Vancouver

Hi guys!

 

On Tuesday our adventures in Vancouver continued as we walked down to the waterfront and Canada Place to catch our free shuttle bus to the Capilano Suspension Bridge Park in North Vancouver.

 

 

We walked across the suspension bridge which actually swayed and wobbled much more than I thought it would. It was so hard to walk straight and we felt dizzy once we reached land again.

 

 

On the other side we did the Treetops Adventure, which is stable.

 

 

We then wobbled back across the suspension bridge and checked out the gift shop. I got a Vancouver Christmas ornament, since I'm now collecting them for my first Christmas tree when I eventually move out of home. I have Banff, Jasper, and Vancouver so far :) Next, we did the Cliffwalk, which is like a suspended narrow walkway hanging from the side of a cliff, which is stable. No wobbling on this bad boy. Look how high up we were!

 

 

Some parts were just glass on the floor! Along the way through the park I had collected the stamps on my brochure from each part, so on the way I out I received an "I made it" certificate! If you read it, I now have bragging rights for the next two years ;)

 

 

We took the shuttle back to Canada Place and got some photos, then walked to Gastown. Gastown has two main streets, Water St and Cordova St. We were trying to find a restaurant we've heard really great reviews about, called Meat & Bread. We walked around in circles across both streets maybe three times, then gave up and had lunch at the Steamworks Brewery which turned out to be really nice. We walked down Water St and stopped for photos of the Steam Clock.

 

 

We also saw the sculpture of Gassy Jack

 

 

We walked back up the street and back into downtown to check out the Pacific Centre Mall. There's some nice shops in there. They also had a store called Ever New which is exactly the same as Forever New in Australia. Did they just forget the 'For' at the beginning? We also went into Sears, which is a department store in Canada and America. They were having a store closing down sale and were selling all of their fixtures too, including their shelves, desks, mirrors and mannequins! We didn't buy anything though. We then walked back to our hotel and relaxed for awhile. Later that evening, we caught a taxi to English Bay Beach, which is a gorgeous area. We had heard how good Cactus Club Cafe is (there's a couple of them in Vancouver, and one right on the beach here) so we put our name down for a table. While we waited, we took some photos of these sculptures of a laughing man. They look kind of creepy.

 

 

We also saw this Inukshuk sculpture.

 

 

We walked along the edge of the beach. It was sunset, but it was pretty cloudy. The beach had lots of logs along it for people to sit down on.

 

 

We got our table at the cafe and it was outside with a great view of the beach. The food was really delicious. We shared a white chocolate cheesecake with raspberry compote for dessert. Yum! We then caught the taxi back to our hotel.

 

Much more to blog about but it's late and time for bed!

 

Love,

Emily

 

 

 

Edmonton to Vancouver

Hello everyone :)

 

On Sunday we left Edmonton and flew to Vancouver. The flight was only about an hour and 20 minutes, and because of the time difference between British Columbia and Alberta, we gained an hour. Once in Vancouver, we caught the Skytrain to downtown then walked to our hotel. I was starving (and it was making me grumpy) so we walked around the downtown area near our hotel and went to Cafe Crepe and had savoury crepes which were so nice. I also had a nutella milkshake, which was so good! We strolled along Robson St, which is the main shopping and restaurant street in downtown Vancouver, before heading back to our hotel. We had a box of Lindt chocolates waiting for us when we got back, left by the hotel's management. We felt very loved :) I think our holiday had caught up to us and we were feeling pretty tired. Instead of exploring, we lazed around the hotel and read our kindles (Mum now has a kindle too. She got it at West Edmonton Mall. We're now a kindle family!). We went out for dinner at a restaurant called Joey's (I know, I thought of Joey from the TV show 'Friends', too!). Mum and Dad's dinners were really nice, but mine was a bit disappointing. However, the restaurant certainly did make up for it with it's desserts. We all shared a molten lava chocolate souffle, and an open apple pie with caramel sauce and maple ice cream. Both were heavenly :) In this hotel Mum and Dad have a king sized bed, and I'm on the sofa bed which is so springy and creaky and basically horrible. Mum's hoping it makes me realise how much better my single bed on campus will be.

 

Yesterday I had Cinnamon Toast Crunch cereal for breakfast, yum. We relaxed for a bit in the morning, then walked down to the fountain outside of the Vancouver Art Gallery to meet with our tour guide.

 

 

 

We went with the company Tour Guys who run free walking tours (tips are encouraged highly though, but well deserved). We did a downtown and waterfront tour, and there was about 25-30 people on the tour. Our tour guide's name was Lauren and she was about 21. I had a chance to talk to her and she has just finished up studying at UBC, so she was giving me lots of tips and answering all my questions. She also gave me her email address so I could keep in touch if I had more questions :) The tour was really great, and we heard lots of interesting facts. We saw the fancy Hotel Vancouver:

 

 

We also saw the Christ Church Cathedral, the oldest church in Vancouver. There was also some really interesting public sculptures like this swinging pendulum:

 

 

It actually swings, it's crazy. And this sculpture which moves and mimics the elevators inside of the building:

 

 

We saw the Marine Building and had the chance to go inside. It has some really impressive marine themed architecture on both the inside and outside of the building.

 

 

We reached the waterfront and saw Canada Place, which is where all the cruise ships dock.

 

 

Our tour ended at the Olympic Cauldron which was built for the 2010 Winter Olympics.

 

 

The waterfront view was really pretty :)

 

 

The tour ended and we stayed around at the waterfront for awhile taking photos. We found this sculpture called Digi Orca

 

 

We walked back to the Vancouver Art Gallery to start our Eat Your Cart Out tour. Our tour was much smaller this time, just us, the tour guide, and an elderly couple from Florida. Vancouver is known for it's food carts/trucks so our tour let us sample them! We started at the food truck called Feastro and got to sample a BBQ pulled pork taco and a watermelon mint lemonade which were both really good.

 

 

 

We got to walk through the Hotel Vancouver that we saw the outside of during the first tour. Our tour guide, Leni, told us that this hotel is one of the most pet-friendly. The even have a room service menu for pets! The hotel also owns two golden retrievers, Mavis and Beau. If you stay in the hotel and can't bring your own pet, you can look after them and take them for walks. When we walked through the hotel we got to see them! They were so adorable. I got to pat Mavis :)

 

 

Our next stop was Japadog, which is the most popular foodcart in Vancouver. It serves Japanese style hotdogs. The sample we tried had japanese mayonaise and seaweed on it. It actually tasted really nice.

 

 

We then stopped at Kaboom Box, and got hot smoked salmon sandwiches. Salmon is a specialty dish here in British Columbia. It was really nice

 

 

Our last stop was Mom's Grilled Cheese where we had a sample of the meatloaf grilled cheese sandwich. It was so good, the highlight of the day for me!

 

 

We were so full after the tour. It was so good to be able to get a small sample of everything. We then headed back to our hotel, freshened up, and went shopping down Robson St. We bought a couple of things, then came back and relaxed in the hotel for awhile. For dinner, we went to a quick and easy Japanese restaurant close to our hotel.

 

More blogging to come :)

 

Love,

Emily

 

 



Edmonton

 

We spent yesterday and today at West Edmonton Mall. When we first arrived yesterday morning, we were so overwhelmed. The mall is HUGE! I cannot even begin to describe how massive it is. It's only two floors, with a main strip on each floor, but then lots of extra side streets. It was so easy to get lost and confused. We basically spent the first morning in awe, not much shopping was done. We had come from the wilderness of national parks into the largest mall of North America! A very big change!! The first day, Dad was very successful with his shopping. Mum was quite successful, too. I, on the other hand, was off my game. Shocking, I know. My favourite North American store, Urban Outfitters, was actually disappointing this time round for me. I usually buy lots in there. We had lunch at Earl's Restaurant, which is a chain in Canada. I had the prawn pizza which was so good. After that, my shopping luck went up! I got my makeup from Sephora (pretty much the best makeup store on the planet), a top and jeans from Abercrombie + Fitch (the store with super hot male models in their ads), and a jumper from Gap (or should I say sweater?).

 

After leaving the mall yesterday, we went to Best Buy (an electronics store, outside of the mall). I got a CD of a Canadian band I've heard on the radio on our road trips, called Marianas Trench. They're really good. We didn't get back to our hotel til after 6pm! We skyped Nan and Luke, then went out to dinner at a bistro at a nearby hotel which was pretty nice.

 

Today we planned out our attack of the mall much better, and were more successful. Today is a Saturday, so the mall was much more packed with people. We each bought a few more things, and got some clothes for Luke, so he doesn't feel left out. We went to lunch at Moxie's Ball & Grill which was so nice. We had a big lunch, so we're just going to have a light dinner tonight. Before we left the mall, we went into Roger's, a Canadian mobile phone company, and finally set up my Canadian phone number!

 

Here are some photos of the interesting things in the mall. There was an ice skating rink, which originally I wanted to go on with Mum, but everyone on there was so good, and heaps of people stopped around the rink to watch. I didn't want to be the only person terrible at skating and holding on to the rail for dear life for the whole mall to see, so we passed on that one. These grandmas were getting into it though:

 

There was also a large water section in the middle of the mall. There was a ship (yes, a ship!) that you could climb aboard and explore, a sea lion enclosure that put on shows, and water bumper boats

 

 

 

Here's a photo of the waterpark, including a wave pool and a loop water slide! We didn't go for a dip though

 

 

We also checked out Galaxyland, the amusement park inside the mall. We didn't go on any rides, but it was so impressive, much bigger than we were expecting.

 

 

Tomorrow we're leaving Edmonton and flying into Vancouver, the city I'll be living in for the next 4 months!

 

Love,

Emily

 



Jasper to Edmonton

 

Yesterday we spent our last day in Jasper. Driving along the main road, the clouds were so low!

 

 

 

We went to Maligne Lake. We took a 90 minute scenic boat cruise out to Spirit Island and back. A young guy from England was the guide and was narrating the tour. The views from the middle of the lake were pretty great, but the weather was a bit cloudy.

 

 

Can you see a face looking up to the sky at the top of this mountain?

 

 

We stopped at Spirit Island, hopped off the boat, and walked around the island for about 10 minutes, getting lots of photos.

 

 

The island had a $250,000 eco-friendly toilet installed on it. Who spends that much on a toilet?! We got back on the boat and headed back to shore. At the carpark we saw a deer :)

 

 

 We drove past Medicine Lake, and onto Maligne Canyon. Along the way, we saw a bunch of cars stopped along the side of the road, which over here means only one thing: wildlife spotting! Of course, we pull over too. There was a black bear up on the hill, but he was kind of hidden by some bushes. I managed to get an alright photo where you can see his head, but only if you zoom in quite far. (By the way, if you click on the photos on my blog, you can see them larger).

Once at Maligne Canyon we did a 20 minute loop hike. The canyon was so impressive, and so deep!

There was a couple of waterfalls within the canyon.

The canyon even had a random boulder wedged into it at the top.

On our way back to the car we saw Joe (our wildlife tour guide from the previous night). His tour company also does tours of the Maligne Valley, which I was considering doing when I was researching. However, Mum and Dad thought it would be better doing it ourselves. They decided that before we met Joe, and boy were we regretting it. We stopped to say hello, then continued on our way. We stopped at a lookout of the Maligne Valley and ate sandwiches and brownies for lunch :) We headed back to the hotel, and Mum and Dad had a nap; such oldies. We then finished off our souvenir shopping in downtown Jasper, before going out to dinner at a local steakhouse. We had chicken wings as an appetizer, then both Dad and I had ribs for dinner. They were so delicious, but a very messy meal!

Today, we went out for breakfast at a local cafe which was really nice, then we packed and continued on our road trip. We left Jasper, heading to Edmonton. Along the way we stopped at a town called Edson. We went into Tim Horton's, which is kind of like the Canadian's version of Starbucks. It's been in every town we've driven through so we thought we better try it. It's not just a coffee house though, they have lots of nice looking food too. We were still full from breakfast so we just had a drink. We continued onto Edmonton, and along the way we saw a bison farm, which is an animal on lots of the menus here! I don't know how to describe them, just google it! I watched 'What Happens in Vegas' on my ipad. A massive storm came in and the rain was pouring down so bad. It's been off and on all day. We arrived in the city of Edmonton, which is actually huge! We had put in the address of our hotel on the GPS, but she ended up leading us to some weird back street in the suburbs. We got lost a couple of times. We were in Edmonton for about an hour before we finally found our hotel, haha! When we got out of the car it was so extremely windy, and as soon as we got to our room, the storm hit and there was pouring rain, thunder, lightning, and even hail! We were so lucky we got in our room safe and sound before it hit. Here's a photo of the hail in the carpark, it looks like snow!

We're just chilling in our hotel room right now. We're going out for an early dinner tonight as we're starving! We didn't have lunch. We'll be spending the next two days at West Edmonton Mall. It's the largest mall in North America, and the fifth largest mall in the world. It has an amusement park with a rollercoaster, a waterpark, an aquarium, an ice skating rink, two mini golf courses, oh and around 800 stores, too! I'm so excited for it!

Love,
Emily



Jasper

 

Hi everyone!

 

On Monday, we left Banff and drove to Jasper along the Icefields Parkway. First we stopped at the Bow Summit. We hiked up to the lookout, and along the way it was so hard to breathe because we were up so high in the mountains. I was impressed that some oldies were doing it! Even I was struggling! From the lookout we saw Peyto Lake which was gorgeous. If you look closely, the lake is kind of shaped like the head of a wolf side-on, with two ears and it's mouth.

 

 

Along the way we saw the Saskatchewan Valley and Bridal Veil Falls, which were pretty lame after seeing the impressive Takakkaw Falls the day before. We then stopped at the Columbia Icefield and Athabasca Glacier, which were so awesome. We hiked up to as close as we could get to the glacier. I thought that we would be able to get closer and touch the glacier, but the barrier stopped us, bummer. It was extremely windy and freezing being so close to the glacier. There were signs that showed where the glacier was in previous years, and it has receded remarkably. It won't be here in 100 years.

 

 

Continuing along the Icefields Parkway we saw the Stutfield Glacier. We stopped for a picnic lunch at a place called Bubbling Springs. It was a small open area with a few picnic tables, close to a pond of water which had sand at the bottom. If you just stood and watched the springs, the sand and water bubbled by itself. It was so weird and interesting, and we had no idea what caused it, but it was cool!

 

 

 

Closer to Jasper, we stopped to see the Sunwapta Falls which were cool.

 

 

We then looked at the Athabasca Falls which were pretty impressive! You could get pretty close to the falls and get sprayed :) We like the action of waterfalls like these. Can you see me and Mum on the little balcony?

 

 

We then arrived in the town of Jasper, and checked out the main streets in downtown, before heading to the Jasper Pizza Place for dinner.

 

Yesterday I had Cap'n Crunch cereal for breakfast, then we headed to the Jasper Tramway. We bought our tickets and we were assigned to "flight" #11 and were "boarding" in half an hour. They tried to make it seem like an airport and a flight.. but really it was just a gondola going up to a mountain. The tramway was all standing, and they squeezed about 20 people into each one! We went to the top of Whistlers Mountain (not to be confused with the famous Whistler Mountain in British Columbia). There was lots of rocks and boulders at the top of the mountain. It has great views of Jasper, the Canadian Rockies, and the Athabasca River.

 

 

While we were up there we saw a pika, which is kind of like a squirrel but without a tail. In this photo, you can see it running!

 

 

We headed back down the tramway then drove to Patricia Lake which was so gorgeous, with amazing relfections of the mountains.

 

 

We then went to Pyramid Lake which wasn't as impressive, and much darker because of the clouds.

 

 

Our sightseeing continued as we went to the Fairmont Jasper Park Lodge which is a fancy hotel. We looked around then saw the golf course. From a distance we saw a female deer but it darted away quickly when a golf buggy drove past. At that time, a storm started rolling in. We went to Edith Lake, where we stopped for photos. We were going to have our lunch out by the water but it was raining and the mosquitoes were out in full force so we stayed inside the car. On the way back we stopped for a quick photo at Lake Annette.

 

We then did the drive up to Miette Hot Springs to hopefully see wildlife along the main road. We saw two male elk along the road, but they were on the other side and it was hard to get photos. We saw a herd of bighorn sheep on the side of the mountain (which happen to look more like goats).

 

 

We reached the Hot Springs but just turned around and came back down to the main road so we could see more wildlife. On the way back down we played I Spy with my Little Eye :) We didn't see much wildlife on the way back. We relaxed at the hotel for a bit then waited out the front of our hotel to be picked up for our wildlife tour. Our tour guide, Joe, was amazing. He was so full of knowledge, not only about the animals, but also about the Jasper and Canadian Rockies area. He knew all the great spots to go to to see wildlife. He was so funny and told really interesting stories. There were 6 other people on our bus, and he made sure not to fill the bus so that everyone got a window seat, which was great :) On our tour we saw a female elk, a herd of elk with a young male, three bald eagles, a female coyote and her three cubs, a woodpecker, a couple of blue herron birds, and a male elk (whose size and antlers were huge!). The male elk was the most popular. Many tourists pulled their cars over and got out of their cars, and quite a few people were actually getting dangerously close to the elk. Joe was telling us how the elk could turn aggressive very quickly and charge them, but luckily that didn't happen. Here's some good photos of some animals from the tour:

 

 

 

There was a sad point of the tour though. We saw a female bighorn sheep who had been hit by a car and was dead on the road :( Her two baby lamb were so lost and confused, and were nuzzling their mother. It was so heartbreaking and sad to watch, it almost made me and Mum cry. The lamb kept dashing across the road, making us so nervous they were going to get hit. Eventually they stayed on one side of the road. Joe (our tour guide) handled the situation so well. He moved the dead mother off the road then called Parks Canada to deal with it while we continuted our tour. In happier news, we saw some bighorn sheep on the rocks, a beaver dam and a beaver lodge (no beavers though, they're nocturnal). Here's a photo of the beaver dam:

 

 

During the tour, the storm was on and off, and we ended up seeing about 4 rainbows, one of which was super bright! They were so pretty :)

 

 

Joe ended up extending our tour for another 15 minutes just to make sure we got to see a bear. And we did! We saw a black bear. He was a fair distance away in the woods though, but it was still awesome. While we were watching the bear, we saw a person jogging that way, then they saw the bear and turned around and jogged back the way they came, which was pretty funny.

 

 

 

We got dropped off at our hotel, then went to A&W, a Canadian fast food joint, for takeaway dinner, which for fast food was actually pretty good.

 

More blogging to come! I miss you guys!

 

Love,

Emily