Vancouver – Day 8

So I started day 2 in Vancouver with breakfast at a cafe right next to the hotel in which I’m staying. From there I walked across the road to catch the Big Bus tour which is a ‘hop-on, hop-off’ style tourist bus. I generally find these are the best way to get a good overview of the city before hitting the street seriously. In this way you get to see all the major attraction and then decide what you want to see. The other good thing is that the ticket is good for two days so it is also good value.

I hopped on the bus only a few hundred metres from my hotel at Library Square. From there the bus headed through the east of the city, travelling through Chinatown and then into Gastown. It then wound its way across town and over the Burrard Bridge to Granville Island. Along the way we passed the local Lamborghini dealer, ooooh aaahhh. I’ll have to get off next time and have a closer look. Another general observation about Vancouver, there seems to be an above average amount of imported upmarket European cars. Today I’ve seen Ashton Martin’s, Bentley, Mercedes, the latest Jaguar and more. The economy up here must be ok.

After Granville Island we headed to the west end of the city to Stanley Park. This is a huge reserve that consumes the total end of the peninsula that Vancouver sits on. I jumped off here and decided to take the seawalk around the perimeter of the park around to a pick up point on the other side.

As you can see from the photos, the scenery is very pretty as you walk around the waterfront.

As you reach the northern extremity of the park you encounter the Lion’s Gate Bridge.

It amazing at how green everything is. I know that it does rain a lot up here but I don’t think I’ve see somewhere that is a green as it is here. That is another big difference between here and other North American cities I have visited, even the city streets are filled with trees.

Around the eastern side of the park is an interesting display of totem poles.

I continued my walk around the perimeter of the park.

I eventually came upon this light house. Interestingly, a light house has stood here for many years and for many years it was manned by Davey Jones who won a bravery award for rescuing people from the waters. I wondered whether this is were the term ‘Davey Jone’s locker’ came from?

I was now rounding the corner of the point and heading back towards the city.

A little further around is a famous Vancouver landmark known as the nine o’clock gun. Why? Well every day at 9pm it is fired.

There are plenty of alarms and flashing lights to warn bystanders about any pending firing. I must admit that I have not heard it fire since I’ve been here.

I headed towards the interior of the park to catch the Big Bus back to city. I wandered around what I thought was the pick up spot for about 20 minutes but couldn’t see any sign. I took up watch next to what I thought was the most logical place for a pick up. About 10 minutes into my wait a local came up to me and told me that I was waiting in the wrong place. He then kindly showed where the stop was just around the corner. This really reinforces my experience with most people here, they are very friendly, considerate and helpful.

I jumped aboard the next bus and decided that I would get off at Gastown and do some exploring here as the end of the day was approaching.

Above you’ll see what is known as the ‘steam clock’ and yup you guessed it, it runs on steam from the pipe below. It is probably the centre of what is the 'old’ part of the city.

There are plenty of tourists here as well as plenty of shops catering to the tourist trade. I must admit that I am struck by how much ‘shopping’ is here in Vancouver. You sort of get the impression that the city has ‘remodelled’ itself to encourage American to head north and spend. So apart from the ‘shopping’ there isn’t a whole lot to commend the city to a tourist who maybe looking for the sites in places like London, Paris or New York however I still am happy that I came. I also get the impression that there are probably some of these types of sites just outside the city. No time on this trip maybe next time.

After wandering around Gastown for a while I headed back to my hotel for something to eat. I must admit I am pretty tired after walking all that way today so I expect to sleep pretty well tonight.

Here’s a photo of Library Square just across the road from where I’m saying. A really nice piece of architecture.

My aim tomorrow is to jump back on the Big Bus and head over to Granville Island and get a feel for what that part of the city has to offer.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Seattle – Day 4

Well today was the first day of the SMBNation conference. It all started early with breakfast on the pier. During this time I was able to meet with a few other “techie’s” like me. From there we moved into the conference center for a full day of seminars.

I must admit that I wasn’t overly impressed with the content of what was on offer. It was definitely interesting but I wouldn’t say earth shattering. I also found that there was too much time between each session. Clearly, this was designed to allow the vendors in the exhibit hall maximum exposure to the attendees.

At the end of the day I headed out with a few other attendees to have something to eat at a local restaurant called the ‘Old Spaghetti Factor’ . We finished up at about 10pm but the others wanted to ‘party on’, however I’m starting the feel the effects of the day so I head home and hit the sack immediately because tomorrow is again an early start.

Here’s the room that I’ll be presenting in tomorrow.

Seattle – Day 3

Well I woke up again pretty early (5am today) but unfortunately the hotel wifi wasn’t any better at that time either. I couldn’t be bother so I went back to sleep.

 

So out the door again just after 9am. Across the road to have breakfast again. It was starting to drizzle so I thought that an extra cup of morning coffee would be in order.

 

From here I wandered up towards the Space Needle to see where the bus departs from that I plan to catch to Vancouver on Tuesday. The bus leaves from the Best Western Executive Inn which is on 6th and Denny (only a few blocks away). As luck would have it I arrived just as the bus was pulling in, so now I know.

 

My next planned port of call for the day was to be to register for my conference at the Marriot Waterfall. I couldn’t do this until about 12 noon, so with a few hours on my hands to kill I headed just a few block north from the Best Western to the Seattle Centre.

The Seattle Centre is home to the Space Needle, which can can ride to the top of but I decided to give that a miss.

Instead I went to the Pacific Science Center. I can’t say that it is spectacular but there are some interesting exhibits.

Tucked away in a corner is this tree that been alive since about 1300AD before it was cut down in 1962. Each ring is basically a year in history. It gives some perspective to what we call history.

After this I still had some time to kill so I walked around the rest of the Seattle Centre.

I was now raining pretty steadily and I headed down the hill to the Waterfront Marriot to register.

The Marriot is just across the road from where the conference will at the Bell Street Pier and Conference Centre.

After registering my next stop was for the Boeing factory tour. I reached the pick up location with plenty of time to spare so I had a quick bite to eat and tested out my ANZ Travel Visa card in a local ATM. Amazingly, the money came out of the slot so I know that it works (well at least here in the US!).

Unfortunately, because there is a labour (or in US spelling labor) strike at the Boeing plant we would not be able to gain access to the assembly plant, however the tour would go ahead with some substitutions.

Six of us boarded the bus and when asked where we all came from everybody was from Australia! Man, you just can’t get away from these Aussies can you?

So the first tour substitution is the Future of Flight museum adjacent to the assembly plants you can see above. The actual plane assembly buildings (largest building in the world) are on the left and the buildings for painting the aircraft are on the right.

Here’s a shot from inside the museum. It is basically an overview of how the Boeing commercial planes are put together. Not exactly riveting stuff but still interesting.

You can go upstairs to an observation deck where again you can see the assembly plants as well as the planes that have been painted and waiting on final testing.

You get to watch a short video about Boeing and then jump on a buss that takes you on a tour of the field but also goes to the restoration centre.

In here are about a dozen or so full restored and in many cases still flying World War II vintage planes. They have all been bought by Paul Allen who co-founded Microsoft and brought to Seattle.

On a regular basis, weather permitting, they have ‘fly days’ where some of the planes are rolled out and take for a fly, so basically everything you see here is in fully working order.

We also managed to snag a volunteer guide who took us around al the exhibits and gave us detailed insight into each item present.

Here you have a Spitfire,

and Messerschmitt BF109E,

Fieseler Fi 156-C2 Storch,

Hawker Hurricane,

and a Messerschmitt 163B Comet.

All in all I though this was the highlight of the tour and luckily I have been to the Boeing factory before so I was happy that I received my money’s worth.

The ride back to Seattle was slow due to heavy traffic, it being a rainy Friday and all.

Once back in town I headed back down to the Convention Centre to attend a talk about IT security which was interesting. When that was complete I headed back to my hotel, through quite steady rain now, grabbing a quick bite to eat at Subway.

So tomorrow is the first day of the conference and I need to get up early to be down there by seven. I’m going to be real interested in what this conference is really like. Time, and hopefully my update tomorrow will tell.

Seattle - Day 2

Having arrived yesterday without much drama today was to be my first full day in Seattle. The day started extremely early. Still suffering some of the effects jetlag I was up at about 3.30am. That was ok since the hotel’s wireless is pretty much useless during night hours. I gotta assume it is everyone else connecting up. So since I was up I thought I get some emailing out of the way.

After composing a few emails I managed to get back to sleep until about 8.30am. After getting ready for the day I went across the road to a cafe to grab some breakfast. I was still feeling some of the effect of jetlag and need to stock up on some energy for the day so bacon, eggs and black coffee were all one menu.

Having gotten sustenance out of the way I headed off for my first port of call today, the Museum of Flight. Visiting the museum would mean taking a bus since it is out of the centre of town back towards Seatac airport. I had check the night before with the hotel staff and knew that my starting point was going to be under the Nordstrom building on 5th and Pine.

The weather was a little chilly and overcast as I set off down 5th Avenue. I located the ‘bus tunnel’ down two flights of stairs and steeled myself for a trip on public transport. While waiting for the bus I thought that you really need to take your hats off to the yanks, here’s a bus interchange that runs underneath the city.

The bus I needed to takes was the 174. As it pulled up I was a bit anxious about paying the fare which I knew would be $1.50 but had watched other get on previous buses and simply march straight past the driver. As the I entered I asked the driver whether I had to pay now for my trip to the museum and he told me that I simply pay when I get off. Cool. So I’m on my way.

The 174 winds its ways through a tunnel for a few more stops and then emerges onto the streets. In about 20 minutes, after paying my fare, I’m standing on the road across from the museum. As I walk across the set of lights to the entrance I notice that the Boeing workers are picketing the plant on the other side of the road to the museum. This doesn’t bode well for tomorrow when I’m planning to head off to the Boeing factory tour. Damm.

I’m able to walk straight up to the counter, pay my $14 admission fee and enter the museum.

So as you can see from the above the first place you see is the T.A. Wilson great Gallery. The most imposing feature is the SR-71 Blackbird in the middle.

Hanging from the roof you’ll also find the Lockeed F-104C Starfighter

and a Douglas DC-3.

On the ground is a Goodyear F2G-1 Corsair, which interestingly today, I found out why it has distinctive gull wings. It is because the length of the propeller blades is so long that if the wings were straight the blades would touch the ground.

In the pit below the outside walkway you will find a McDondell Douglas F-4 Phantom.

They also have a real life SR-71 Blackbird cockpit which you can climb into. I will tell you that there is probably less space in here than on most economy flights although the SR-71 does travel quick a bit quicker (Mach 3+) so you’d certainly get there quicker.

My nest stop was the William E. Boeing Red Barn. This exhibit is all about the history of the Boeing company.

It provides the history from it’s origins making wooden aircraft up till today.

Next stop the J. Elroy McCaw Personal Courage Wing World War II Gallery.

Here you’ll find the history of aviation in World War II, including the Battle of Britian, with Spitfires and Messerschmitts all the way through the Pacific and Soviet campaigns.

Moving upstairs you find the Personal Courage Wing World War I Gallery.

From here I ventured across the road to the airpark. Here there are number of larger aircraft.

One of these is Boeing VC-137B “Air Force One”.

Another is the Concorde

and the first ever 747 ever flown (See the number 1 at the top there?).

I returned to the museum, had a look in the gift shop and then headed back to the bus stop for my return trip to Seattle.

On the way I snapped another picture of an F-14 Tomcat.

This time on the bus I had to pay before I got on, which is simply a matter to insert the money into a note and coin machine near the driver who kindly give you a ticket in exchange. I did notice that most people seemed to have some sort of swipe card they used as they entered, pretty smart.

In a short time I was back at my starting destination. Truth be told I probably should have gotten off earlier since I was now heading for the Underground Tour which down on Pioneer Square on 1st and James.

The Underground Tour seems to run pretty much on the hour and by the time I had talked from 5th and Pike to Pioneer Square I had just missed the 4pm tour. No great loss, I bought a ticket for the 5pm tour and headed off for a walk around the area.

With some more time to kill I decided that I need to complete something else on my ‘to-do’ list here, have coffee at Starbucks. Strangely, there experience was almost identical to everywhere else in the world I’ve ever had Starbucks.

It is interesting to learn that the area around Pioneer Square has actually been raised by 1 level to overcome its proximity to the water table. The Underground tour takes you through may of these “forgotten” original street levels.

This used to be a hardware store.

It’s dark and dingy, just as the rats like it (although I didn’t see any).

You’ll find amoungst other things, an old bank vault.

The tour ends with you back at Pioneer Square.

I found the tour very interesting and guide excellent. It is a real insight into the history of the city and well worth your time if you are in that area of town. The tour takes between 60-90 minutes and costs $15.

So, with that I headed back to my hotel, grabbing soem dinner on the way. Tomorrow morning I hope to go and pre-register for my conference and then head of to on my Boeing factory tour, which may or may not be altered due to the strike. I certainly hope not.