WBH part 8 - Vancouver

After a great time in Seattle I went to Victoria and Vancouver. The Victoria pictures were all on my camera - and it had a total meltdown. So no pictures of Victoria.

But here are a few thoughts about Victoria:

• Easy to get to from Seattle - the Victoria Clipper is super easy. And it drops you right in the Inner Harbor, so super convenient.
• Cute little town. I know it's the capital of British Columbia, but there's not too much there. A cute little historic town center with lots of shops for tourists and then I think it turns into suburbs.
• There's a Chinatown, and it's about 1 block long with a few shops outside that block. But there were some great restaurants there - I ate at two different noodle shops and both were great.
• Spent Canada Day in Victoria sitting at the harbor watching the fireworks. That was pretty cool.
• Walked out to the Straits and looked at Doug's house and the Olympic Mountains. Very beautiful.

Then, after a few days, I went to Vancouver.

I have a new favorite North American city! Vancouver reminds me of everything I love about San Francisco and Hong Kong. Meaning:

• Great walking city - I spent 5 days walking all over the place and barely even scratched the surface.
• Excellent Chinatown - blocks and block of good little stores. Not quite as amazing as the one we have here in San Francisco, but good enough to find great duck, pork buns, noodles, dim sum and other great things.
• I found the Pacific Cinematheque - saw a great Kurosawa film I hadn't seen before.
• There's a fantastic park (Stanley Park) that's almost as big as downtown - right next to downtown. It's full of forests, lakes & streams, fields, and pounding surf.
• Great neighborhoods just like here in SF and London - full of restaurants, shops, bookstores.
• A great old part of town that's been preserved and is full of shops and cafes. And my favorite jeans store from Istanbul is there - Mavi Jeans! YEAH!
• The downtown is super - really gives the feel of a city that's larger than it really is. I mean, the population is slightly smaller than San Francisco's (and NOTHING like Hong Kong's) but there's a feeling of being in a big city that I don't feel very often in SF.
• You can take a ferry and a short bus ride and you are the base of a ski resort - Grouse Mountain! The cable car goes straight up the mountain and the views are amazing. After all, you're standing up on the top of the mountain and down at the bottom is this amazing city.

In short, I would move to Vancouver in just a second!

Here are a few photos:

The Convention Center

The View from the Sun Yat-Sen Classical Chinese Garden in Chinatown

The Marina

The new part of the Convention Center

A fantastic Art Deco grill above a building in the old part of town.

Here are a few photos of different view of the city

Me trying to be clever with color - this is a view of downtown from Stanley Park

More me trying to be clever with color

WBH part 7 - Deception Pass, Green Park & Larrabee State Park

While we were all up in Seattle we went on a fantastic trip up to Bellingham to see Nicole and her family. On the way we went to Deception Pass and Larrabee State Park. Here are some photos from each.

Deception Pass

Sarah, Hannah and Emma at Green Park

Larrabee State Park

And finally some good advice to always remember! Don't fall!

WBH part 6 - Seattle for 5 out of 6 siblings...(sorry Tony!)

Lisa was out in Seattle in late Jun. It was a great chance to spend time with everyone. It was awesome to see Lisa, Loren and their kids - it had been since early 2008! We had a great time visiting Seattle!

I walked through the Olympic Sculpture Garden later in the week and I took a few photos. There's a walkway that has this cool colored film on it - that's what is creating the amazing images.

WBH part 5 - Chihuly in Scottsdale

While I was in Scottsdale I went to the Botanical Gardens to see a Dale Chihuly exhibit. I've seen an exhibit of his work before in San Jose as well as Venice, and there are some amazing art books of his work. He creates some clever and beautiful works of glass. The only thing is that once you've seen one exhibit you've seen them all. The colors and the specific shapes can be different but they're more similar than not.

BUT.......this was an exhibit in a completely new setting. Lots of beautiful glass sculptures out in the Botanical Gardens. Here are some of my favorite shots.