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The Vancouver Lookout offers some of the best views of Vancouver from 130 metres (430 feet) high. I mean, the Shangri-La probably has even more superb views, but not everyone can conveniently hop up to the penthouse of the Shangri-La. Neil Armstrong (first man on the moon) opened the Lookout back in August 1977.

Poor little Harbour Centre gets dwarfed by some of the tallest buildings in the world, but nevertheless, seems to be a perfect fit for tiny Vancouver. The Vancouver Lookout is the distinguishable top part of the Harbour Centre and looks a tad bit like the CN Tower.

Above (or maybe below) the Lookout is the Top of Vancouver Revolving Restaurant, which revolves once every 60 minutes and serves amazingly delicious yet extremely overpriced food. (I spent $24 on a grilled chicken sandwich there.)

An old photo from back in 2007 of the Top of Vancouver.

Glass elevators whisk you up to the top where you can enjoy a 360 degree view of Metro Vancouver.

There are also tours available when you’re up there as well as loads of informative displays about various places including Stanley Park, Chinatown, and even the Vancouver Lookout itself.

Enjoy the following photos taken from the Lookout (not that the previous 2 weren’t from there too).

The Vancouver Sun and The Province newspapers are 2 of the main newspapers read by locals and the building is seen here right by Canada Place.

This should be the Port of Vancouver. Loads of shipping containers get shipped to and from here every day.

GM Place should be the white roof building next to the colourful condo.

Yes, that is indeed GM Place. The bigger building is BC Place. The ginormous road to the right of BC Place is the Cambie Street Bridge. I don’t know what the building with the green dome & pointy roof is, but I do know it’s close to the Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Gardens.

The Scotiabank Tower, one of the tallest buildings in Vancouver, can be seen here. Holy Rosary Church can be seen by the bottom left corner. It reminds me of all the churches in New York.

Here’s a better perspective as to just how small the Harbour Centre is. It may look a teensy bit like the CN Tower (pictured on the very left), but obviously, it is nowhere near the same height-wise.

It is completely evident in this photo that the Shangri-La is the tallest building in Vancouver. The Bell building can also be seen here.

Construction looms around Vancouver’s waterfront. Stanley Park, the cluster of dark green trees, can be seen in the background. The Convention Centre, mentioned in a previous post with the lighter green roofs, is also seen. The Chevron gas station sits in the middle of the water. Of course, the Lions Gate Bridge, connecting Vancouver with the City of North Vancouver, is just barely visible behind Stanley Park over the water. The mountains are called the Lions.

Just a side note… there’s actually a difference between North Vancouver and the City of North Vancouver even though everyone refers to the City of North Van as just North Van. North Vancouver is more industrial whereas the City of North Vancouver is more developed.

To the left are railroad tracks which are for the West Coast Express, trains that go all the way out to faraway places like Mission and Maple Ridge. This looks east, so in the distance is the rest of Vancouver and into Burnaby. The middle to bottom of the photo is of Gastown, distinguished by the “322 Water St” painted on the building.

And that about wraps up my Exploring Vancouver posts. Hope that was at least a bit informative and worth your read. I know I didn’t talk about the Aquarium, but I go there just about every week, so I’ll be sure to blog about any random things that come up.

BTW, the new baby beluga was born a few weeks ago to Aurora, mother of Qila and grandmother of Tiqa! (Basically, this new beluga is the half-sister and aunt to Tiqa. Read about their twisted family tree here.) The little one doesn’t have a name yet, but the Aquarium will definitely put out a baby-naming contest sometime in the fall.

The new beluga and Aurora swimming with Qila and Tiqa in the background. Photo taken yesterday (Saturday, June 20th) in the underwater viewing gallery (before the Aquarium even opened ).

Stay tuned for some dinosaur talk!!

This entry was posted on Sunday, June 21st, 2009 at 9:03 pm and is filed under Photos, Staycations, Van Aqua. 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.