USA Holiday 3, October 09 (The Old Man And The Seawall)

Got up way too early than I wanted to on a holiday and finished packing, went downstairs to check-out and see if the taxi booking was still good. They had no knowledge of any taxi booking! but they were able to call one that would not take long. They were supposed to start breakfast at 6am but they were only just putting stuff out at 6:15am as the taxi arrived, so that was also a bit of a sad start to the day. A free breakfast is the most important meal of the day.

The first flight stopped off in Dallas-Fort Worth with less than a hour before the connecting flight. I think the last time I stopped in Dallas I was in a hurry too, which is a shame because it seems like a pretty large and interesting airport - airports are still the worst place on earth though.

Arrived in Vancouver about four hours later. Unlike LAX where we spent at least 30 minutes in customs and another 30 minutes in bag collection and quarantine, the whole thing in Canada took less than 5 minutes. What a country!

I asked some volunteer information person how to go about getting a daily train ticket, because I had read that you can't get them from the machine at the station, only from vendors such as 7-Eleven. The guy said I could get it from the station, only to go all the way up there and find out I couldn't. So I came back down and asked someone else, who gave me directions to the 7-Eleven at the airport. This required walking the entire length of the airport from the international terminal down to domestic, and then hunt around to find the 7-Eleven down in the basement level before coming back.

Got off the train and went in search of the bus stop. Like every other city I've turned up in, I was dazed and confused for a couple of minutes before soon working out which direction I needed to be heading in just as the bus turned up. Found the right bus and pulled the cord right before the hotel turned up! It also happened to be the last stop for the bus, but I didn't know that at the time.

The travel again had taken up most of the day so just went for some exploring down Davie Street to see what was around. Came back along the south side of the Vancouver Seawall. Basically it's a wall that gives protection from the surrounding sea which also functions as a walking track. It surrounds almost all of the south, west and north side of downtown Vancouver. Came across an inuksuk statue made of rocks along the way too.

Davie Street. Yes, that is a bus attached to power lines.

The other end of Davie Street at False Creek.

Seawall west towards Stanley Park.

Seawall east towards downtown places.

Inukshuk, it means "pile of rocks" in English.