September 14-22, 2014
Ahhhh, Vancouver, city of my soul… how I love the place 🙂
Vancouver Bound
The clock radio came screaming to life at 5:30AM this morning – time to go to Vancouver!! Our airport car (from Toronto Airport Limo) arrived right on time out front of the condo at 7:30AM. It was a very smooth and fast trip out to Pearson as it was early Sunday morning with very little traffic. We flew across the Gardiner Expressway and arrived at Toronto Pearson at 7:50AM – 20 minutes from home to the airport!
We checked in and passed through security without a hitch. Not that busy at the airport this morning. We were quite early so there was plenty of time for me to grab a tea from Tim Hortons and watch the world go by while we waited to be called for boarding. We eventually boarded and departed right on schedule at 10:15AM (EST), WestJet flight #WS707. I had the aisle seat and Vince was in the middle. It was a very smooth flight all the way across country, not even so much as a slight bump was felt. A few days prior to the flight I had purchased food coupons, so there were sandwiches waiting for us about an hour into the flight.
Arrival
We arrived in Vancouver at about 12:15PM (PST), pretty much right on schedule. We deplaned, found the baggage claim area (extremely quiet here today), then located the Skytrain (Canada Line) to downtown. We purchased Skytrain tickets from the automated system on the platform and waited for the next train – actually paying to ride the Skytrain seems to be an honour system in this city; barriers are wide open all the time.
We boarded the Skytrain and made the (roughly) 25 minute trip into downtown Vancouver, getting off at the Yaletown-Roundhouse station near the foot of Davie Street.
Stepping out of the Skytrain station we were greeted by a beautiful, sunny day. We planned to cross Davie Street and go to Quiznos for lunch but, alas, Quiznos had folded and the space was papered over! <insert sad face here>.
We walked up Davie Street, then down Hornby Street to our hotel – the wonderful 910 Beach Avenue Apartment Hotel – which was waiting to greet us:
Although check-in was not until 4:00PM we were able to check in early without a hitch (it was about 1:30PM at this point). As I’d requested months ago, we were booked into good ‘ole Suite #701 (which is where I’d stayed on previous occasions; it’s a corner bachelor suite):
If you'd like to read my TripAdvisor review of 910 Beach Avenue, click here.
We dropped our stuff in the suite and went back to Davie Street. We were starving from the long flight so we got a sub at Subway, then went for a coffee and tea at Tim Hortons a few doors down from Subway.
Exploring
With food and drink in our bellies, we returned to the hotel and unpacked, then ventured down to the foot of Hornby Street where the Vancouver Seawall runs. We took a looooong Seawall walk along False Creek, ending at the World of Science pavilion:
We were getting very tired at this point and my knee was killing me so we took one of the Aquabuses from the “The Village” dock back to Granville Island:
We then had to change Aquabuses for the short run from Granville Island to the Hornby Street dock. The Aquabus driver meant to give us a single transfer for the Hornby Street dock but he gave us a couple of free tickets for future Aquabus trips – bonus!
We went back to the hotel and dropped off Vince’s camera bag (I hadn’t yet had my camera out). We Walked up to Davie Street where I introduced Vince to Denny’s, where the food is always hearty and plentiful. We had a delicious late dinner; I couldn’t eat all of my “Brooklyn Spaghetti & Meatballs”, so I took the remainder home.
After dinner we walked down Davie Street to Denman Street to look around and ended up at the A-maze-ing Laughter statues near English Bay. We then walked back up Davie Street and stopped in at the Shoppers Drug Mart so Vince could get distilled water for his CPAP. Returning to 910 Beach, we crashed in to bed at about 9:15PM, exhausted from the long day and multiple time zone changes.
It had been quite a day but we’re finally here, in beautiful Vancouver! 🙂
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