During the week, I had not had any time for tourism. Still, since the conference hotel was located in the heart of the financial district, I had the opportunity to admire the fancy skyscrapers in the area. Since most of their walls are covered with glass, they sometimes reflect one another in whimsical ways that vary as a function of the weather and the time of the day. I found that pretty cool!
Anyway, on Sunday morning I started the day with a visit to the University of British Columbia (UBC) campus. Over there, I caught a couple of nice sights, such as this nicely decorated wall:
and this Chinese bell and monument:
The real goal of my visit to the campus was to have a look at the Museum of Archaelogy, which is placed over there and boasts a very impressive collection of Northwest Coast ‘First Nations’ art.
Totems and ritual masks abound, and are usually shown next to works by contemporary artists that do their best to keep the culture of their ancestors alive.
After the museum, I headed for Chinatown and stepped into Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Classical Chinese Garden. It is hard to believe that such a quiet and peaceful place can be found in the middle of a big city like Vancouver! The place was really nice and an old Chinese lady that worked there as a guide provided some very interesting insight to understand some of its secrets. Also, I found it unusual to observe that the water on the ponds was almost frozen.
Just a couple of blocks away from the garden, I found myself back at Gastown, the picturesque district that I had first visited four years ago. Gassy Jack stood there with the same pose as before:
And so did the old Steam Clock, which kept on bursting every now and them much to the delight of an eager army of camera-clad tourists as myself.
The next picture is to be compared with this one, which we had shown a couple of posts ago. Do you see big differences? J
Walking along the main street in Gastown, I ended up at the base of the Vancouver Lookout Tower. I decided to go up and enjoy the views. It was already dark, so I could not see very far on the horizon… but still the city lights retained a gleeful charm.
Back on the ground, I took a walk around Canada Place, but I found that the place was completely empty, nothing really to see there at that time of the year I guess, so I decided to walk back to my hotel.
To put a nice end to my trip, I decided to have some sushi for diner. It was not easy to find an open restaurant on a Sunday evening around that area, but somehow I ended up walking into ‘Tsunami’. This Japanese place had a feature that I had heard of before, but had never seen in person: you can seat at a bar right next to a small water 'canal', so that a couple of chefs prepare sushi on the spot and place it on small plates aboard the ships. Each plate has a specific color-coded price and you simply help yourself to the amounts and types that you feel like eating as the boats pass in front of you.
(Tsunami sushi, photo source: NYT)
The warm sake was good after the bitter cold, as was the hot chocolate that I grabbed at a Tim Hortons on the way to the hotel. I finally got to my bed that night and I felt asleep quite fast, exhausted but grateful for the long day. Once again, Vancouver had agreed to cast away part of its mystery and turn it into joyful everlasting memories.
hehe... curiosamente, esta semana en Alemania (donde por cierto, no dejé pasar los mercados de navidad y el Gluewine)conocí una canadiense que me preguntó si no había oido hablar de "HongCouver"... no tenía ni idea de la población oriental que debe haber alli, pero parece cierto, no?
Que vaya todo bien pr allí ;)
Pues si, es totalmente cierto, en Vancouver hay un monton de orientales (chinos, japoneses, filipinos, etc.). Creo que debe ser por la proximidad geografica. Cuando estuve alli hace unos anios me comentaron - por ejemplo - que en Richmond, una zona cercana a Vancouver, la poblacion de origen oriental era mayoritaria, habia mas orientales que occidentales censados. Yo recuerdo ademas ir a un centro comercial de esa misma zona donde todo el mundo era oriental; entre a una libreria y todos los libros estaban escritos en caracteres no occidentales; en el supermercado tenian frutas que yo no habia visto en mi vida; por los pasillos te encontrabas con colegialas vestidas "a lo Sailor Moon" ... en fin, una pasada. En un momento dado mire a mi alrededor y creo que yo era el unico occidental... era casi como estar en otro continente!
Un abrazo!
:-)