The SkyTrain emerges from a short tunnel right at the base of our apartment building. We use the system when heading downtown because it's easier and cheaper than driving. On Canada Day, we most always use it to head to the Vancouver Waterfront to partake in the festivities at Canada Place. It takes 28 minutes to go from New Westminster to the beginning of the line.
Today, we transferred directly to a Seabus that crosses the inlet and docks in North Vancouver. We hardly ever need to use it but we find Canada Day an excellent excuse to see what's going on there. It is a 15-minute journey.
Here we're looking back at downtown. We then walked to the place called, The Shipyards. It is a gentrified, formerly-industrial area that's now public land. In order to make it back to meet friends at Canada Place, we took the return Seabus. We were under the 90-minute transit validity, so we didn't have to pay anything extra for our across-the-water travels.
We met up with our friends who live downtown. We stopped at Jack Poole Plaza and saw a few dancers showing an aboriginal dance from a part of the Philippines. We continued along Denman Street.
Eventually, we stopped at Olympia restaurant on Davie for some lunch. Jay had souvlaki and I got a 10-inch chicken barbeque pizza. And yes, it had pineapple. Pineapple is a perfectly fine choice as a pizza topping! I bought a pitcher of beer to share with Tim.
The Richmond guys called and joined up with us when we were still at the restaurant. After another beer together, we walked to Stanley Park. I didn't know we'd end up on the far side, but our destination was always just ... a little further. The evenings are light until quite late. So when we got home after a bus and the SkyTrain it was still very sunny at 7:30 pm. My watch showed that Jay and I have walked 15.85 kilometers today.
The weather was great but that's usually the case by the beginning of July. Jay and I will always stick around and call this home during the summertime. It's an awesome location in the best sense of the word.
Today was nice and one Canada Day that we will probably always remember.