The Sweet and the Bitter side of the Vancouver weekend

I am finally getting around to posting about the wonderful weekend that we experienced up in Vancouver on the 1st and 2nd. It snowed the whole time we were there and the city was blanketed in a layer of soft snow. We rode the miniature train in Stanley Park through the lit displays, wandered the parks beaches, marveled at their incredible collection of totem poles, spent an evening on Granville Street taking in the old theatre and hotel neon, wandered Chinatown and the famous Classical Chinese Garden there, and saw some great landmark neon signs on Hastings Street. (Photos below: Third Beach, Brockton Point Lighthouse, Inukshuk on English Bay Beach)


I was struck at how international the city was. Like Seattle there is a large Asian population, but in Vancouver there are small pockets of town with Greek or Indian markets and restaurants serving food from seemingly every region of the world. (Photos below: Entrance gate in Chinatown, Totem Poles in Stanley Park)


On the down side, the poverty in parts of the city was astounding. Drug use and prostitution happened right out in the open, rather than down dark alleys as is usually the case in Seattle. Garbage littered the streets, and matresses were lined up against the walls with people huddled there to keep warm. Panhandling was aggressive and unnerving and my heart went out to the people stuck out there in the cold. (Photos below: Ovaltine Cafe, Save on Meats butcher shop, Hotel Balmoral - all on Hastings Street)


My biggest disappointment was that the huge, ornate dragon sign that I was so excited to waymark was gone. Several other signs were missing also. Vancouver at one time had one neon sign for every 19 people in the city, and many of those were spectacular. Only a handful of the extraordinary signs remain. (Photos below: Cambie Plumbing and Heating on Fraser, Only Seafoods Cafe on Hastings, Yale Hotel Jazz Club on Granville)


I was able to find waymarks for most of the Canadian specific categories, several National historic sites and British Columbia historic plaques, Canada Post, Tim Horton's, Curling Clubs (okay, not Canada specific but just about). I also found waymarks or visited waymarks in some difficult to find categories like gender separated entrances, Guinness World Records, and inukshuks. We didn't find any Canadian benchmarks, thanks to that beautiful blanket of snow, but we can always visit again. I've been wanting to take a trip to Victoria anyhow.