Stanley Park - 15 July 2007

Stanley Park is a 1,000 acre park bordering downtown Vancouver. It is the largest city-owned park in Canada and the third largest in North America. The park attracts an estimated eight million visitors every year, including locals and tourists, who come for its recreational facilities and its natural attributes. An 8.8 kilometre (5.5 mile) seawall path circles the park, which is used by 2.5 million pedestrians, cyclists, and inline skaters every year. Much of the park remains forested with an estimated half million trees that can be as tall as 76 metres (250 feet) and hundreds of years old. There are approximately 200 km (125 miles) of trails and roads in the park, which are patrolled by the Vancouver Police Department's mounted squad. The Project for Public Spaces has ranked Stanley Park as the sixteenth best park in the world and sixth best in North America - thanks to Wikipedia for this lovely description :) If you want to see an aerial view of the Park have a look on Wikipedia. The park was hit by a huge storm in 2006 so unfortuantely 5kms of the seawall is closed due to extensive damage.

After battling trying to get the photos all in order I've given up so here they are. We had a great day here and must have walked about 15kms trying to see as much as possible. There is loads to do here and we only saw about half I reckon.

The trees are soo huge and soo old!
A guy builds these sculptures by balancing the stones on top of each other. It's great to watch and takes him ages to get it just right. Then the tide takes it all away and he starts again the next day.
This is Beaver Lake in the middle of the park. It's a beautiful contrast from sea which is only about 800m away.

This is the Hollow Tree - it's freaking huge inside there!
More of the rock sculptures.
This is the Inuit symbol on the beach.
Stanley Park has the most totem poles of anywhere in BC. They have a great history and tell some old stories of the First People.

Jesse at the lighthouse. You can just make out West Vancouver in the background.
The Girl in the Wetsuit.
You can see North Vancouver across the river behind The Girl in the Wetsuit.

Sam Kee Building in Chinatown

This is the narrowest office building in the world and is listed in Ripleys Believe it or Not and the book of Guiness World Records. It was a normal building till 1926 when the city reclaimed most of it and left it only 1.8metres wide! The owner thumbed the city and continued to operate his business out of it.

Dr Sun Yat-Sen Classical Garden

We're really trying to make the most of the sunny days here so today we went to Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Classical Chinese Garden. It was named in honour of Dr Sun Yat-sen who was a Chinese revolutionary and political leader often referred to as the "father of modern China." He played an instrumental role in the eventual overthrow of the Qing Dynasty in 1911 and was the first provisional president when the Republic of China was founded in 1912.

The garden was built in 1986 and was built with the traditional methods and is all about ying and yang. Sorry for all the photos but it was beautiful in there.

The lake is naturally murky with algae so that the reflections are better and clearer.



This is Jesse posing like all the Asian teenagers do - what is it with them and the peace sign?

There was lotus flowers all thru the lily pond.

The path was really gorgeous and must have taken a lot of patience to construct.

It was so peaceful and quiet within the walls considering the garden is in the heart of the city.

The turtles were loving the sun too.

The clash of the city and garden.
These 'rock sculpture's' are made naturally by putting boulders in a lake and letting the natural process break down the calcium and this is the result.

The big and the small of it.
Another of the many 100 year old bonsai that are around the garden.

A lamp post thru the window.

Celebration of Light

Last night was the first night of the Celebration of Light. It involves Spain, Canada, Mexico and China and they go to each others countries and blow stuff up! Its a big thing with 250,000 people going out to watch it here! Heres some photos we took from our balcony - we lazily decided we couldn't face the crowd! ITs on for the next 3 nights so we're looking forward to watching from home.

Slackness

Sorry for being slack! Took tons of photos at Stanley Park last weekend but its taking forever to sort them out so as to show you lovely folks the best ones. Will be done soon, promise!

Our House

Welcome to our home! We are loving life here in Fairview Slopes (classy name!) and are really pleased with our place.

This is our kitchen looking in over the breakfast bar thingy...

This is our bathroom...

This is the lounge with the couch being modelled by Jesse! The fire is gas and paid for by the landlord so we should be able to keep the lounge warm for free in winter, yay!

Another view to show you the lay out of the dining/living room.

The view from the lounge. Thanks to the models for their time :)

The view from our balcony - this photo does not do it justice at all. We can see right over the bridges and over to the mountains on a clear day.

Our bedroom... The wee squares on the wall are pictures from NZ to remind us of home. Our room gets all the morning sun which makes it really stuffy in summer but I'm sure we'll be grateful for the warmth in winter!

The rest of our room, washing line included! Our building strata code bans us from putting washing on the balcony! How rude!

With Hayleys room and ensuite as well the apartment is actually really spacious for Van. The fact that we are 9 minutes walk to work is an added bonus! With our Starbucks on the corner and our favourite shop, London Drugs (Julie and Hayley love a bargain!) we are all set!