Some Assembly Required

The next day, I explored Vancouver. It was a lovely sunny. In fact, I neglected to wear sunscreen and got sunburned. I foolishly carried around my rain jacket expecting the weatherman to be right and not thinking Vancouver in October could be so nice.

First, I wandered around Gastown, which is the oldest area of Vancouver. Then, I went to the top of [Harbour Centre Tower](http://www.vancouverlookout.com/) which has a spectacular view of Vancouver and surroundings. I took a full panorama of photos. I even got to see a seaplane landing in the harbor right next to downtown.

Vancouver is just beautiful. The downtown is all skyscrapers, boring business ones and lots of glass condos. To the north, there is Burrard Inlet and the northern suburbs clinging to the mountains.


I took the Skytrain, automated subway and elevated railroad to [Science World](http://www.scienceworld.bc.ca/). I didn’t go in, but caught a water taxi nearby. I took the water taxi down False Creak to [Granville Island](http://www.granvilleisland.com/en). I walked along the seawall to Vanier Park and Kitslano Beach.



I had lunch in Kitslano neighborhood and then caught a bus to University of British Columbia. UBC has [Museum of Anthropology](http://www.moa.ubc.ca/) with lots of native Indian artifacts.


I took the bus back to downtown. After resting from all the walking, I went out to dinner. First, I took the SeaBus, a passenger ferry, to North Vancouver and back. Then, I went back to Harbour Centre tower to see the city at night. Unfortunately, I took a panorama but most of the photos came out blurry from the darkness. Finally, I had dinner and good beer.


Two weeks ago, I took a week-long vacation driving to Canada. I spent the first night in Seattle.

That night, I went to the restaurant, [SkyCity](http://www.spaceneedle.com/restaurant/), at the top of the Space Needle.

The food was excellent. Expensive but worth it. The view was also magnificent. It would have been better in daylight but the lights of downtown Seatle were still impressive.

I used my Treo to take photos all the way around. Unfortunately, it is hard to tell if they are blurry because of the low resolution (640×480) or because it was night.



I arrived in Vancouver today. The outskirts look a lot like Seattle or Portland with forested suburbs. The downtown is unique; it has a lot of glass towers. A lot of them look like apartment buildings. The only place I have seen something similar is pictures of Asian cities.

The hotel I am staying is interesting. It is a renovated Victorian building (which is why it is called the Victorian Hotel). My room is at the end of a maze; up stairs, a hall, a couple of turns, down stairs. The room has a high ceiling, hardwood floors, and a bay window.