Category Archives: Something About Us

Vancouver Points of Interest Part 2

Gastown buildingVancouver is a relatively young city, but it has a wide range of beautiful and odd architectural points of interest. Here are some that are interesting and fun.

This triangular shaped building seems more like something you would see in Europe, rather than North America, but there it is right in downtown Vancouver!

Gastown_Clock.jpgOne of the earliest parts of Vancouver is Gastown. Cobblestoned streets, funky shops, antique stores, sidewalk cafés and a friendly bustling atmosphere welcome the Vancouver tourist. It is within walking distance of the Cruise Ship Terminal; the Seabus and SkyTrain Terminals are even closer.

Gastown probably got its name from an early settler named Gassy Jack, but one doesn’t want to delve too deeply into why he was named gassy, I wouldn’t think!

Library.jpgThis structure is the new main branch of the Public Library System. The Classically inspired design is softened somewhat by the rectangular placement of an office tower. Some people were uncomfortable with the design being inspired by the Coliseum in Rome.

Rome_AoT.jpgThis  picture is of Constantine’s Arch near the Coliseum in Rome, a picture taken during our tour of Greece and Italy with Karen. It does look similar to the new library, don’t you think?

Vancouver Points of Interest

Pam in front of the Via TrainGreater Vancouver has about 1.6 million people. But “Greater Vancouver” includes a number of smaller municipalities including Burnaby (home of Metrotown the ultimate shopping center) Richmond (near the airport) and New Westminster and Surrey (on the river to the south of downtown Vancouver).

Old VancouverThis picture was taken during our first trip to Vancouver, in early 1985. This harbor is now dominated by the Sails of the Convention Centre, but I put this older picture up to remind us of what we may have lost.

While we are blessed with great natural beauty all around us, our presence serves only to drive it further away. Stanley Park is visible in the picture quite clearly on the mid-left of the picture. It is a large inner city park within the boundaries of the city. It welcomes the sea traveler to the city, forming the southern tip of the harbor entrance.

The North Shore Mountains are covered by clouds in the picture’s background, which is not an infrequent occurrence in the winter. They get lots of rain over there!

van_aqur_whales.jpgAnd right in Stanley Park, the Vancouver Aquarium is home to many forms of marine life. Although the whale shows have been curtailed because the politically correct have convinced everyone that they are cruel, we’ve included a picture of them anyway! I think we’ve only been back to the aquarium once since they’ve stopped the shows. I think we could have made a marvelous enclosure for them, but instead we sent them away to die.

(This post was actually from an older HTML based website I created back in the early days. Pam and I have had an on-line presence since 1985. We ran a multi-line bbs for years, and have had over fifty different websites!)