Vancouver, BC | Cascadia Road Trip, Part 5
It was the only rainy day of our road trip, but luckily the rain went away and left only lingering gray skies once we crossed the border into Canada. Vancouver was our northernmost destination on the road trip, and it was the perfect finale to our amazing week.
First, some views from Stanley Park which spans the entire edge of a peninsula.
It was funny how we really didn’t expect Canada to really be like a foreign country (I mean, it’s Canada. They don’t even stamp your passport!) But then the little things kept getting to us. One, we couldn’t use our cell phones. Two, we actually had to get some Canadian money, even though the exchange rate is basically even. Three, what in the world are blinking green lights? In fact, what are all of the strange street signs, like the sign that looks like three gold bars? And why would you ever have an intersection in which one direction has traffic lights and the other has a stop sign? We sat there at the stop sign loudly pronouncing, “But when is it our turn!?!” But we loved Vancouver anyway.
We also took a little side trip out to Capilano bridge, a nice Indiana Jones style suspension bridge in the woods. And then we headed into the city!
Left: a reflection of the steam clock in Gastown. Right: the boys had a lot of fun in this denim shop. I never knew Young knew so much about denim.
We also managed to walk through what must be the two worst blocks of Vancouver– between Gastown and Chinatown. There were just tons of people openly doing cocaine on the sidewalks and arguing with each other. This was also only two blocks from the police station It was quite bizarre.
Finally, we headed back to Richmond (the very, very Asian suburb of Vancouver) for the best Taiwanese beef noodle soup ever. It might not look like much in my cameraphone rendition below, but it was amazing and quite possibly the best meal of the entire trip, which is saying a lot, considering we spent the entire trip eating really good food.
The end! And then we went back to Seattle and each flew away to our respective cities. Check the related links below to see the other parts of our road trip. Thanks to Howard, Vince, and Young for an epic adventure! What shall the next one be?
Technical note: as with many of my latest posts, this has been a mix of real film photos processed and scanned by Richard Photo Lab and digital images processed with VSCO Film. Check up on my “Shooting Film” series if you’re interested in reading more about my explorations in film vs. digital.
