I made it to just after 5 that morning. I got caught up online and read for a bit. Then I had another go at some sleep. I did wake up again just after 8. Graham was awake, too and we took our time to get ready. After a day that was jam packed with highlights, this was a more relaxed day, but no less enjoyable. However, it was not quite how I had imagined it. Still, sometimes you just have to take things as they come.
We were in no rush that morning. We decided that we would go over to the shopping centre for opening time and get a more substantial breakfast. We decided on A&W, which is an American fast food chain specialising in burgers and root beer. They had quite an extensive breakfast menu. Graham had the All-Canadian Special, which consisted of two eggs, smoked bacon, sausage links, hash brown and toast with a side of jam and peanut butter. I had the sausage and egg muffin with a hash brown. As Graham does not eat peanut butter, he gave me this and one of his slices of toast. Gourmet food it was not, but it was tasty and satisfying. I wish the same could be said about their coffee. I would have loved to do a direct taste test with this and Royal Caribbean blend. I suspect that Royal Caribbean blend would have won this.
I fancied something sweet. Near the food court was a shop called Stuffies Pastries. The name is slightly misleading as they are selling cute little animal-shaped sponge cakes with different fillings. They did not have any fresh ones yet, but they sold selection boxes with cakes that had been baked the day before at half price. I got a box of 10. If anybody is familiar with the Kinder Happy Hippos, this is about the size they are. I got a mix of fish and teddies. The fish had an apple filling, and the teddies had a custard filling. Some of them were plain and some of them came with icing and either chocolate flakes or sprinkles. I had one fish and one teddy and also gave one to Graham. The rest we took with us. They were individually wrapped and, in a box, and therefore travelled well.
With breakfast out of the way, we headed to the Skytrain station. This time, we did not have to go all the way to Waterfront, but we got off at Stadium/ Chinatown. Our destination was a 10-minute walk away.
When we were in Dunedin, New Zealand last year I visited their Chinese garden. When I read up on this after the event, I discovered an interesting titbit. The Chinese garden in Dunedin is considered one of only three authentic Chinese gardens outside China. The other two are in Portland, Oregon, and Vancouver. I think the likelihood of me ever getting to Portland are low, but we just had booked these cruises the previous day and the Chinese garden in Vancouver jumped to the top of the list of things I wanted to do in Vancouver.
Soon after returning from our Australia and New Zealand trip, I started to do some research into the Chinese garden in Vancouver. I loved what I was reading. The Chinese garden in Vancouver was created in conjunction with the parks and gardens department of the city of Suzhou. Suzhou is world famous for their gardens and collectively, their 60 or so gardens are a UNESCO world heritage site. In 2018, we were able to visit 2 of their four most famous gardens. They were stunning. I had high hopes for a garden that was created in partnership with the city of Suzhou. The Chinese garden in Dunedin was created in partnership with Yu Garden in Shanghai. We visited this, too on one of our trips to China and this is a very beautiful garden, but not in the same league as the gardens in Suzhou. I was very excited to see what they managed to do in Vancouver.
That morning, it was time to check out the Dr Sun Yat-Sen Classical Chinese Garden. We paid our admission and headed in. We soon realised that there is very little to it. It is essentially a medium sized courtyard area with a couple of ponds. There are some rocks, a pavilion and some plants, but that is it. We went through on doorway, and we thought there was more to it, but what we were looking at was actually the neighbouring Dr Sun Yat-Sen Park, which is a separate entirety. One thing I have to give Dr Sun Yat-Sen Classical Chinese Garden is that the birds rather like it. We saw all kinds of interesting birds, including the Cedar Wax Wing that was high on my wish list for bird sightings. We found another area that is actually part of Dr Sun Yat-Sen Classical Chinese Garden is the Scholar’s Study and Courtyard. The Scholar’s Study is a sparsely furnished room. This is probably by design as this is rented out for functions. The courtyard was fairly plain with a mosaic stone floor and a few shrubs. There was however a nice bench, and the area was very peaceful. We did see all kinds of birds while we were sitting there including our first bald eagle of the holiday.
Once had sat long enough, we headed out of the garden. In good theme park tradition, there was a gift shop between the garden and the exit. I did have a quick look at this, but there was nothing that caught my eye. We both agreed that this was a once and done. Both the Chinese garden in Dunedin and the Chinese Garden of Friendship in Sydney are not very big, but the space has been used so much better than this is the case at the Dr Sun Yat-Sen Classical Chinese Garden. What bothered me considering the small size is that every pole, doorway, wall or window seemed to have a plaque with the details of the people or organization who sponsored this. I found this rather intrusive. The other Chinese gardens have a “wall of honour” that lists everybody that contributed to this, and this is a much better way of going about this.
We figured as we were there, we may as well check out Dr Sun Yat-Sen Park, which can be accessed via a courtyard area that is bordered by Dr Sun Yat-Sen Park, Dr Sun Yat-Sen Classical Chinese Garden and the Chinese cultural centre. Dr Sun Yat-Sen Park is owned by the city of Vancouver and is free to visit. This actually felt more authentic than the garden next door. The centre piece was the pond that we had seen from the garden earlier. It was a bit too early in the year for the waterlilies to be in blooms, but there were turtles in the pond. At the edge of the pond was a pavilion and on the other side was a zigzag bridge that is very common in China. There were also a lot of beautiful trees and other plants. We wandered through the park for a while before heading back in the general direction of the Skytrain station.
The second destination that day was Granville Island. Graham had suggested this and when I looked into this, I agreed that it looked really good. There is a public market there and a craft beer brewery. Granville Island is described as being a mix of performance venues, artisan shops and craft studios. As we were planning to visit during the day, the performance venues were of no consequence, but the rest sounded good.
We walked through a small park and managed to add another first-time sighting to our ever-growing list of birds, the black-capped chickadee. They are really cute. After watching one for a while, we pushed on towards the closest dock for the False Creek ferry. The first part of the walk was very industrial and pretty grim, but as we were getting closer to the BC Place Stadium and the Rogers Arena, it actually got quite pretty. Soon we reached the ferry dock. The ferry arrived at the same time we did. We were the only passengers.
There are two different companies that run a ferry service from various docks along False Creek. Neither of them is linked into the public transport system in Vancouver, which means that you cannot use contactless payments that you can use for any other mode of transport in Vancouver. The ferry that arrived just as we got there was operated by False Creek Ferries. Although they are not linked into the contactless system, they did fortunately accept credit card. We were not sure on our movements for the rest of the day and just got two single tickets. The journey down False Creek is quite leisurely. We were going back and forth the two banks of False Creek and stopped at four docks on the way to our destination. We did not mind this at all. We were on no timetable and the trip was very pretty.
Near the ferry dock, there was a craft brewery with an attached restaurant. This one we passed by. Opposite this was the Granville Island Public Market. We went to explore this. This part was right up my street. This was a mix of a food hall with a wide variety of different cuisines, a produce market and some stalls selling artisan foods. Unfortunately, neither of us was hungry. There was a stall selling German food and I would have loved to partake in this. I also loved some of the artisan foods that were sold at the market. If we were not due to get on a ship less than 48 hours later and had a full day the following day, I would have been all over this. At least I got to try some samples.
After we had a good look around the market, we went to explore what else Granville Island had to offer. The answer for this was unfortunately precious little. A lot of the shops were closed and with some of them, it was not entirely clear if this was just a short-term thing or if this was permanent. That was a real shame as some of those shops did actually look interesting when I peeked through the windows. There were a couple of fairly standard souvenir shops and a shop that sold everything to do with dragons. I think calling those shops artisan stretches things a little unless you consider people working in a factory in China to be artisans. Graham sat down on a bench on a patio area near some of the shops. I joined him for a bit. We were entertained by another black-capped chickadee. After a while, I decided to explore the immediate area. There was one shop that was definitely unique. They were selling handmade cowboy boots. I can imagine that they would do very well in Texas, but I wonder how many of those they sell in Vancouver. Having said that, looking at the demographic on the ship, maybe they are not out of place as they seemed. Another shop that caught my eye was something I would have been all over in the past. It was a huge bead shop. I used to make jewellery as a hobby, but I gave this up when my previous job started to get crazy. I gave away all my supplies and tools. I do however wonder if I should just have had a look.
In this area, there were two pieces of art that I really liked. One was a fibreglass bear that had been painted with a river and mountain scene. The other was a mosaic orca statue.
When I came back, we moved on. We came across a number of buildings that seemed deserted. This was followed by an area of workshops. They still seemed to be occupied as most of them had signs that they are not open to the public. One workshop that caught our attention was dedicated to the restoration of totem poles. There was no sign of life, but we were able to peek through the gate and saw totem poles at various stages of progress. I would have loved seeing this in action.
Next up was another area with shops. At least there were some unique shops there including a shop selling handmade brooms and a shop selling anything to do with alpacas. The two shops that did catch my eye were ironically right opposite each other. One sold mosaic lamps and the other sold fair-trade candles. The first was not a very practical souvenir and the second was out of bounds as candles are forbidden items of Royal Caribbean ships.
At this stage, we decided that we had more than enough of Granville Island. This was just not for us. We headed back towards the ferry dock. We were talking about Granville Island with our tour guide the following day. She mentioned that pre-pandemic, the place had an entirely different vibe. She said there was an art school, a number of galleries and various performing arts schools and colleges on Granville Island. In the aftermath of the pandemic, most of them decided to move elsewhere due to the high cost of being on Granville Island and the difficulty getting there. This significantly reduced footfall. A lot of the artists and craftspeople moved, too and quite a few of the genuine artisan shops either moved or went out of business. This made perfect sense. She mentioned a couple of areas that now have this artsy and quirky vibe. There are currently some plans for the regeneration of Granville Island. We saw quite a bit of information about this when we were there. I hope that this works out, but I suspect it is a case of too little too late.
When we got to the ferry dock, there was a ferry already there. We were asked where we wanted to go and were directed a little bit further up the dock. We were advised that our ferry should be there in the next 5 minutes. This was an accurate assessment. This time round, our skipper had a trainee with him. It was quite interesting listening to him passing on tricks of the trade to her. I admired our surroundings again. Granville Island may not have been a hit with us, but the ferry trip there and back most certainly was.
On the way back, we stayed on until The Village ferry dock, which is the terminus. This is named after the Olympic Village that is in that area. It is located very close to Science World, an interactive science museum located inside the silver dome that we had flown over the previous day. The dock is also within short walking distance to Main Street-Science World stop of the Expo Line Skytrain. This would get us back to Burnaby. There is a pretty waterfront walk from the dock to Science World. There is also a marina in the area that rents out kayaks and offers dragon boat excursions. One such excursion was just leaving as we got to the area. We sat down on a bench above the marina as we figured that this would be interesting to watch. It took a little while until everybody was settled in. It was a mild day and there were plenty of seabirds in the area. We also saw our second bald eagle of the day. Eventually, the dragon boat excursion got going and this was fascinating to watch. It took the group a little while to get the hang of this, but soon they were coordinated enough to make progress. Once they had left the area, we moved on.
As we were walking past Science World, some sounds caught our attention. We decided to go and explore. The sound came from a tall glass case. The Tower of Bauble is a 24-foot-tall elaborate ball drop machine that uses 15 pool balls, two bocce balls, and 17 snooker balls to make a song. The piece was made by New York artist and audio kinetic sculptor George Rhoads who is renowned for his elaborate ball machines. We have encountered similar instalments on Explorer of the Seas and a version made from glass at the Tacoma Museum of Glass. I have always been fascinated by this kind of thing and we stayed to watch for a little while.
Eventually , we decided to head to the Skytrain station. We got tangled up with the rush hour and the next train that came along was very busy. We waited for the next rain which came along shortly afterwards. We even managed to get some seats on this. It did not take long until we were back at our local station. By then, we were definitely ready for some food. We stopped off at the food court of the local shopping centre again. I went straight back to Bourbon Street Grill. I had some Bourbon pork with vegetable fried rice and stir-fried green beans. This hit the spot. Graham initially said that he fancied Mexican food. However, he ended up coming back with Chinese food as well. He said that the order process was too complicated. He had gone two the second Chinese outlet in the food court. He was not sure what he actually got as he just had pointed at something that looked good, but he seemed to enjoy it.
Graham fancied some fruit tea. There were so many different outlets at the food court, but there was no outlet that sold bubble tea or something like this. I had seen a standalone bubble tea shop in the morning but could not recall where it was. I tried to get the mall directory up, but my mobile internet was not cooperating. Graham did not fancy walking around the shopping centre to see if we could find it. We decided to head back to our guest house. We still had some of our drinks left and we definitely did not go thirsty.
Graham got ready for bed as soon as he had something to drink. I decided to read for a bit, but must have fallen asleep as well as I woke up about two hours later still holding my iPad. Once I was awake again, I checked where Radiance was. She was due to go out on a sea trial at 20:00 that evening. I have to admit that I was a little nervous about this. She was still showing as being docked in North Vancouver half an hour later, but she did leave shortly thereafter. I read for a bit and then I fell asleep again. Whenever I woke up during the night, I checked how Radiance was doing. Every time I checked, she was doing between 10 and 15 knots. However, she always was near a port whenever I checked and therefore would have been subject to speed restrictions. The last time I checked, there were updates on Facebook that she had been running at top speed for a while, which was encouraging. She also was in USA territorial waters. I wondered if they took her all the way out there to avoid the need for another coast guard inspection on arrival in Juneau as she had been out of USA waters for nearly a week. I definitely slept easier after seeing how far she had got in a relatively short period of time. I quickly went to the bathroom and then I went back to bed and slept through to the morning.
Dolphingirl’s Travels 
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