Vancouver (4)

Playlist
Rush – Permanent Waves
The Blue Nile – Hats
The Blue Nile – Peace at Last
Uriah Heep – Wake the Sleeper

Up at 7 – I thought there’d been a downpour in the night based on what I’d heard but it turned out to be the neighbour’s sprinklers...

Lovely and sunny when we got up...

The, by now, usual breakfast ensued – loads of food – as most days, a cooked part, some yoghurt and granola and fruit, and a further plate of fresh fruit...

Left the house just after 9 and took the bus down to the Waterfront where we caught the Skytrain out to the East Side and Main St, from where we walked, in the now blazing heat, to the big weekend flea market...

Despite hundreds of stalls, nothing of any import was found and so we made our way back into town...

We alighted at Burrard St and took a bus over to the West Side to McDonald from where we walked down onto English Bay, where we’d come on our first night here...

Here we enjoyed some cooling drinks and sat and relaxed, enjoying the sea views and reading our books...

We walked back up the hill to 4th Avenue for the Soap Box Derby at 1pm – we’d noticed the street being cordoned off last night as we sat in the Hell’s Kitchen pizza place...

Around fifty teams had entered variously stupid vehicles into the race, the object being to freewheel as fast as possible down the natural hill of the street, without your car falling to pieces..

The entertainment value of the design of the cars was also taken account of...

Reasonably entertaining but the sun was beating down relentlessly and there were mental crushing crowds, with people trying to come through with babies in strollers and others wheeling their bikes through...

So we took our leave and walked down a parallel back street and made our way again to Granville Island and had a drink at the Cat’s Meow which sold the lovely Granville Raspberry Wheat Beer from the other day...

We got a bit lost trying to get back home on a bus and ended up over the bridge in another unsavoury area of downtown where we had to wait an age on our correct bus to take us back home for a well earned rest from all the walking...

I took the opportunity to start writing some lyrics for what I suppose will be my next album, due sometime in 2009 – starting with various two liners which may or may not be expanded into fully fledged ideas/songs...

In the evening we returned to Kitsilano for dinner, visiting Connie’s Cook House, a Cantonese restaurant...

The portions must have been the biggest I’ve ever seen and we did our best to get through plates of King Po Chicken and Satay Beef...

Very tasty indeed – they make a point of not using any MSG...

We ended the day with another long walk – down 4th Avenue up to 9th and back along the third side of the rectangle to “our street”, Arbutus, catching a bus at the corner of 9th back up to 21st where our home for the duration was...



Back home, some internet then to bed, exhausted and sunburnt...

Highlight of the Day : Relaxing at the beach