Vancouver Trip 2010 part 7 - City (2)

This will be my last and final post on my trip. The last few days of my trip were spent in the city. Visited a few sights like Stanley Park, Deep Cove and Robson Street. Ok, Robson Street isn't really a sight but a shopping street, although I didn't really buy anything. But something did happen there which I shall share later.

Stanley Park is supposedly the "tourist" attraction of Vancouver and so far, we haven't really been to the "touristy" parts that much. So the spot most go to? The totem poles section. After the "obligatory" photo stop, we made our way to Deep Cove, to take the Baden Powell Trail. But we stopped at Beavers Lake first, which at first glance, you wouldn't know it was a lake by the layer of foliage on it. No beavers there, but we did catch a pic of a mother duck with its ducklings and a heron, plus a squirrel.

 

We proceeded to Deep Cove and had our lunch there first at this place called Honey Doughnuts & Goodies before climbing the trail. The view at the lookout point was amazing, but having height phobia made me wary of the edges and I literally "crawled" on the rock surfaces for our photo shots. 1 of our water bottles had the misfortune of rolling down, but was caught safely in a crevice, of which my friend stoically went to fetch it. They would probably have to fetch me if I were to go and fetch it as I would be "frozen" stiff. It was a good 2-hour walk and we rewarded ourselves with a good steak dinner downtown after that at The Keg, meeting up with our PhD ex-colleague again.

Since we were in Vancouver, where a lot of Hongkongers were now residing, we had to try the dim sum there. So we went to the Red Star Seafood Restaurant in Richmond for brunch. My favourites would have to be the egg tarts, almond tea and steamed beancurd skin roll. My friend and I (just 2 of us) then headed to Robson Street to attempt to do some last minute shopping (me). However, I wasn't really in the mood for much shopping and furthermore, my friend's car got impounded! Well, we kind of wrongly parked at a 'no parking during peak period' zone (although it was metered). We didn't really understand the sign and against our gut feel that we might be parking wrongly, we parked there. We did start our parking at a valid time though. We should have parked on the other side of the road. Imagine our bewilderment when on returning to the "crime scene" there was not a car in sight on that particular stretch/side. So we quickly called the hotline indicated on the meter (which was still ticking) and took the sky train (like our MRT) to the impound centre area. We were pretty surprised by how new, big and techie the impound lot was, as compared to what was usually portrayed on TV, and concluded they must earn a lot. So it was that we got the car back. We decided to have a healthy meal that night (my last night in Canada) and headed to the grocers to get some supplies. Had stir-fried spinach cooked by 'yours truly' :), frozen pizza and left over frozen 四季豆 from the other day. All very green!

So it was how my trip ended.