Stanley Park - Friday, August 28 (~noon)

In a word, beautiful. If I had a second word, fun. Sara and I spent the afternoon cycling around the perimeter of Stanley Park with our friend Kim Ong and two of her friends James and Maria (the three of them are in the same lab at University of Alberta and were visiting Vancouver for the weekend).

Sara and I caught up with the three of them around noon on Friday just outside Stanley Park. In search of bike rentals, we saw a large shop just across the street. Kim suggested we look for a smaller shop to support, James agreed, and I added that we should get organic bikes (Vancouverites are obsessed with supporting small local businesses and buying organic). The small shop we found didn’t have organic bikes, but they had the next best thing – tandem bicycles! Sara and I took a tandem, and so did Kim and James. Maria seemed very happy to have her own bike.

The five of us rode into Stanley Park, a large protected park adjacent to downtown Vancouver. While Kim and Sara took a bathroom break, I charted our route with the help of an info booth lady. The five of us set out on the 9 km bike trail that encircles the park. One side of the trail is the forest and the other is the water. It is beautiful!

We made several stops along the trail. First, we stopped and took some time interpreting totem poles (they were replicas). Kim quizzed the group on what animal the various carvings represented (collectively, we did terrible).

We continued biking and passed some cool statues, including “Girl in a Wet Suit” which is a statue surrounded by water, several metres from shore. After stopping to eat some subpar park food (Maria’s cheese burger was drowned in cheese whiz), we rode past a whole army of inuksuk lining the rocky shore. We decided to try our own hands at inuksuk-building. Turns out it’s pretty challenging to get the rocks to balance. Sara and I made a pretty good one.

Our last stop was the Tea House. I don’t know what I was expecting (maybe an ancient Japanese hut lying just above the clouds), but the “Tea House @ Sequoia Grill” fell short. They didn’t even have tea on the menu ! Nonetheless, it was a nice break to sit on the patio and talk before we completed the last leg of the trail.

We returned the bikes. Sara and my tandem bike cost $26 for the 3 – 4 hours we rented it. We parted ways with James, Maria, and Kim and headed home to do some more unpacking. Overall, a great adventure in Stanley Park! I can’t wait to go back and explore the interior of the park and see the aquarium.

-Rob