Vancouver: Day 1

We made it to our hostel last night just fine, though I'd rather not deal with rush hour in Vancouver again any time soon! There are three hostels in Vancouver; 2 are more or less downtown and one is out on the coast in Jericho Park (that's ours). Our hostel is great -- even though the dorms have lots of beds in them, they're divided up into little 4 bed suites with a walkway on the side -- kinda like a train car without the doors :)

One of our roommates was a lady from Quebec named Claudia, who has hair like Andrea. She recommended a hair cream that she makes herself, and was kind enough to give me a jar! It has the recipe on the side, so I can make some more myself if I like it :)

Today it was raining. Undaunted, we took a bus to Granville Island, and explored. We popped into the brewery, stopped by a hammock store, and visited a kitchen stuff store (I love gadgets!) We went to the Public Market, which has all kinds of booths. We bought fresh fruit,


olives,


and fresh bread.


Then we hit a wine store -- the sales clerk was from France, so we spoke in French! I've been able to speak in French with lots of people (like Claudia), which has been awesome!

Last we visited the Kids' Market, which was a building filled with shops aimed at kids. We managed to escape after buying a "Haley" pen.


Then we left Granville Island, walked a few blocks, and jumped on the bus to the iMax theatre. There we watched Deep Sea, which was a really neat 3D movie about (duh) underwater stuff, mostly centered on the coral reefs. It was pretty neat, and only occasionally nauseating *grin*

Finally we got back on the bus and came back to the hostel. Here we made dinner -- canned soup left over from camping, fresh fruit and bread from the market. We had a rambutan fruit for dessert -- it doesn't look edible, but inside the funny skin it's sweet and kind of rubbery -- a bit like a gummy bear :)






Tomorrow we hope to go see the Capilano Suspension Bridge, Grouse Mountain, and then walk out to the beach from our hostel to watch a fireworks show :)