji Asakaya.

Yesterday was sort of rainy, but I woke up late and wandered around a bit.. I ended up seeing Van Helsing in the afternoon. I really liked the film, but it didn't take itself too seriously.. The ending was really cheesy too.. haha I also wandered across this showing of a 1926 japanese silent film called "A Page of Madness" that was being screened with a new score added by the Aono Jikken ensemble at Seattle University.. It was quite a strange experience.

Yesterday evening I met blu_munkie and her boyfriend Steve at a bar called Chop Suey. We hung out there for a little while and talked, then stopped by Dillettante Chocolates and had some coffee and dessert. It was nice meeting them. :) Oh yeah, Steve locked his keys in the car, so he had to borrow a wire hanger to open it.. haha

I have absolutely no plans for today, maybe i'll take that Underground Tour.. In any case, i'm leaving tomorrow around 11:30.

Update 5/9/2004: I did take the underground tour, then ate at a nice italian place called Trattoria Michelli afterwards. I got back to the hostel just in time to avoid the rain, then didn't really do much the rest of the day except take a nap and get some chinese food for dinner.