Exploring Vancouver

If you’re waiting for a post about this year’s FOSDEM, I’ll have to disappoint you. Due to a company event in Vancouver, which had been scheduled in the week before FOSDEM, I opted to stay a bit longer in Canada and not to sleep through Brussels due to being jet-lagged.

Including a stop in Frankfurt it took my partner and me about 15 hours to get from Graz to Vancouver. The flight itself was good (although the captain for the flight to Vancouver was a bit late 😂) and we then went straight to Waterfront Station, the public transport fanatics that we are, using the Canada Line and then walking the rest of the way to the Westin Bayshore hotel.

Compared to what we had in Graz, the weather on that day and the first four days in general was amazing! We used that well and explored the city on foot and by bus, trying small coffee shops like Timbertrain Coffee Roasters and drinking hot chocolate at Kafka’s Café.

Capilano Suspension Bridge park

Public transport allowed us to also get to sights outside of the city center like the amazing Capilano Suspension Bridge Park. While the suspension bridge itself was huge and just pure joy to walk across with a great view down into a river valley, the highlight was the park north of the bridge. Remember the Ewok village in Star Wars 6? It felt exactly like that plus magical. In a height of around 10-15 meters there were walkways built between the trees and LEDs everywhere to give the whole setup a “magic forest” feeling. It was stunning!

Also: Best gift shop ever! I could have bought half of what they had. Heck, even the restaurant looked great!

For foodies!

That’s something we learnt pretty quickly: You can eat very well in Vancouver and there is a lot of pride flying around for that. Rightly so! Awesome seafood everywhere and thanks to Asian immigration throughout the centuries high quality Japanese meals (we didn’t try Korean nor Chinese restaurants due to time restraints):

• Cardero’s: Fish restaurant built on stilts in the Coal Harbour next to the hotel with a cozy atmosphere. This was my personal favorite restaurant during the trip.
• The Sequel: Fine dining with great cocktails. I felt slightly underdressed with my raincoat and hoodie 😉
• Tom Sushi: After hearing that Vancouver was known for great sushi, we had to try, and we definitely weren’t disappointed at Tom Sushi 🙂
• Hello Nori: Never had a Japanese hand roll before and it was great!
• Tap & Barrel Bridges: Sports bar with a nice selection of beers and decent food. Unless you really enjoy sports bars, though, there are places with higher quality for the money.
• Stanley Park Brewing Restaurant: Brew pub with good beer, nice atmosphere, and decent pub grub. You come for the beer, though.
• and more but these were the major ones.

Most of these we also tried using the “Dine Out Vancouver Festival” which took place from Jan 21 to Feb 6. Participating restaurants offered a 3 course menu for CAD 45 - 80 depending on the restaurant. Most of the dishes you could also find on the normal menu and so this was great advertising for the restaurants.

Museums and culture

While we had great weather during the first four days the rest of the trip was rainy all the way through. Perfect for visiting some museums!

First we went to the Museum of Vancouver. There we saw three exhibitions: It all started with one about Long-COVID victims, showing their daily routines and how they are coping with the limited support that is available through the health system. The main attraction was the overview of the cities history, though, with a big focus being on immigrants from Asia and how they were treated. Part of that was also a summary of “The Suitcase Project” where people were tasked to pack for the situation that they’d have to leave their home on short notice.

On another day we went all the way down to the campus of the University of British Columbia to visit the Museum of Anthropology. Here we learnt a lot about the indigenous people and culture (combined with another exhibit at the Museum of Vancouver). The museum houses tons and tons of sculptures, totem poles, and clothes, all beautiful halls.

We were a couple of hours there and only scratched on the surface. I’m pretty sure, that when I eventually return to Vancouver, I’ll visit both museums again!

Stanley Park and the Aquarium

What made the whole trip even more special was that our hotel was situated pretty much next to the Stanley Park. The 4km² area offers not only your usual “park” but also lakes, natural forests, the Vancouver Aquarium, and “Seawall” which offers a walkway + bike lane around the whole park. We went there right on the second day, when the weather was still good. Imagine my surprise finding a sand beach so close to the heart of a city with benches to enjoy the ocean breeze in the hot sun!

On the last day of our stay, we returned to the park and spent a couple of hours at the Vancouver Aquarium. Lots of volunteers were around to show folks the hidden gems. Like the octopus that decided to hide 😂 We could also touch some jellyfish in a lab-like room which felt strange. The last time I had skin contact with one, I had gotten stung. Luckily, that wasn’t the case here 😉 Next to the jellyfish was a room with three axolotls; two of them I actually found but some of the younger visitors probably had more success on that front.

Of course, there were also otters and sea lions outside, so we kept them for last.

This was also our last chance to get a special from one of the participants of the Hot Chocolate Festival. OK, the hot chocolate wasn’t all that special, but the cups definitely were!

To summarize

I could write a lot more about this trip but this post is already long enough 😂 We spent 13 days in Vancouver and just had a great time! Of course, there was also some things that didn’t work too well like TransLink not accepting non-Canadian credit cards online or us having to resort to Burger King once with the expected stomach problems afterwards.

It’s now nearly two weeks now that we’re back in Graz, though, and I miss getting woken up by geese fighting seagulls. This will definitely not have been my last time in Vancouver. Hopefully next time with a proper bike, though!