We left Seattle early in the morning on another Amtrak excursion to Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. This was not the exclusive train that was the Amtrak Cascades, but the ride was pleasant enough and I got to see a lot of the coast on the four hour trip.
Vancouver is a very special City and it seemed everything about it beckons to the senses. They are proud that there are no major highways into the city, and it doesn't seem like any are needed. It is a city that is made up of neighborhoods where the folks live in the city and have at their disposal all the comforts they could want within easy distance. So there is no crazy rush hours or heavy throngs of people at rush hour. It was very refreshing to see. We stayed in the city for several days and it never felt crushed, tense or overly busy.
We used our first afternoon visiting the waterfront and Stanley Park. Here they had a large collection of Totem poles.
Then it was on to Gastown or the older section of Vancouver. Some of the buildings begged to be photographed.
The following day we toured Granville Island which is a high-end crafters community with a large Public Market of produce, meats, fish, cheese, baked goods and all sorts of goodies to eat.
This was a broom craft shop, they construct the brooms from the hand-hewn wooden handles and the brush materials and cord to hold it all together. Very high quality and sturdy.
I was most impressed by the public market. Below is a cheese stand. If you look closely, you will see they have six different varieties of Feta Cheese. Six different varieties...well, it was just amazing to me!
Three kinds of fresh figs and lots of other fresh fruits. Sweet!
You can really see how they care about presentation...look at how they stacked the cherries!
The meat markets were simply incredible, this shot below is only lamb, and I wasn't able to get everything that they had to offer in the way of lamb in this shot. It just went on and on.
In Morton Park, nearby our hotel, we got to walk among some wonderful sculpture called "A-Maze-Ing Laughter" by Yue Minjun, a Chinese artist. He used his own iconic face in a state of hysterical laughter as a signature trademark for each of the pieces shown below.
You just cannot help but feel fabulous among these laughing statues!
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