I had a good bus ride down the Sea to Sky highway that links Vancouver and Whistler, there is a crazy amount of construction going on there at the moment in the lead up to the Winter Olympics in one year.
The first night i got into Vancouver I randomly decided to go on a ghost tour of Gastown, which is the oldest part of Vancouver, and infested with bums. When we left there was four of us in the tour, until we got to the statue of the fallen soldier being carried away by an angel out the front of the old train station.
After a few minutes a few other backpackers came running up to us, including Joey from Jersey, Ross the wild looking Englishman with a huge beard and wearing only a t-shirt, and an aussie girl.
Allegedly they missed the start of the tour and ran all the way down Granville St past all the roadworks and bums to catch up with us and join the circle where our tour guide was having a talk. Ross had a beer in his hand wrapped in a plastic bag and was about 1/3rd of the way through when the local constabulary tapped him on the shoulder and wanted a word.
Turns out you can't drink on the streets here and they probably thought he was a bum hassling some poor tourists.
And then we ran into "The Captain". He is a bum that has a big beard and wares a pirate hat and yarrs at people. He was trying to get people to pay him a dollar so we could get a photo with the captain. It was just such a random bum, and kept calling himself the captain.
The other bum's were not as entertaining. We had one have a go at us for not giving him some change, and when we were walking past a bottle-o he stormed in the door walking through our group and saying "It takes an old lady to give someone change".
We later also got taken into "Blood Alley" by out guide, where alot of bums and drug addict prostitutes hang out and there are rats on the street. I was getting a funny feeling about the place, it could maybe have been a ghost, but was more likely me just getting nervous about hanging round in a dodgy alley.
The tour was kinda interesting and the guide had some good stories as well as a lot of knowledge of the history of the area which was mainly why i went there in first place.
After that was over we went on the first of many trashy nights out in van.
The next day I went down to Stanly Park with some of the people I met and we checked out the aquarium which was pretty cool. The people who where not from near the coast were amazed. The Sea Otters were really cool and the dolphins here don't suck so much.
And then it turned into a trashy night.
The next night a just went wandering round Vancouver. It was pub/club night on friday night and we went out and I met some seppo's that were actually pretty cool.
The next few days I went off and checked out Downtown Vancouver. On the Sunday morning a few of us went off to watch wales vs scotland six nations rugby games in a pub at 7 in the morning in Gastown. It was opening early for a Manchester United game but they had the rugby channel.
Only thing was that the pub didn't open until 8 and the rugby was delayed, so we got to watch the games from the day before and drink beer before breakfast time.We also found out that the other game would be on later that afternoon so we went and checked that out.
The next few days most of my regular crew went up to whistler so I had time off to check out Van, get a few things worked out and to let my liver recover.
I went into Stanly park for another walk and was looking at the Stanly park van which had their services written on it, which included "Coyote Awareness". I took no more than ten steps and there on the tarmac road was a coyote with half a rabbit in it's mouth was staring back at me not more than 10 meters away.
I froze and we stared at each other for a while and I was thinking about how I should take a photo, but before I could grab my camera it trotted off into the bush.
That is a photo I took of the coyote's arse, the white thing is the rabbit.
I also found the Hotel Vancouver, which is where we stayed here about 10 years ago.
Stay tuned for a new special post, Architecture in Vancouver.
I also went to a comedy club with the hostel group, and yesterday I went on a brewery tour and tasting before heading off to see the Vancouver Giant's play hockey. They are the local under 20's team and it was an experience. I wanted to see the NHL game but tickets sold out months ago and it was $40 for a ticket up in the nosebleeds. A ticket to the giants was $20 and only a short bus ride away.
I didn't really understand what was going on but it was pretty interesting and I definitely rate it. It kinda looks like it is rugby on ice.
Have a go at these pictures I snapped.
And then of course we went to the pub. Here is a picture of some of the crew I have been hanging round with.
And now I am having a nothing day and working out when I am off next on my travels, I will be flying to Toronto and then immediately taking a train over to Montreal, which should be fun.
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