Saturday, May 11, 2013

Visiting Vancouver – Day 3, Friday!


After arriving by bus in Vancouver (on Thursday), Jenn and I arranged our luggage on our backs and started the walk to the hostel. We stayed in Gastown at the Cambie hostel with an attached bar and bakery, and it had a very hipster vibe. The 20-minute walk took us through streets lined with tall buildings and skyscrapers, very different from the 3-4 stories of Victoria. It was clear we were in a metropolis with buses, skytrains, and cars whizzing past. The city of Vancouver had a different flavor than most urban areas. There was art infused throughout with theatres, street performers, and art galleries.

It had been 14 years since I last stayed in a hostel, and a new experience entirely for Jenn. We walked in, not sure what to expect, and a hippie in his 30’s from New Zealand greeted us in the laid-back but friendly way hippies do. We paid for our ridiculously cheap room, were given 3 keys for the many levels of security (a comforting realization) and a list of instructions. We went up two flights of really cool hipster stairs, wait… how can stairs be hipster? I will try to explain. The circular wooden stairs were hidden behind the first level of security, and kind of worn, in the way that makes it look like they might have been sanded to get that worn look. I think that’s the difference between hippies and hipsters. Hipsters put a lot of work into making it look like they’re hippies. Hipsters are showered, have groomed beards, and wear organic, metal free deodorant. Hippies tend to go with the not usually pleasant musk smell that can only be naturally acquired. The stairs looked like they were trying to be old and worn.

Our room had a nice size and was simple, with tall ceilings, a sturdy wooden bunk bed, hipster desk and chair (you know what I mean), and a bathroom in the corner. That was it. There was no flat-screen tv, like our last hotel, and not even enough space to unpack. The best part of the room, though, was two nearly floor to ceiling windows spanning the length of the wall. This was the kind of room that I envision myself living in, if I were cool enough to live in New York or Vancouver.

We rested for only a few minutes, and to the annoyance of our aching limbs, we headed downstairs to grab a light meal and find our bus. We passed a few fantastic shops that could only be found in somewhere like Vancouver. One shop exhumed a style that Lucille Ball could found in, with a touch of Goth to make Ricky swoon. Other shops had sweet summery dresses to match the warm weather. I literally skipped (so excited) away from a take-out sushi place, eager to consume the oh-so fresh raw salmon and tuna that had vibrant colors I’ve never seen for sushi. (For those of you unfamiliar and probably a little grossed out by raw fish – the bright orange color of raw salmon is very hard to find and means it is fresh fresh fresh!). We found a Tim’s for Jenn and I think I inhaled my food before she found our table.

We rushed off to find our bus that took us down Granville Street to the Stanley Industrial theatre to see Dreamgirls. This level of production was somewhere between travelling broadway show and community theatre. A lot of money was spent on set design and costumes, and the singers were incredible! But like you would expect with local talent, the actors’ ages didn’t quite match their characters’ ages. (Skip this paragraph if you don’t want a review of the show). Despite the incredible pipes on Effie and the other characters, I left the show feeling disappointed. I hadn’t seen the entire movie, but I thought the musical might hold my attention better. Unlike Jersey Boys where every song is memorable, has a distinct sound, a purpose and an end, the songs in Dreamgirls were just musical scripts. One song bled into the next without any closure or transition. Most songs sounded the same but I think they were supposed to be different songs. It had the feeling of an opera in parts where one person sung their line and the next responded with a different long song. Additionally, though the plot was generally about how a few people made it big in music and was loosely based on Diana Ross and the Supremes, the character development was terrible. There was no hero or villain. You disliked a character at one points and rooted for the same character a few acts later. The same was true with multiple characters. It may have been a social commentary about life, how there really never is a villain or hero, but that’s not why I go to musicals. I want to root for the one good, kind person who’s just trying to make it in this big bad world, and I do want to hate the big meanie who’s trying to stop them.

Also, of the few hundred people in the audience, there were less than 5 black people. I found this interesting because one of the themes of the show was to break down the racial barriers and bring the black performers in front of a mainstream, white audience. This was achieved, though I had hoped that 50 years later, the segregation would be less obvious. I realize Vancouver’s multi-ethnic vibe has more to do with the Asian/First Nations/Indian influence, but you would think for opening night of an all-black show would produce more diversity. I don’t really have a point with this paragraph, other than I found it curious and unsettling.

The next day was full of walking and sight-seeing. We stored our bags in the luggage area, had a complimentary fresh muffin from the bakery, and went straight to my retro-goth store. We had a blast trying on 50’s and 60’s inspired dresses, and I had to leave with two. I have no idea where I will wear these, but I have been waiting decades to find them. (No I’m not being dramatic – I really have been looking for decades!!) We touristed Gastown, saw the steam clock, Chinatown, the BC Stadium sports thing (for Jenn), and had a long walk to Granville Island. Jenn hadn’t been in a public market like Granville Island before, so we had a lot of fun walking by all the booths with amazing fresh fruit, pretty art, meat and fish stations, and rows and rows of sweets. Jenn settled on a nice Carrot cake cupcake for lunch and I devoured a plate of sushi. Shocking, I know. I need to leave Vancouver before my mercury levels skyrocket!

While on our walk, we happened by a park and took a few minutes to swing. I’m not talking about dancing or anything dirty, just good old-fashioned swinging on swings. They were definitely intended for adults as I’ve never seen such tall swings before. The chains were at least 12 feet long, so it took a lot of ‘pumping’ and effort to get to where you could see over the pole. It was nice to be on vacation with someone as random and silly as myself, to take 30 minutes to swing and take goofy pictures while doing so.

A bus took us downtown to do a bit of shopping in nice mall with a two-story H&M. You would have thought the store was closing for how frantic everyone was inside.  The dressing room had a 15-minute wait! I left with a cute, more wearable, summery dress (than the retro ones) and a few flowers for my new hat.

I realized while touring around Vancouver what a commitment it was to buy the hat in Victoria. The hat is too expensive to roll up and leave in my bag (plus it would break it as it’s straw), but it felt funny wearing it while shopping. The hat has a nice shaped brim, and is made by a Canadian hat designer who distributes to very few places. I have one other hat by this designer and just love how it feels when I wear it: like I’ve been transported to a different era when people dressed leave the house.

We found a Mexican food restaurant for dinner – the only thing that would tear me away from sushi, and I was pleasantly surprised. The Tex-Mex I grew up on in San Antonio has spoiled me for Mexican food anywhere else. The Bowling for Soup song ‘Ohio – come back to Texas’ has an awesome line I have always identified with: ‘The Mexican food sucks north of here anyway’. I belt this line with such vigor when the song comes on! Anyway, this restaurant was authentic! I greatly enjoyed homemade flour tortillas and ate literally 3 times as many fajitas as Jenn did, haha. Life was good.

We went back to the hostel, retrieved our bags, and boarded the skytrain (subway – transportation mode 4!). We arrived at the train station an hour early, sat in our first class seats, and though we were excited for the next 24 hours, we were mostly exhausted from walking miles in the beautiful warm sun. We turned in much too early on lovely soft beds with fluffy pillows, but justified it because the sun was down. We will leave the excitement of the train (transportation mode 5) until tomorrow, when we will be rested enough to enjoy it!

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