More Adventures in Vancouver

Tuesday 15 April

Both Ian and Karen have the day off today so we started off with breakfast at Joe's which is not far away from where Ian and Karen live.  As mentioned earlier there are lot of places to eat around Vancouver.  There was such a lot to pick from.  Karen had eggs benny (Eggs Benedict), Deb had The Brits breakfast (baken, beans etc, however Deb didn't have the eggs) and Ian and I had a waffle sandwich (eggs, bacon and cheese between two waffles).  To me this was an unusul combiination that seemed to work.

Got Ian to show me how to do the tipping when you pay your bill.  The servers (waiters) aren't paid all that much and rely on tips for their income.  Evidently the minimum tip is 18% but the normal tip is 20%.  When using a credit card there is an additional step where you enter the percentage of the tip you are going to give the server which is then calculated and then added on to the transaction. 

After breakfast we walked downtowntown and purchased a SIM card for my phone so that we can keep in contact with the kids without them or us incurring interntional phone charges.  We went to a store called Future Store, it is a large chain of stores similar to Harvey Norman.  Once the SIM was purchased we went back to Karen and Ian's apartment where we activated it over the Internet.

Something that is hard to get accustomed to is when purchasing most things, the price on the ticket is not what you have to pay.  Canada has a GST which is not added to the price on the pricetag.  For example the SIM card was $10 but I ended up paying $11.20.  The GST rate seems to vary as well, I haven't quite figured it out but it seems to vary from 5% to about 12.5%. You just have to be  aware that there will be a difference.

After organising the activation of the SIM card we got in their car and headed for Grouse Mountain which is about 20 minutes by road from Vancouver.  When we got to the car park I was wondering what the hype was all about because it wasn't very high.  I found out soon enough as we headed over to a cable car which was to take us up to the top of the mountain.  The  distance from the bottom to the top (or other way) is approx 1.6 km and it takes about 8 minutes to complete the journey.  A much nicer way to get there as opposed to a 5 km walk uphill.

When we arrived at the car park it was just starting to rain  As the cable car started to ascend it got a bit heavier and this turned to snow as we approached to top of the cable car run.  Picture perfect.  We stepped off the cable car into falling snow.

The outlook over Vancouver is exceptional.   While we were there the overcast sky and snow started to clear and we got some really good views of the city.

After our time on the mountain Karen and Ian took us for a drive through West Vancouver a more afluent part of town where most people live in houses with a little bit of land around it.  Most of the houses are huge and something that I found interesting was the material used to cover the roofs was not iron or tiles but timber.  The timber is in the form of shingles.  Hopefully during the course of our visit here in Canada I will be able to get some photographs of the roof cladding.

Vancouver itself seems very built up.  In Sydney and Brisbane all the high rise buildings are occupied by businesses and very little residential, where here it seems to me that most of the high rise buildings are used for residences.

We ended the day back at our unit with Ian and Karen and we had crumbed chicken and vegetables for dinner.

Wednesday 16 April

Jet lag caught up with us this morning.  Neither of us woke up until 9.00 am even though it was quitelight so  we didn't get out and about until about 10.30 am.  

Raining today so out with the rain jackets.

I lost my fitovers (sunglasses) on Monday so the first order of the day was to find some replacements.  We walked downtown to an optometrist where we thought we might get some.  Unfortunately it was not the case.  Fitovers don't seem to be as readilly available here as in Australia so we will have to continue searching. Fitovers here are called cocoons.

Second order of the day was to get Dab a waterproof jacket.  The jacket she has is only shower proof as long as the shower is very light.  Close to where the optometrist was there was a camping store and they had a pretty good selection and we were able to get a really nice blue one.

The rest of the day was trying out new experiences.  One of the places we enquired about fitovers said they might be at a store called London Drugs.  What a place.  They seem to have everything from small electrical appliances to drugs.  They have a post office agency there where we got some stamps to send some post cards, some lipstick that Pat cannot get in Australia, some soap and an umbrella.  It was over 2 floors.

We are having an interesting time with ordering coffee.  There are some places that have lattes and capucinno, however there are not many.  We ordered black coffees and were asked if we wanted some room left for cream.  We are getting there though.

Karen and Ian came around for dinner and Deb made teriyaki chicken and rice.  It was really nice.  We were looking for some sauces we were familiar with but were unable to find any so we settled for teriaki.  It is really nice having them over for dinner. 

I'll catch up with the rest tomorrow.