Wednesday, September 10th, 2003
Today has finally arrived.
We drove over to LAX to catch the flight to Vancouver.
Shony Bar Ilan, who I haven’t seen for 40 (!) years, was waiting for us at the airport with his white hat and goatee. The meeting was very exciting. We were on our way to Shony’s home at the Dunbar section of Vancouver. It is quiet residential area with easy access to downtown Vancouver.
We arrived to the house at around 11:30pm and settled in the guest room for a well deserved long sleep.
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The comfortable room and the fact we were so tired kept us in bed until 10:00 AM. We woke up and met Shony’s beautiful wife, Anat, and little Sasha, who we later found out as smart as she was cute.
We headed for breakfast at Sophie’s Cosmic Café known for its consistency of good, home-style cooking and that funky Kitsilano atmosphere. (Kitsilano is a buzzing place with the highlight being the “In Place” in the summertime, in Vancouver. Trendy people hang around, playing volleyball, roller blading or just taking a stroll. Kitsilano got its name from Khahtsahlanough a chief of the Squeamish Nation).
After a delicious breakfast we headed to the beautiful Granville Public Market.
With more than 260 businesses, studios and facilities that cater to any age and interest, Granville Island is a friendly oasis that sees almost 8 million visitors a year looking for fresh food, clothes, unique gifts or crafts. Granville Island is rich with options.
It is great gathering spot for both locals and visitors. The unique urban market, which was named after Lord Granville and built in the 70s, has restaurants, theatres, galleries and studios occupied by both artists and craftspeople. The market section offers fresh year-round - fruit or vegetables from the local farms, fresh oysters, lobsters or salmon. Anat bought some Italian goodies as we decided to have dinner at home.
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Outside the market, in an open space, we listened to Indy music performed by a Peruvian in front of enthusiastic listeners. He was playing different flutes and made pleasant music.
All this time I could not stop to admire Sasha’s fluent English and the variety of questions and statements she had made. This three year old has a very large vocabulary and a huge knowledge base.
We headed to our next stop, Broadway Street where Shony dropped us off.
Broadway Street is one of the main streets of Vancouver. We discovered many restaurants, Café’s, bars, and unique shops along the busy street. We stopped to have Crapes and café au 
lait for a late lunch before heading to Downtown Vancouver.
lait for a late lunch before heading to Downtown Vancouver.We crossed Granville Street Bridge, which is one of the major thoroughfares into the downtown peninsula. It sweeps across Granville Island and False Creek.
We reached downtown and decided to walk back on the bridge to Broadway, in order to once again enjoy the scenery.
A couple of hours later, Shony met with us and drove us home. As we were having fun in the city, Anat and Shony prepared a delicious Italian dinner.
We sat around until midnight, talking and remembering our childhood. At one point I accessed the web on Shony’s computer to find out that John Ritter had died unexpectedly in Burbank California.
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Friday, September 12th, 2003
Breakfast was served at a local restaurant on Broadway Street, which has its’ wall covered with legendary film stars.
After a delicious meal, we headed toward the outskirts of Vancouver.
Our first stop was at Lynn Canyon Park. The park (located in North Vancouver) officially opened in 1912 on 12 acres of donated land fronting on Lynn Creek. The park has now expanded to 617 acres containing numerous attractions.
The park offers many hiking trails varying in length and difficulty. A suspension bridge hangs 20 stories above Lynn Creek, offering spectacular views of Lynn Canyon. Once we crossed the bridge, we walked for about fifteen minutes downstream from the bridge and arrived to a wooden footbridge, which crosses the creek at Twin Falls.
We climbed back up towards the main entrance of the park and drove toward Deep Cove, using the side streets.
We arrived at this beautiful spot of Vancouver “Where the water meet the mountains” as Shony described it. We discovered a breathtaking view, which meant one thing: Many Pictures….
Deep Cove is a one-of-a-kind, quirky place. Nestled by the waters of Indian Arm, at the east end of the North Shore, it is one of the two “villages” of the North Shore, the other being Horseshoe Bay in West Vancouver. Deep Cove epitomizes what the North Shore is known for: tranquility, scenic beauty, and warm cozy atmosphere that make you want to sit down and stay. Boating, hiking and nature typify this area.
Activities in Deep Cove can include kayaking lessons and when Tova saw the many people attending a short “class” on how to kayak, she insisted that kayaking is something “we have to do”.
On the way out of Deep Cove we stopped at Honey's for a delicious Cappuccino and tasted their delicious doughnuts. (Much better than Krispy Kreme – I swear!!)
We arrived home at around 4:00PM and took a well deserving afternoon nap.
Anat had made reservations to the famous Fish House in Stanley Park. The restaurant is actually a converted mansion with park view of lawns, trees, and a fireplace. The mansion has a gracious old salon and a large windowed conservatory-style wing. This place is a very important landmark of Shony And Anat’s love story: They got married there!The food was excellent and so was the service!!!
After dinner we walked in the park and breathed its’ night beauty. Sasha looked at the skies and said: “Wow, so many stars… I wish I had a telescope”!!
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A delicious Breakfast was prepared and served by Shony. It was very tasty!
We left Anat at home, as she needed some time to complete some job related tasks, and headed to the University Of British Columbia (UBC) to visit the world famous Museum Of Anthropology.
The Museum of Anthropology at the University of British Columbia is world-renowned for its collections, research, teaching, public programs, and community connections. It is also acclaimed for its spectacular architecture and unique setting on the cliffs of Point Grey.
The Museum houses over half a million ethnographic and archaeological objects, many of which originate from the Northwest Coast of British Columbia. Massive totem poles, carved boxes, bowls, and feast dishes are featured in the Museum's Great Hall, while smaller (but no less magnificent) pieces in gold, silver, argillite, wood, ceramic, and other materials are exhibited elsewhere in the galleries.
The Museum's extensive Visible Storage system provides public access to approximately 13,000 objects from around the world for comparison and study, as well as for community-based research by artists, elders, students, and others. The Museum is thus uniquely placed both to share and to gain knowledge through public participation and exchange.
Highlights of the building include the massive doors at the main entrance, carved in 1976; the 15-meter glass walls of the Great Hall, beneath which stand towering totem poles, Bill Reid's massive sculpture, "The Raven and the First Men"; and the Koerner Ceramics Gallery, home to six hundred pieces of 15th – 19th century pottery.
We spent close to two hours in the museum and drove to Jericho Beach.
Shony had told us how great this beach is and that his famiy spends many quality hours there. This beach retreat in the city offers the best of urban and outdoor Vancouver. This is a large and long sandy stretch with views of the mountains and downtown.
Each day guests can enjoy a wide range of activities. One of those activities is… Kayaking.
We registered at the Kayak’s rental office and after a (very) short introduction we took our shoes off, rolled our pants up and entered the kayak. Shony had left to take Sasha home and we started to experience the “joy” of kayaking… we lasted 20 minutes…
When Shony returned we drove to our next destination: Stanley Park’s Totem Poles.Situated just off the seawall beside the Brockton Oval are eight totem poles. Each has a story that breathes life into it. Each is connected to the land on which it stands in more than just a physical sense.
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We drove around the park a couple of times and decided that the best way to explore it will be riding on bicycles. Tomorrow should be a perfect day for it since we had nothing planned yet.
Prospect Point was our next stop.
Prospect Point, the park's tallest point, sits under the shadow of the Lion's Gate Bridge, the gateway to the North Shore and points beyond. We joined other visitors as we looked over the Point's breathtaking vista.
We arrived home an hour later to pick up Anat and Sasha as we had plans to tour and have dinner at Chinatown.
We walked the Chinatown streets to discover many stores and restaurants. As we discovered later on, this is North American's Second largest Chinatown (after San Francisco.)
A “street fair” was taking place on Keefer street and many locals and visitors were busy shopping goods from clothing, luggages and jewlery to food and accessories.
We settled for dinner at Hon's Wun Tun House Ltd on Keefer Street. We ordered a couple of dishes full with Pot Stickers and a couple of dishes with variety of noodles. Yummy!!
We returned home and as we settled down at the guests room, we could hear raindrop clicking on the roof. We hoped and prayed that this will not be an obstacle for tomorrow’s adventure.
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After yet another good night sleep we woke up to sunny skies as we all headed toward Stanley Park and stopped for breakfast at a Danish Pancake place. This popular place was humming with people and the food came in huge tasty portions.
We said goodbye to Shony, Anat, and Sasha and started our bikes’ tour in Stanley Park.
Stanley Park is the grand daddy of all parks in Greater Vancouver. Known around the world, and why shouldn't it be...a beautiful 1000 acre park that is almost smack dab in the middle of Vancouver.
It's about six miles around (vehicular traffic flow is one way, and counter clockwise in direction). We circled the park and saw many of beautiful landmarks. Let me take you on a short tour. We enter the park from Georgia Street to see a colorful blooming Rose Garden at the entrance. On the waterside we saw a beautiful English looking building that houses The Vancouver Rowing Club, and Coal Harbor. We were lucky to see a seaplane land sand then takes off.
A bit further we revisited the totem poles. Once we rounded Brockton Point we found a change of scenery.
Instead of city landscape we saw big piles of sulfur against a scenic backdrop of mountains. It was the North Shore. The connector is The Lion's Gate Bridge that we saw yesterday and when I revisited it I noticed how close it is to The Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco.
The seawall is dotted with various points of interest. The one I liked was the mermaid lounging on the rock.
About halfway between Brockton Point and Prospect Point is Lumberman's Arch. We revisited Prospect Point and looked again at the spectacular view of North and West Vancouver.
Out last stop was a popular beach called English Bay.
We returned our bikes to the rental shop and started to walk on Robson Street.
A fair was taking place with a theme of Natural Food. We visited the stalls and tasted all kind of tofu’s and other natural goodies. Music was provided by a pair that sounded much like Simon and Garfunkel.A delicious Lattee’ at a local café’ on the main street gave us the much needed energy to continue our tour.
Robson Street is the main downtown shopping street, especially for tourists like us. We found all the major chains like Banana Republic, The Gap, Club Monaco, and Virgin Records along with many shops selling souvenirs and gifts. Around Granville Street.
As well as shops there are a great many restaurants on Robson Street, especially in the central area. For this reason the street is bustling with people of all ages.
We visited Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory to taste a delicius home made chocolate ice cream and headed toward the port where for large cruise carriers docked.
Vancouver is a main stop for all cruises on their way to Alaska. To our pleasant surprise, one of them was none other than Legend Of The Sea. (looks as if we follow this ship all over the world…).
We walked back toward Stanley Park and called Shony to come and pick us up as we were about to meet Karin and Maya: Shony’s girls from his previous marriage.
We all met at Athens a popular Greek restaurant on Broadway for a nice meal.After dinner we decided to walk back (20 minutes) to the house as Shony had to return the girls back to their mom’s house.
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Monday, September 15th, 2003
We woke up and started to pack our luggages as the end of this beautiful vacation was about to arrive.
Per Anat’s suggestion we took bus number 7 to 4th street and then walked down, via Ouey Street, toward the beach. We found an Italian Café’ and had some capuccino and toasted panini’s.
We walked on the beach, picking up shells to bring back to Sasha.
On our way back we made a couple of stops for last minute shopping on 4th Street and took bus number 7 back home.
Anat took us to the airport in plenty of time to make some more last minutes gift shopping at Vancouver’s airport…
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