Wednesday, October 8, 2008

Seattle – Vancouver Day 7

So today I’m travelling to Vancouver. I start the day as usual across the road from the hotel with breakfast and once again most enjoyable.

After packing up and checking out I headed up to the Best Western on 6th and Denny to catch the Quick Coach to Vancouver. While waiting for the bus I took the opportunity to take one last picture of the most famous Seattle landmark.

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I hopped on the bus and headed to Canada.

There wasn’t a lot of scenery to take in since we were travelling along a mjor highway but it was still nice to be able to watch the world pass by out the window.

Our next stop was at the Canadian border where we need to clear customers and immigration. Prior to leaving I had read an article that the Canadian immigration officials were pretty abrasive.  The experience was very much like what entering the U.S. used to be. Now being an immigration officer is not an easy job and you would see lots and lots people who would give you lots and lots of stories about whey they wanted to enter your country. You have to decide which are legitimate. The only unexpected question I faced was to show my plane ticket out of Canada. That done, I reboarded the bus to continue my journey.

In a few more hours we were approaching downtown Vancouver. The outlying suburbs are very green and leafy and reminded me of Canberra. Soon we were in downtown Vancouver and I was on the streets searching for my hotel. I knew it was a few blocks away and luckily just as I was becoming worried that I had missed it I had arrived.

After checking in I headed up to my room and was pleasantly surprised.

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At the entrance is a lounge room, then a full kitchen, stove and microwave. Beyond this is the bedroom overlooking the street. I was very impressed I must admit. I must remember to thank the travel agent upon my return home because it is certainly a step up for what I was staying in at Seattle!

I powered up my laptop to see if I could connect to the Internet. While the laptop was booting I turned on the TV to see what was on. Seems everywhere I go Seinfeld, Fraiser or Cheers is on. Guess what? Seinfeld was on again. I had no luck with getting connected to the Internet since it looked like I needed to pay but I didn’t know how much. I packed up the laptop and headed out. I asked at the front desk and found out that I could get wireless internet access for 7 days for only $25. Something to take of upon my return.

My next task was to change my U.S. money to Canadian dollars. Interestingly, they call their dollar the ‘loonie’! I walked back up Robson towards the main centre of town and after a while I found somewhere I could change the cash I was carrying around. I headed back down Robson again and dropped into a cafe for something to eat since I hadn’t had any lunch. During my meal I was able to practice my poor French with the waiter.

I headed north towards the waterfront with the idea of doing a big loop and returning to my hotel. Along the way I went to the top of the Vancouver Lookout (www.vancouverlookout.com) to get a better idea of what the city looks like.

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From there I headed back around to my hotel, where I signed up to wifi for 7 days so I can post this and send emails.

My plans for tomorrow are to jump on the Big Bus (www.bigbus.ca) and take a full city tour of the city and determine what else is really worth seeing.