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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!!

Canada Place opened the world’s first IMAX 3D theatre and is also home to the Pan Pacific Hotel among other sites and attractions. I did go to see an IMAX film one of those days. It was about space and Mars, narrated by Tom Cruise.

So the Pan Pacific Hotel was where I had lunch. It was the first time I had lunch in a hotel. Pretty high class.

The cutest puffs of butter I’ve ever seen!!

Bread was good, glasses were nice, flower was cute.

And here was lunch. Fish and chips. There was one chunk of salmon, 2 pieces of shrimp, and another type of fish. I never actually expected different types of fish.

Okay. I promise the next blog post will be much more interesting. I hope.

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Look at just how tiny the Harbour Centre is compared to a building like the Empire State Building! Views from the Vancouver Lookout coming up next.

The Westin Bayshore is its name. It was by far the nicest hotel I ever went into during the Tourism Challenge.

Had a bit of trouble finding the entrance though. There are condos and whatnot in the surrounding area, so the hotel entrance and everything is pretty close to the water, not by busy W Georgia St.

When I finally found the entrance, it looked lovely and very peaceful.

This is the lobby area. It’s beautiful when you look outside.

One of the views. The water is past the bushes and everything.

Another hotel I just walked into was the Hyatt.

The outside didn’t look very promising, but the inside did justice.

This is the outside of the Fairmont Waterfront. I was in there for 2 seconds to get my stamp. I hear the Fairmont (the “regular” one in Downtown) has a haunted 14th floor with a lady in red.

And that concludes 3 of the 4 hotels I went to. Not very interesting, but maybe the photos did more justice.

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Mmmm, this restaurant was delish. Know which hotel? There’s also one up in Whistler if I’m remembering correctly.

So this circular building with the shiny king crab welcoming all visitors is the H.R. MacMillan Space Centre.

There may also be a museum or something in there. I’ve been there before the last time I went, but the times are too far back in my life to remember. I really only spent 15 minutes inside before I found it much too boring to continue looking around.

Don’t get me wrong. Space and astronomy is really cool. I love it, but I guess the way they show and display things and how dark it is in there makes it somewhat boring. I do believe people usually call it the Planetarium; at least, that’s what I call it. One of the cool things in the Planetarium is the motion simulator ride. However, it didn’t seem to be open the day I was there, so who knows what’s going on with it.

Now, there’s the False Creek Ferries. It offers commuter and sightseeing service at various parts of False Creek, such as Yaletown, Science World, Granville Island, and Vanier Park (which is where the Planetarium is). I don’t have a photo of the ferry, but I do have photos of what can be seen while on the ride. First, a few photos of Granville Island.

Granville Island is a little island in False Creek across from Downtown’s peninsula. There’s a public market where you can buy groceries, lots of funky stores selling funky things, and theatres and hotels among other things.

It sits by the Granville Street Bridge, pictured here.

The Burrard Street Bridge can just barely be seen near the middle-bottom left of the photo. That was what I rode on during my Big Bus ride. The high rises are facing the West End (could be Yaletown for all I know) and the large crowd of people is part of Granville Island. Now for the ferry views…

BC Place (white roof) can be seen as well as the Cambie Street Bridge.

Science World is seen here as are 2 Aquabuses (one is closer and by the rock of the viaducts; red top and colourful; the other is farther and a bit to the left of Science World, not the flat boat below Sci World). Aquabus Ferries are similar to the False Creek Ferries but are just more colourful. I don’t really know the difference. (Wow. Blogging about Vancouver really makes me realize just how little I seem to know.) I rode on the Aquabus once last summer.

I do believe this is the Olympic Village, still under construction. Apparently they need even more money or something.

I snapped this soon after I got off the False Creek Ferry. There were a million people there for dragon boat racing. You should know what the buildings are by now.

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I couldn’t think of a good question, so I’ll just tell you that the next feature is a hotel that is on Bayshore Drive (most heavenly street name ever). Wanna attempt a guess?

The Vancouver Convention Centre is of course, a convention centre in Vancouver. The old name was the Vancouver Convention & Exhibition Centre (I believe… or else Vancouver Trade & Convention Centre) but everyone just refered to it as Canada Place. An addition to the Convention Centre, the West Building (which is more commonly known as the Convention Centre), was completed this year.

If that was confusing…

OLD Section: Canada Place (real name: Vanc Convention Centre ; East Building)
NEW Section: Convention Centre (real name: Vanc Convention Centre; West Building)

Yes, they’re both called the same thing, differentiated by what side of the earth they face in relation to one another or whatever. Oh how I hate these names. Forget the formal names; just go by what everyone calls them.

In November 2004, construction of the expansion began. It was partly built to be the media and broadcast centre for the 2010 Olympics although it will be used as a convention centre (of course) after the Games.

Here’s a funky photo… The sails of Canada Place are seen here.

This one’s taken from Vancouver Lookout (will be featured soon). Again, this is Canada Place with its famous 5 sails.

This isn’t a great photo, but if you look at the green patch (no, not Stanley Park; the brighter, smaller patch of green), you’ll see that the roof of the Convention Centre is in fact green. It’s a “living room” with native plants and apparently a bee yard.

The expansion of the Convention Centre consists of 340 849 square feet (31 665 square metres) of space.

What a modern design. The building was actually built over 40% water (therefore 60% on land).

As you can see, the inside is just HUGE. I don’t even know what’s what. The escalators are super tall and it all just looks really cool. There’s definitely more to the building than just what’s shown here.

Of course, that’s what you’d expect from a building that plans to host thousands of the best events ever.

The Tourism Vancouver Info Centre is right by Canada Place and the Convention Centre. There’s really nothing interesting about it (for locals) except for the fact that you can buy discounted tickets to random plays or something. I do like to go there from time to time and pick up some tourist magazines and brochures and whatnot. You can also book hotel rooms among other things.

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I find this place awfully boring compared to Science World, but it has this cool king crab sitting outside its entrance. This is the H.R. MacMillan ________ Centre. What’s the blank? (Hint: Maybe the shape of the building will help you out…)

This place is truly magnificent. What is it?

This is the Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Classical Chinese Garden. I was there bright and early one morning, taking everything in and listening to half of a public tour given by a really well-spoken volunteer. I’m still extremely hazy on a lot of facts, but I will be dropping by again in a week’s time (for free yay) so I’ll be paying closer attention then. In the meantime, here are some photos of the beautiful garden and random facts that I remember.

Everything from this garden is from China except for the water and… the trees? Something along those lines.

The garden is near Downtown (and obviously by Chinatown), thus the buildings.

The roofs have some kind of funky story or something behind it. I can’t remember now.

There’s a Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Park on the other side of the Garden, which is free while the garden is not. Needless to say, the garden is way more interesting than the park.

The difference between the garden and the park is that the garden is basically all imported from China (except for the water and some plants I think) and the park is more western and doesn’t contain all of these unique things.

These rocks are really funky too. All of them are different and sometimes reveal various pictures according to what you see. Do you see George Washington on this rock?

What about this? What do you see? Cool, eh?

Some pretty huge fish live in the ponds of the garden. I wonder if they’re from China too…

And of course there have to be a few little turtles roaming around as well.

The inside of one of the rooms.

This hallway’s really interesting. Just on the other side, there’s a hallway exactly like that. The reason for the back-to-back hallways? It all depends on whether you want to walk in the sun or in the shade, and if it’s raining, if you want to walk under the rain or on the dry side.

I believe this is called a moon gate. The funky designs around the gate have no nails or glue or anything attached to them to keep them in place. They’re just designed to fit in properly and stand the entire thing up.

If you look past the moon gate, you’ll see a railing and a little area where you can sit. If you lean back on the railing (which is at a 45 degree angle), it’s really uncomfortable, but the point of the railing is not so you can lean back on them. If you turn your body to the side and rest your arm over the railing, it makes a perfect portrait shot. Photographers love that pose and the railing is the perfect place for a shot like that.

And there you have it, the Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Classical Chinese Garden. Everything I could remember plus a bunch of photos jumbled up into one blog post.

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This funky crazy modern looking building recently finished construction. What is it used for? (And if you didn’t know, Stanley Park, that 1 000-acre clump of trees, is to the right.)

I actually don’t have a picture of the actual vehicle that I’m riding on, but this is the Big Bus, the supposed “best way to discover Vancouver”. The buses come in as a half-convertible or as a double-decker and stops at many of Vancouver’s attractions, including Stanley Park, Granville Island, and Gastown.

Another “bus” that is meant for tourists to Vancouver and that again I do not have a photo of is the Vancouver Trolley. These trolleys replicate San Francisco’s cable cars, only they run on gas and wheels, not tracks and electricity.

After having ridden on both of these meant-for-tourist buses (twice each), I have to say that the Vancouver Trolley does more justice than Big Bus. Both have commentary, but Big Bus has automated lady and man voices, which the drivers often get wrong (as in the automated voices are talking about something we’re not even passing, woohoo).

With the Trolley, the driver is usually the commentator, which just shows that not only does the driver know where to go, but knows what he’s talking about too. It makes the experience a bit more personal as well, and not constant “Welcome to Big Bus!” after every stop and start.

In any case, both of these buses have over 20 stops, with the Vancouver Trolley having even 2 lines depending on where you wish to go (Downtown core or all the way down to Granville Island) and tickets are valid for 2 days. Tickets are uberly expensive, which doesn’t come as quite a surprise, and visitors are allowed and encouraged to hop off the buses anywhere along the routes and simply hop back on after.

Following are photos of various places I passed while mainly on the Big Bus (as I was on the half-convertible, or “Cabriolet” as they call it).

The Olympic clock in front of the Art Gallery, counting down the days and hours and minutes and whatever else until the 2010 Olympic Games (and Paralympic Games I should add) in Vancouver.

This is the Art Gallery (the building with the pyramid stairs and Roman-looking columns). The Shangri-La (remember that?) can be seen in the background on the left and I believe the green roof building next to the Shangri-La is the Fairmont Hotel. I can’t be 100% about that though. I’ll need a few more staycations to see everything Vancouver has to offer.

This is while I was cruising along the Burrard Street Bridge, wind blowing in my hair, sitting in the Cabriolet, living the high life. Right. The bridge in the distance is the Granville Street Bridge and the buildings should be part of Yaletown (which is a part of Downtown if you didn’t already know).

And here’s the oh-so-famous-oldest-part-of-Vancouver Gastown. These streets are made of cobblestone (I love it) and the funky streetlights make it known that this is Gastown. I have absolutely no recollection of ever being in Gastown before doing the Tourism Challenge. Some Vancouverite I am, eh? (Although I do have New York relatives who’ve never been to the Statue of Liberty. Hm.)

Here the Harbour Centre is in view from Gastown’s Water Street (I still don’t really know what’s so special about this street). OH! You can see the Big Bus on the very bottom left corner of the photo. And the awesome streetlights that look like Lego pieces.

Ah, you just can’t get enough of Gastown. There’s something magical (and supposedly freaky at night) about the area. Here is the Gastown Steam Clock, which is indeed a steam-powered clock. It was actually built to cover a steam grate and is supposed to puff out steam although I didn’t see much steam coming out of its ears. Supposedly the clock still works even though I did not take that photo at 10:02am. More like 4:01pm. Here you can see another Lego-like streetlight.

A better-ish view of the streets of Gastown. The road there doesn’t look very cobblestone to me, but I know I’ve passed other roads made of cobblestone.

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This photo just shows a tiny portion of the entire place. What is it?

So this is the Telus World of Science, more commonly known as Science World. BC Place is shown to the left (the one with the white roof).

The only reason they added the “Telus” and flipped around the “Science” and “World” is because Telus donated a whole whack of money to them a whole bunch of years ago. The name of the building is now “Telus World of Science”, but everyone still calls it “Science World”.

Science World is actually a not-for-profit organization that features lots of displays and interactive exhibits. Oftentimes, there will be featured topics on random things. There was a supposedly really cool one last year or the year before called Body Worlds, which showed dead people’s internal organs and whatnot. I found it kinda boring.

In Science World, way up by the dome, there’s an OMNIMAX Theatre. It’s like a regular theatre except for the fact that what you see makes you feel like you’re actually there. The many speakers are behind the screen and the visuals extend way up to the ceiling, as if there’s no real end to the screen. The realistic feel can sometimes make people feel dizzy.

Now, before I answer the question from my last post, I’ll ramble about the different things I saw first. I have to say that I actually never expected to see any real animals at Science World. Granted, I don’t go there very much (maybe once in a blue moon), and all I really knew was that there were all kinds of puzzles and an OMNIMAX Theatre.

This is the entrance to one of the exhibits. Already, I’ve forgotten what was in there. Most likely puzzles and fun interactive games and such. Eureka!

No, it’s not a real beaver. At least, not a living one. I would’ve flipped out if it was. I believe the whole beaver topic was a feature as they were showing a film called “Beavers” in the OMNIMAX Theatre. Apparently, it was the first OMNIMAX film they ever showed, which was 20 years ago.

I actually didn’t see Beavers when I went to watch an OMNIMAX film. Instead, I saw one called “Roving Mars”, which talked about the two rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, going to Mars in search of water and dig into rocks and whatnot. It was really good to say the least.

An absolutely adorable guinea pig! The fluffy stuff in the foreground is the second guinea pig, all snuggled up in his little glass box of a home.

Hm. I saw a snake too. I do believe it was just the one, all curled up inside his precious hollow rock/cave.

And here’s Mr. Turtle, slowly making his way through his log tunnel.

Ah, and the tarantula. I just had to get a close-up of him. Except that he’s dead. I know this for a fact because he was in a little glass case that could only fit him and he didn’t move a millimetre the entire time I stared at him.

And here’s the skeleton. The frog skeleton. Cool much? My jaw dropped when I saw it because it looked so COOL!! So delicate, so fragile. I’ve never seen a skeleton like this before. Have you?

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Not a great picture (although perfect for the question), but do you know what I was riding on?

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!

Contrary to what I said in my previous post, I won’t be doing my Tourism Challenge blogging mania in 3 days. There’s just too much to write about. Instead, I’ll be blogging about 1 or 2 (sometimes maybe a few more) attractions each time. Today, I’ll start with what I had left off with in the last post.

So what was that gleaming blue building soaring up into the sky from my previous post? Title kinda gives it away, eh? Well, Anny Chih was right; the building was indeed the Shangri-La!

The Living Shangri-La Hotel and Residences in Vancouver is the only Shangri-La in Canada as of now and was the first in North America. It is part hotel, part office space, part condominium. Opened in September 2008, the Shangri-La is currently the tallest building in the city at 659ft (201m) with 62 stories.

Personally, I find nothing spectacular at all about the Shangri-La. It’s overrated. It doesn’t even look like a hotel. Normally, you would find some sort of cul-de-sac looking half-roundabout for the taxis and cars and whatnot, yes? Well, the Shangri-La is on a big street (W Georgia) with cars zooming by (noted by the photo below), so there’s really no room for that. And unless there’s a secret side entrance that I don’t know about, the entrance I saw didn’t scream, “Look at me!”

The entrance was a mere revolving door which opened into what looked nothing like a hotel. I mean, sure, it’s only part hotel, but it’s still part hotel. Shouldn’t it at least look like one?

To add to the non-hotel look, it had some funky Chinese herbal or some kind of Chinese-y smell in there. Not all that pleasant. I mean, sure, I’m Chinese, but I’m whitewashed enough to not enjoy every last bit of Chinese goodness. (I have no idea if that made sense; I just put down whatever popped into mind.)

I dunno. I was disappointed. The Shangri-La just wasn’t as spectacular as I thought it would be.  It wasn’t as seemingly glamorous as people made it out to be. The rooms are supposedly awesome and modern, but if that’s the case, then the entrance just doesn’t do it justice. I mean, we all know that first impressions are important, right?

Upcoming…

Can you guess what this animal is? Shouldn’t be too hard.