More about how I love Canada

We took a very long walk all around the city and then ended up in Stanley Park. We'd heard a lot about the park and it really did live up to expectations. It was like a little magical forest where you can't see or hear the city anymore. Just gorgeous. Totem poles and trees and lakes and paths and flowers and everything you'd want in the middle of March. Except coffee.
Here are Nikki and I walking down one of the paths through the cedar trees.

This is a whale (me thinks) outside of the aquarium in the park. It was raining so I think he was happy to be wet. I've never known a whale that likes dry weather.

These are the people who live in the aquarium. I mean the seals that live in the aquarium. Seals are people too...


They're sugar seals and they kept swimming back and forth on their backs. They looked like they were having a good time. This view is from a path in the park that leads to a glass wall where you can see the seals and the beluga whales without going into the aquarium itself which was a little expensive. There were otters inside which was definitely a temptation (I heart otters), but we had sushi to get to. Also pizza and brownies. And then Canadian beer.


This is the view back to the city from the park. Wow, huh? The tide was out so you can see a lot of the shoreline. The walk back around to the convention center was very long, it would have been really tempting in hot weather to swim across instead. Then again, this is a shipping channel so that would be gross. And dangerous. Ok, bad idea.

So we walked back the normal (read: long) way and warmed up in the hotel's hot tub. The hot tub was outside (!) and on the eighth floor. Such a weird experience, being outside in the freezing cold, and wearing nothing but a bathing suit. Very fun.
Then, we walked down to Chinatown in search of dinner. If you go to Vancouver, I highly recommend not walking to Chinatown at night. Or maybe ever. We ended up having sushi in Gastown instead. Gastown was really fun and we hung out there a lot.
Ok, back to work. One last Canada installment tomorrow...