Because Nothing Says "Canada" More Than Palm Trees

These ones are in Vancouver's West End. I have no idea how they make it through the winter. Maybe they can retire soon and move to Florida.

Anyway, here are a few pictures of Vancouver's West End and one of its most popular beaches, English Bay. This is one of the most desirable places to live in Vancouver, probably because of the nice architecture, historic homes, cute little bars and cafes, and proximity to Stanley Park.

Everything was landscaped really nicely, especially by English Bay -- tons of gorgeous flowerbeds with unbelievable colors. With the palm trees, bright colors of the flowerbeds, and almost-white-sand-beach at English Bay, this place could be almost tropical if the weather was nice enough.

All in all, it's a great neighborhood to walk around in -- a lot of really beautiful houses and flowering trees.


Oh yeah, and weird-as-hell sculptures that gave me nightmares, like this one:



One of the historic West End homes:


Someone else in the world actually owns a Transport SE! (aka Eggmobile)


English Bay at sunset:


Giant tree growing out of an apartment building's penthouse:


Beautiful flowers near English Bay:

Vancouver Part Two (Deux*)

* The Deux is because this post is about Canada and in Canada they always subtitle everything in French. Even stuff like hotel (hôtel), which should be a no-brainer. Canadian efficiency.

So anyway, Gastown and Granville Island are the two big tourist neighborhoods in Vancouver, and I spent a few hours wandering through each of them.

Gastown, in case you're wondering, was named after a dude named Gassy Jack Deighton. Awesome. He was the guy that founded Vancouver, in 1867. He built the first building in Vancouver, which, fittingly enough, was a saloon.

There's not much to see in Gastown but some cool architecture and a not-that-impressive steam clock that everyone is obligated to take pictures of:





Granville Island, on the other hand, has tons of cool stuff to see, especially because of its giant marketplace (sorta like Pike Place market in Seattle, only not quite as hip).

Granville Island is a lie -- it's not an actual island. It's a peninsula, but it feels like an island because you're stuck across the water from downtown Vancouver. The marketplace is situated under the Granville Street bridge, with a nice view of the downtown skyscrapers:





So on a nice sunny day, it's great to sit and watch all the people bustling around you, buying funky stuff like obscure herbs and soaps made out of odd recycled things.

After visiting Granville Island, I took a drive around Stanley Park, which is Vancouver's gigantimous city park. (It's even bigger than Central Park in NYC.) There are a lot of interesting things to see here: hand-carved totem poles, beaches, a lagoon, and beautiful views of the city and nearby mountains.

Vancouver!

My Vancouver experience in a nutshell: beautiful mountains, pizza with sesame-seed crusts, crazy blinking-green trafflic lights (what the hell does that mean -- jump to warp speed?), the smell of marijuana on downtown street corners, good vegetarian food, over-eager little men walking over-eager little yappy dogs, the nicest homeless guys in the world, the meanest homeless guys in the world, and bars with TVs on the outside so smokers don't miss any second of the hockey game. (Hockey-mad Canadians.)

I really liked Vancouver. I hadn't been there since I was five years old and allegedly harrassed my mother non-stop on our trip to the 1986 World's Fair there. (I can neither confirm nor deny this because I have since blocked out any memories of possible misbehavior on my part. I was the perfect child.)

Vancouver's about three hours from Seattle, and I took a nice long scenic route via historic Port Townsend and Deception Pass. (Mostly because "Deception Pass" sounds wicked cool.) Crossing into Canada was actually pretty painless, and even though the weather was terrible the first day of my visit, I got to spend the second day in Chinatown -- one of the many highlights of my trip.

Chinatown Vancouver is massive. It's the biggest Chinatown in Canada and one of the biggest in the world. I walked around kitschy Chinese import shops; browsed through T&T Supermarket, a really interesting Asian grocery store; sampled some really good food; and finally found peace and quiet in the amazingly beautiful Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Chinese Garden.

Really, the Chinese Garden might have been the highlight of my entire Vancouver trip, it's that cool. It's named for the first president of the Republic of China, who spent lots of time in Vancouver. It's the only full-sized traditional Chinese garden outside of China, whatever that means. It's beautiful and very peaceful and I highly recommend it if you're ever in Vancouver.

Pictures of Port Townsend:






Pictures of Deception Pass & Bridge:










Pictures of the Chinese Garden in Vancouver:

Snoqualmie Falls and Psycho Chickens

The other day I visited Snoqualmie Falls, a huge waterfall not far from Seattle. It's 268 feet (82m) tall and generates about 42,000 kilowatts of hydroelectric power -- and it's purdy.

Even though I visited the waterfall on a clear, sunny day, I didn't see any rainbows. (Usually people can see a rainbow here.) But it was still a spectacular waterfall all on its own. Unfortunately, the hiking trails around the waterfall are all under construction until 2013, so I wasn't able to do too much exploring.

So after I took a zillion waterfall pictures that all look the same, I wandered into the Salish Lodge, a resort that sits right up against the top of the waterfall. It's a popular place for weddings and fancy dinners and stuff. I spent some time in the gift shop, debating whether to buy my mom a coffee-table book called "Extraordinary Chickens." (She hates chickens.)

I decided against the purchase, but now I regret it. I mean, who could resist this psychotic face?



Pictures of Snoqualmie Falls and surroundings:







After that I headed further into the Cascade Mountains, up to the Snoqualmie Pass. This is a popular skiing area for Seattlites. There was still plenty of snow up here.

Pictures of Snoqualmie Pass:





A cool ring around the sun (this was natural, not a camera trick; I saw it with my own eyes):

Avalanche Danger = High. Fabuloso.

So today I headed up to Hurricane Ridge, which has nothing to do with hurricanes and is hardly your average "ridge" since it sits at an elevation of 5200 feet. (But I admit it makes for a sweet name.)

Hurricane Ridge is one of the most famous sights in Olympic National Park and in all of Washington State. In summertime, it's green and beautiful. The rest of the time -- including early May, which up here does not count as "summer-time" (blasphemy!) -- you will probably see snow. A lot of snow. Today was no exception.

Before I set out, I checked the website for current road conditions. The road was open, but there were advisories everywhere stating that the avalanche danger was "High" (the most severe threat). I was like, "Hey, that's awesome, hope my insurance will cover the rental car in case of avalanche." And I promptly headed up the mountain.

Snowplows were everywhere, annoying the local deer, but it was still a beautiful journey up to the top, where I got an amazing video:




I also communed with nature (a little bird came up and looked at me curiously, then looked out at the view like, "What? I see it every day. No big deal.")

After Hurricane Ridge, I headed to the Elwa River Valley, checked out a waterfall, and generally aggravated my broken leg by walking on it to get as many photo ops as possible. Yes. I sacrifice for nature.















You can see Canada from here. But not Russia.
















Snowplow action on Hurricane Ridge

















View from the road up to Hurricane Ridge
















Another view from the road
















If snowplows had a "cute" contest, this one would win

















Me on the road
















Approaching the snow line
















Snow!
















Pretty snow-covered firs
















No Parking. In case you wanted to try.
















My bird friend

















He checks out the view
















HELLO
















View from the top
















Hurricane Ridge!
















More views from the top
















Still more views from the top
















A bald eagle sitting in a tree. I had to zoom wayyyyyyyy in.
















View outside Port Angeles















Me at a waterfall

















Elwa Dam reflection
















Elwa Dam from Above