Ashley Chow dot Com

Of course, Benjamin Cip, the cutey white animal was a horse!

Meet Barry and Jack, the 2 lovely horses that led me on a 1-hour horse-drawn tour around Stanley Park.

The Stanley Park Horse-Drawn Tours go around Vancouver’s 1000-acre Stanley Park. A professional guide narrates and highlights places such as Deadman’s Island, the Lions Gate Bridge, the Girl in a Wetsuit Statue, and the Rose Garden.

You get to sit on a horse carriage (which kinda looks like a house) that can seat up to 20 people and mosey along the chilly park. Yes, even on gorgeous days, wandering around the park surrounded by trees, trees, and more trees can get pretty cold, which is why a nice lap blanket is provided for your warmth and well-being.

Ah, my front row seat on the carriage. Now, I’ll try my hand at educating you on what I know and/or learned from this exotic tour (granted, this tour was weeks ago, so my memory will be tested as well).

This is a not-so-great picture of Deadman’s Island on the left there, but that’s about the same as my knowledge of the island. There’s some sort of museum called the HMCS Discovery on the island. It’s the brown-ish building with white windows in the picture. This island was apparently a battleground where hundreds of people were killed. The only other thing I know is that there have been nighttime security guards that claim to have seen shadows of men who weren’t supposed to be there. Freaky.

The Lions Gate Bridge is a suspension bridge that connects Vancouver with the District of North Vancouver, the City of North Vancouver (yes, they’re both different), and West Vancouver. I don’t remember ever being on the bridge, but the times that I’ve been close to it… well, it looks pretty scary. The bridge is like a hill for cars.

There have been times where I’ve seen seagulls on her head. This is the Girl in a Wetsuit Statue by the Stanley Park Seawall. People think the statue is a mermaid, but she’s actually just wearing flippers, thus “Girl in a Wetsuit” and not “The Mermaid”. She’s been sitting on a rock in the Burrard Inlet since June 9, 1972 (almost 37 years!).

Oh, the beautiful Rose Garden. It’ll most likely be even prettier in the next month. Most people pass the Garden when they enter and exit Stanley Park. I pass by this every week while going to and from the Aquarium. In full bloom, the Rose Garden showcases beautiful colours and flowers and makes for a great place for photo shoots and weddings among other things. I had a photo shoot here 2 months ago with a large group of my friends. Unfortunately, nothing had bloomed yet, but awesome pictures still turned out.

There were many other highlights during the tour, but those were the ones I actually had photos of, and photos enhance descriptions and explanations.

Canada Place, a hint of the Harbour Centre, and other skyscrapers make up the skyline of Vancouver beyond the Stanley Park trees. The sidewalk area just past the grass is the Stanley Park Seawall and stretches for 8.8km (5.5m), circling the park. Both Canada Place (somewhat) and the Harbour Centre will be featured in upcoming Exploring Vancouver posts.

Upcoming…

What kind of skeleton did I see at Science World? (No, not a human one.) Stay tuned to find out!

This entry was posted on Sunday, June 7th, 2009 at 2:19 pm and is filed under Photos, Staycations. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.