VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA

Early morning on June 21, we disembarked from our Alaskan cruise ship in Vancouver, British Columbia, but we spent a day there before flying home the following morning.  After visiting only small Alaskan towns over the prior 10 days, Vancouver seemed the height of cosmopolitanism, and it clearly is an attractive, sophisticated city.  I was surprised to learn that, at 600,000, it is only the 8th largest city in Canada, though it has the 3rd largest metropolitan area, at about 2.5 million.  The one day we had in the city was gorgeous--sunny and warm--quite a change from the four days of rain we had experienced prior to that.  And I'm sure the weather influenced our overall view of the city.

The city does have a fairly impressive skyline, though a large proportion of the taller buildings appeared to be devoted to urban housing rather than to commercial offices.

We didn't have a car while we were in Vancouver, so we did a lot of walking from our centrally located hotel, over 9 miles by Geri's count.  We focused on two areas, a shopping district known as Granville Island, and the city's large and beautiful Stanley Park.  Although I took a large number of photos, a lot of them were indifferent and I have kept only a few that somehow caught my fancy.  So this is more a little potpourri than any attempt to capture the spirit of the city.  So here goes.

First was a row of cement trucks on Granville Island.  I thought the last in line had been painted to resemble a watermelon, but when I looked at the shot on my computer, it was obvious that it was stalks of asparagus.

The following piece of wood carving art in a gallery window also caught my eye.

This was really a very nice piece as the grain of the wood served to accentuate the work's three-dimensionality.  Unfortunately, I had to shoot the piece through the window glass and simply couldn't avoid the reflections that appear on the right side of the image.

We also visited a broom store (and wound up buying a little broom as a souvenir).  I asked the artisan at the store if it would be OK to take pictures and she said that people did it all the time.

I liked the following shot of these boys playing chess in one of the city's many park areas.

I have been concerned that, with the advent of computer chess, the game is becoming something of a lost pastime, but these kids seemed to know what they were doing.   I especially liked their concentration on the game.

John