Day 2: Granville Island & False Creek
September 10, 2012
After some much needed sleep (see: yesterday), the jet-lag had us up before 7am. We didn’t fight it, but got up and headed for Granville Island. We took the Seabus from Burrard Bridge and arrived a little early (the shops were still closed), so we had a bagel and a coffee and watched the marina. At about 10am, the pace on Granville Island picked up considerably, as did the weather. We took a lot of time browsing through all the small crafts and art boutiques, and of course the large food market. Granville Island is unique, in that it does not only have it’s usual amount of restaurants and bakeries, but also lots of small factory shops, where the owner is crafting in the back and selling in the front. Examples of this were the broom shop, a hat shop, a brewery, lots of woodworking shops and photography studios. On top of that, the Emily Carr University has its campus on Granville Island, and you can sneak a peek into the lab rooms where students are busy prototyping all kinds of design household goods. It’s really hard to compare it with any other place I’ve been that prides itself with being and “artisan quarter”.
After strolling around the island, we set course along the southern shore of False Creek, heading for Science World. On the way, we saw small parks, very pretty apartment complexes and finally the Olympic Village of the 2010 Olympic winter games. Science World was closed, but we weren’t planning on going there anyway. Instead we headed downtown again, passing through Yaletown, past the Vancouver Public Library and onto Hastings. Our plan was to head east into Chinatown, but we were two blocks off, and soon got discouraged by the … colorful people we encountered on the street. So we took the safe way back, through Gastown with a small stop near Canada Place. We ended up taking the scenic route along the marina, but that gave us the opportunity to look at everything in perfect sunlight where yesterday it had been mostly foggy.
The plan for tonight is to have dinner within a 100m radius of our hotel, which includes at least three Japanese restaurants. Tomorrow we’ll pick up our car, load it up with groceries and head for the hills, literally.
