Thursday, March 13, 2008

Canada Day 2: Stanley Park


For our first full day in Vancouver, Connor and I were up bright and early - at 4am! I think we are still on UK time pretty much.

Breakfast isn't served until 6:30, but we managed to fill the time having baths and putting clothes away/playing Nintendo.



We had brekkie about 7ish, and killed another hour,and then set off for the Stanley Park aquarium in a yellow cab.

We got there bright and early too, at 9, unfortunately it doesn't open until 10 :)


So we walked round the sea wall some and went to see the totem poles. These were the highlight of Connor's day, he was fascinated by their stories and symbolism. He even spend $12 of his precious holiday money on a little totem pole of his own in the gift shop,who he has named "totey" :)



He also bought himself a new little friend, a Canadian racoon, who he has called "Furry"


After the totem poles we went back to the aquarium, which I thought was excellent but Connor, like his big brothers before him, appears to be entirely disinterested in fish :) He had to be forcibly posed for this photo: :)



The Beluga whales were amazing, as were the tropical exhibits and the gorgeous Bill Reid orca statue outside - called Lord of the Under Sea. The Lord caused us a slight crisis though when Cons decided he wanted to take a photo of me by the statue, and stepped back, and back, and back, and fell straight down 3 stone steps - eek!!! He was absolutely fine though, thankfully, and so largely was my camera, although the lens cap won't stay on any more.








Then it was back out into the park for more walking, saying hello to the very tame (and black!) squirrels - never seen squirrels that colour before, admiring the gorgeous views, and of course, a spot of geocaching :)



We launched Connor's Dora the Explorer travel bug out into the wild, wonder where she will end up?



After all that walking (it's the next morning now and I can barely move :)), it was back to the hotel on the bus (significantly cheaper than the taxi ride we took down to the park this morning, and very clean buses with very friendly drivers), to the restaurant for a well deserved meal (yummy veggie burger and a trough full of fries), and then a swim.

I started trying to blog after that, but fell asleep half way through, so thankfully managed to miss the end of the Nucks Yotes game in which we got shut out by Bryz (who is hard to stay mad at cos he is so darned cute! and very slightly mad-as-a-brush)



We should be nice and hungry for the win on Monday,now, though :) So I am looking forward to that game even more.

I have more yet to blog, but my tour of GM Place is calling me - yippeeee - catch you later....

1 comment:

Alter Me said...

this brings back memories. i spent a summer in alaska on a small island native community. the totem poles are amazing.