The Return to Vancouver

A recent visit to Vancouver showed me how much things had changed (and also remained the same). Here is the Olympic torch.

Then it was a small flight to Victoria where I met up with friends and actually enjoyed some beer. Also, I was still so jetlagged (first 6 hours from Europe and then another 3 from Toronto) that when movie time came I just fell asleep in the bean bag chair.

The flight was  very interesting, a small float plane and even though there were clouds, we could see lots because we were flying so low.

In Victoria I went to see the sook potholes, I think it would be a better trip on a hot day (by bicycle) but the water was very pretty.

To go back to Vancouver I took the ferry.

On one day it was a visit to Stanley Park and the aquarium, the light looked so fantastic on the city that I took some pretty nice pictures.

Once again I watched the Beluga show, at least the dialogue has changed somewhat over the years.

But there was still the tail splash at the end and I picked the wrong part of the seating and got a bit wet.

Also the otters were very cute. Still. Of course.

And now there are three dolphins in the show.

And now at the aquarium they have a much expanded jellyfish section (this is not a jellyfish).

But this is a jellyfish and I don't know what kind it is.

And they still have the moon jellies (common in the region). They even had several tanks showing the various life stages of the jellyfish.

The problem with hiking in Vancouver this year is that summer hasn't really come yet. So the snow was still on all the mountains (including on the top of Cypress - I've never seen that the entire time I was there). Instead we went hiking on the Chief. Holy crap was it crowded. I can understand it was almost the first nice day of summer, but it seems to have become the new Grind. It was packed going up and down and I believe easy access from Vancouver because of the new highway plays a big role.

Also at the top of Chief we found a hungry chipmunk.

And a nice view of Mount Garabaldi through the crack in the Chief.

And of course at the top of the chief is lots of climbing, here my friend clings to a tree as she makes her descent.

There was lots of eating on this trip, Vigs, Bananaleaf, White Spot and all you can eat Sushi. At the Sushi restaurant it was pretty funny to see the limitations, children were limited by age and height.