Granville Island Public Market in Vancouver is a destination for tourists and locals alike. There is a lot to look at and admire on the waterfront and the atmosphere is very peaceful and enjoyable even when there are hordes of people around. At least, I find it so, but I don't get to this place too often anymore. I may get there at least once, perhaps twice a year.
This time I was with a friend who likes to go there and it was probably the quietest I have ever seen it. It looks like the group of ladies in the background were enjoying shopping and picture taking. I think they may have been waiting for one of the Aqua buses that goes from one end of the Island to downtown Vancouver.
On Thursday I finally went for a walk I've long been anticipating. I've just been waiting for the weather to improve so I could enjoy this walk in all it's splendour. Thursday was just such a day. The sky was mostly clear with a few, fluffy (good meteorlogical term, lol) clouds and mostly a lot of sun.
Just so you know at the outset, I am walking to a well known city tourist attraction, Granville Island Market. This market is a very popular with tourists and locals alike and is set on an island located underneath the main city bridge, the Granville Bridge. But I begin my walk on Broadway and Laurel, right at the corner where Earl's Restaurant is located.
As I commence my walk I can smell a beautiful fragrance coming from these bushes. I walk further down Laurel Street, I can see many more bushes and smell more beautiful fragrances. I had to walk down this pathway for a few blocks. It is a rather steep incline.
I am headed to the corner where this maple leaf tree is located. It marks the beginning of my secret path to the promised location.
Here is some signage that gives a tourist directions to the nearby transit and tourist attractions.
This is the secret path I was mentioning. I call it secret because I'm not sure that most people outside of the neighbourhood really know about it. I happened on it one day quite by accident and I've loved the path ever since.
When you are walking over the pathway above, you are actually crossing a very busy street called 6th Avenue. I took photos from the path to the street level.
Now I continue on my journey taking photos as I go.
A beautiful little pond.
Take a moment to listen to the sound of rippling waters. Click on the arrow in the short video below.
Now let us continue our journey. This next photo is like looking through a veil of trees. The veil will soon be lifted to show the beauty which waits.........
First up is this stunning water scene. A view of False Creek and the beauty of the boats moored there.
You can even see the lingering cherry blossoms. Those that don't want to say goodbye as most have already done. The beauty of the cherry blossom is so fleeting and so wonderful. I long to see these blossoms each year.
I love the cherry blossoms so much that I even wrote a Haiku verse about them and made a small video project in honour of the cherry blossom. Here is the Haiku.
This ends this part of the journey. Join me again soon as I carry on to the Granville Island Market. I'd love to know how you are enjoying the walk so far. Until we meet again, happy blogging!
An out of town friend from Calgary, Alberta was here and she took me out to Aphrodite's Organic Pie shop for a treat. She had just finished lunch and I hadn't had any lunch so I was game.
Outside waiting for our pies because inside was jam packed.
There was a very boisterous crowd inside making it difficult to hear one another at times.
I grabbed a seat indoors as soon as I could as it was threatening to rain.
My friend, Raenelle wanted to take me to the sister restaurant of the same name, across the street. But there was a notice on the door stating that the restaurant was keeping limited hours due to lack of staff. The notice referenced the high cost of living in Vancouver making it difficult to retain staff. I peeked in through windows and it looks like a lovely restaurant and an equally lovely patio outside.
I had strawberry-rhubarb pie a la mode. My friend had cherry pie with whipped cream. The pie was okay but the crust was very oily. I prefer a deep dish pie and these pies were rather flat, greasy and overcooked. I don't want to sound like I'm complaining because my friend was very generous and kind. But when a piece of pie is almost $10 plus extra for ice cream and coffee, it better be good. To be fair this pie shop gets rave reviews and I've seen many photos of deep dish and delicious looking pies that look nothing like what I had on Sunday. So I should return another day or better yet, learn to make my own organic pie, lol.
After pie, I suggested a movie with a bite to eat first since I hadn't really eaten a proper meal all day. We had very limited time to nosh so I suggested we go to some place close to the movie. We went to the Cheshire Cheese Inn on Dunbar and had a quick bite of fish and chips. The restaurant was advertising for more wait staff with a posted notice on the window but we were served cheerfully and efficiently. I wish I could give the food a thumbs up too but the fish batter was hard and over done. Wow, I was mostly out of luck on Sunday with food quality. This is highly unusual. Normally I am totally satisfied with my food as served.
With a few minutes to spare we dashed down the street to the movie "The Incredibles 2". I had a groupon (coupon) for the Dunbar Theatre and it was getting close to expiring. My friend was game to see the children's family movie and we both thought it was a fairly good movie. The theatre was almost sold out and most of the crowd was made up of grownups and very few children were in attendance.
After the movie it started to rain and my friend ended up driving into a new to her area though she grew up in the city. She landed in front of the St. George's School, a private school in the city. She fell in love with the building. Seeing an open gate I suggested we park and walk into the grounds to get a better look because she was so enamoured of the place. The building and the grounds are very beautiful but it was dark (and we were trespassing) so we could only see so much.
I looked up the school on line and learned that the school houses both day students and boarding students. The boarding tuition for Canadian students is approximately $50,000. Canadian dollars for 2018/2019. If you are an international student the tuition is closer to $70,000. Canadian day students pay approximately $25,000 while their international counterparts pay just under $40,000. That is a lot of money but I'm sure very affordable for the elites of the world. While I don't know what the tuition fees are like elsewhere, my sense is the rates are very competitive.
On Monday another friend named Pat, and I took in a concert which was part of the Vancouver Jazz Festival on now and until July 1st. The songstress was Leora Cashe and the venue was the beautiful St. Andrews Wesley located at Burrard and Nelson Streets in downtown Vancouver. I really enjoyed the performance. I just managed to snap a few photos and partially record a song before my camera battery died.
Even though the concert was free the crowd was small.
I've uploaded a short video of a negro spiritual called "Steal Away" sung by the gifted Leora Cashe. I hope you enjoy it. I'm new to posting videos so you may want to click and watch on YouTube if you need to adjust the volume.
My friend had also invited me to a belated birthday luncheon and the venue was the beautiful waterfront restaurant called the Dockside located in the Granville Island Hotel (on Granville Island). I couldn't get photos but managed to get a nice one from the internet. The restaurant has a very large and beautiful patio deck but we opted to sit indoors by the window to avoid the direct sunlight.
I'm ending my long post with a beautiful sunrise which I snapped from my patio deck on Wednesday morning just after 5 a.m.
and a photo of my garden.
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On Friday I have an appointment downtown.
In the evening I've invited a friend to join me in listening to the marvellous Watoto Children's Choir from Uganda. If it's permitted I'll take photos to share with you in a future post.
My niece is visiting for a few weeks. It has been a long time since she's been to my home and she and I have both been enjoying our long overdue visit.
While she is here we are being like being tourists and going to Granville Island and other areas of the waterfront, going to the movies and Chinatown, riding a little ferry boat, having fish and chips at the waterfront and ordering KFC (chicken), both of which are her favourites, going for a picnic and maybe swimming if she we can find one of my bathing suits to fit her, relaxing in the garden and having a small birthday celebration.
And if that isn't enough, thrill of thrills, we are going to see the musical, "Mary Poppins" and we are so excited! The only other time we took in a musical together it was her favourite was "Beauty and the Beast". She enjoyed it so much and so did I! Mary Poppins will play at the same venue, The Queen Elizabeth Theatre where I also saw the Soweto Gospel Choir in April of this year. You can read more about that fantastic concert here.
When I was a child, I loved the character of Mary Poppins and I was especially enthralled with how she brought out furnishings from her carpet bag when she moved in as the children's nanny. Who could ever forget her songs "A Spoonful of Sugar" and "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" ? The musical should be a lot of fun and a once in a lifetime treat.
What about you dear reader? What do you like to do when your niece visits?
It's been a busy, fun and tiring week with my niece. We went to see two movies, "Despicable Me 2" and "Man of Steel". Both of these movies couldn't be more different from the other but they were both entertaining in their own ways. We laughed at the little minions in Despicable Me 2 and my niece almost split a gut laughing hysterically when the minions sang "YMCA" by the Village People. My niece and I love superheros of all kinds, including Superman. I thought the movie might be too serious and not entertaining enough for her. She did get very wrapped up in the movie plot, shaking her fists at the villains who tried to kill Kal-El (the name Superman was given at birth by his parents on the planet Krypton).
In addition to going to movies, we managed to make two trips to the beach front. One on of our trips, we stopped at a foot reflexology place before going for dinner. My niece told me the day before that
she wanted a foot massage. I didn't take her seriously because I know she doesn't like to be touched and her feet are ticklish. While I was
having my feet done, she surprised me by also having her feet massaged
in the next room, lol. After that we went for fish and chips before heading to the beach to relax and make sure my niece was able to dip her feet in the water.
It was quite an experience for her to walk barefoot in the shifting sands with all kinds of dried, prickly seaweed, small stones and shells. Her balance is not good at the best of times and her foot muscles are not strong or used walking in the outdoors without shoes. She was very proud of herself after managing to take a walk along the beach to the water and back. I was proud of her too because she struggled to keep her balance but she made it. Afterward, her feet were very dusty from the sand. To make her laugh I told her she had "ghost feet". She thought that was very funny.
We stayed home on the weekend as our first few days out were not only very long but very hot. We were both tired and needed a bit of recovery. I spent Saturday getting the kitchen cleaned and preparing salads for the the day as well as preparing for a small birthday celebration we were to have on Sunday.
On Monday we went to Granville Island and had fun walking around & eating ice cream. It was a hot day but under the bridge by the waterfront there always seems to be a nice breeze.
After spending a few hours walking around, we decided we should have a bite to eat because we wouldn't be home for some time. We still had some sightseeing to do, a ferry boat ride and two buses to take before getting home!
The Inukshuk is always a lovely sight against the waterfront.
This is the small water bus that we took to downtown. From there we caught a small bus along Beach Avenue and saw a lot of the waterfront from the window. The little bus eventually connected to the bus we needed to come home on. The bonus was that we had a great little tour of the beachfront.
Tuesday was our last day together and we went to a local park and had a mini picnic. While at the park, my nephew came by with a football and played catch with his sister. It was nice to watch them have fun together. After that we went for a nice long walk and ended with a small sundae before coming home to get her bags packed. The week went by quickly but we enjoyed our short time together.
Tuesday, May 4th at approximately 11: a.m. the BC Place Stadium dome was purposely collapsed. Over the next 3 weeks it will be methodically removed from the roof top and sent to recycling.
Just over a week ago I showed you a photo of the dome on my walk to Granville Island. (Click the underlined words if you want to read about the walk). Here it is again. It is the white roofed building nestled between the high rises. BC Place recently had prominence as being the venue for the Winter Olympics 2010 Opening and Closing Ceremonies and over the years it has hosted many spectacular events in the City.
This is what the dome looked like after collapse.
Photo Credit: Nick Procaylo, PNG
I hadn't even realized that the roof was going down today. It was a bittersweet moment. The original dome was built in 1983 at a cost of $126 Million.
The dome will be replaced with an expensive retractable roof. While I am all in favour of making upgrades, it is a rather expensive proposition coming directly on the heels of huge expenditures for the Winter Olympics. The retractable roof alone is expected to cost in the neighbourhood of $475 Million, though I've also read estimates of $458 Million. The new retractable roof is expected to be the world's largest retractable roof for a domed stadium and it's anticipated completion is sometime next year.
After spending $5000. on my portion of my condominium building's roof replacement, I am not feeling up to spending my portion of $475 Million that will need to be paid from taxes.
Is there any large tax funded project where you live that you had to pay for whether you supported it or not?
Little Linet here is going to have surgery. She needs a lot of prayer and financial support both to help with surgery and with her food and clothing needs. If you can help, please let me know or donate here.
It's a hot day in Vancouver. Decided on a mini-cruise to feel the breeze from the water.
My niece is visiting me for a few weeks. Though it was a very hot day today she really wanted to go out and see the sights. We decided to go to Granville Island and while there we embarked on a mini cruise of the waterfront. There were lots of interesting sights along the way. I'll share a few of them in today's post that show the sky. I will share other photos later. Click on any photo to enlarge.
Yachts in the foreground, the BC Place Stadium in the background.
The "diamond" (globe) is the Science World; a place devoted to science and inspiring future leadership in science and technology.
One of the parks/green spaces along the water at False Creek South.
Someone's unique boat. I think this is called a catamaran.
Someone's houseboat. I didn't even know there were houseboats in this area of the waterfront. I was surprised to see about 6 houseboats nestled alongside one another just past where we embarked on the Aquabus.
For more skies from around the world, click here and join in the fun. If you are the praying type please see my post here.
It was such a lovely day! It's great to be a tourist in your own city ;-)
Please visit again soon.
Note:
Little Linet here is going to have surgery. She needs a lot of prayer
and financial support both to help with surgery and with her food and
clothing needs. If you can help, please let me know or donate here.
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