Last Days in the Van

I exited Vancouver yesterday via Amtrak. I had to walk down to the train station, past Chinatown, at about 5:45 AM. The sky was pink and grey, slightly dusting light over the many crackheads and shaded streets and block buildings. I liked this side of Vancouver, it was quite interesting. Getting through customs is of course not my favorite activity at the crack of dawn, but the Cascade line train was magically much nicer than the ones I’ve taken before. I am now in Seattle, taking in new things but reflecting on my past few days.

I decided that Vancouver is a city of amazing parks and useful integration of the nature into the city. It’s crazy that there can be so many immense skyscrapers and gridded activity with humans passing all around by so many of the urbanized nature sites with clear waters and tall pine trees.

I went through Stanley Park a couple times. The first time in, I of course did the normal activity to check out the Totem Poles. I also came across a number of tourists speaking a multitude of different languages, leaning over a dock. I looked down, and they were all observing a pack of raccoons digging their little claws into the sand to find clams, and devouring them like bandits. I learned at this situation that the word for “raccoon” is the same in many different languages, but I’m not exactly sure which ones they were. Of course the views of the Lion’s Gate Bridge, and the people that were staring at it, were quite amazing in their own way.

There is water all over the city, and many different points to check out the mellow waves, bridges and boats. The urban beaches are also top-notch. It is one thing to read simplified reviews of these beaches on tour guide websites, and another to actually breathe the Canadian salt air and feel the sludgy mud on your feet.

I checked out Jericho Beach one of the days, and was amazed at how such a big city could still encompass such a beach.

The view to the front was of green mountains with rolling peaks surrounded by white clouds, the view to the right was the city scape of Vancouver’s skyscapers and Stanley Park, and the view to the left which eventually drifted further off into the Pacific Ocean.

The water was quite shallow, so the immediate part of the water-beach break was infested by sand boarders sliding along the wet earth. The water had lots of huge and tiny boats, carrying people or cargo or both. I managed to get a sunburn at an unusual time of the day, but I was more focused on the picturesque combination of these factors. They held my interest of enhanced human access to cities and to nature in such proximity.