Attitude of Gratitude

View of Vancouver

After visiting Las Vegas I had a small break in the quaint little town of Vancouver, British Columbia. Given that I travel so much for work I don’t typically get excited about going somewhere, but what a pleasant surprise Vancouver was! I had no idea. I decided to stop there to work out of our office and then take a few days off to hang with one of my good friends from Amsterdam, Jag, who has moved back home. Had I known that Vancouver had so much to offer I would have visited a long time ago.

I only took a few days off to visit the local sites, but squashed as much in as I possibly could into the short time I had. With the help of Jag, we frequented some of the finest restaurants and made the city our playground with all it has to offer.

My number one priority was to reconnect with nature. The Netherlands is the flattest place I’ve ever been, and does not offer much in the way of beautiful vistas, rough camping or uphill hikes. I was really ready to see some mountains, and had no idea what was in store, and that it was so close by!

Lynn Valley Suspension Bridge

Jag came through, and took me all over the place to get my nature fix. Lynn Valley is literally 5 minutes from downtown Vancouver and boosts a suspension bridge and tons of hiking trails up and down the valley, along with crystal blue waterfalls with cold water runoff from the mountains. I was in heaven. About 5 minutes away from there is another much larger suspension bridge, the Capilano Suspension Bridge, which also has a cutesy rainforest treetop tour which is eco-friendly to boot.

Much larger Capilano suspension bridge

Rainforest Treetop Tour

Whistler was next on our list, which is about 1.5 hours away, but you enjoy an absolutely incredible drive through the mountains along gorgeous lake areas all the way there. Whistler is obviously well known for its winter sports, but in the summer it has a variety of mountain biking trails setup and from the bottom of the mountain you can enjoy watching the mountain bikers come barreling down to complete some final death defying jumps before washing off their bikes at the bottom. It was fun to watch them all come in, and then take off their helmets and match the people to their bike skills. I’ve never seen so many people with random bleeding from all parts!

Mountain biking trails

The one place I had my eye on visiting that was such a letdown was the Sun Yat Sen Chinese Garden. At $10 a pop, this place is a huge disappointment with such a small garden, especially when you can get into the Chinese park right next door for free. Serious letdown.

But it was more than made up for with my favorite natural getaway was again right around the corner from Vancouver, about 10 minutes away, at Grouse Mountain. I don’t know what it was about this place. Perhaps it was the enormous gondola that takes you up 4,000 feet up the mountain overlooking the city in a short 4 minutes! Or the adorable 2 grizzly cubs that are there to test a new way of rehabilitating orphaned beers into the wild? Or maybe it was the bird of prey show?

No, I know exactly what it was. Jag and I decided to do a 30 minute helicopter ride that took us through the mountain around Vancouver and then down through the city. We had incredible views of the mountaintop lakes and surrounding mountain range, as well as a bird’s eye view of the city of Vancouver. And luckily, the helicopter needed to fuel up so we stopped near the port of Vancouver right next to a docked cruise ship that was about to depart. We were watching the cruisers and they were watching us. They must have thought we were famous, and it felt like we were famous! Just stopping in to gas up our chopper and then we’ll be on our way! La te da!!

Our transportation

The helicopter ride was an amazing experience. You very rarely get to see a city from above so up close and so low. I feel like I got to do something really special. And there is no city I’d rather do something like that in – having a picturesque downtown with a backdrop of amazing mountaintops just moments away. It is an absolutely stunning city and I am so happy I experienced it.

Mountaintop lake

Mountains everywhere!

Downtown Vancouver

But it doesn’t end there! The food… ohhhhhh… the food. If you’ve read my blog you know that I have a fine appreciation for food. I would easily spend hundreds and hundreds of dollars on a fine dinner and wear clothes off the sale rack. And we visited some of Vancouver’s finest. (I think Jag was using me as an excuse to check out good future date sites! Wink!)

View of Vancouver from Granville Island

Granville Island sports some great views of the city with the mountains in the background, and nice views of the major bridges leading into the city. It is a great way to hang out and watch the sunset and waste some time away, or during the day with the open market, which has some incredible offerings, from fresh produce to pastries to local artisan goods. We went to both Bridges and Sandbar. Sandbar had a fantastic view for the sunset, but Bridges had better food, in my opinion. Keep in mind that we only had appetizer and drinks at Sandbar, though.

We also went to Joe Forte’s for some classy service, elegant atmosphere, tasty seafood, and amazing dessert. If you like seafood and want to be treated like royalty this is the place to go.

Joe Forte's yum yum dessert!

Looking for great sushi? Try Kaide, where they don't fry anything (so no tempura), but instead use corn flakes to make their rolls crunchy. And don't leave without trying the spicy tuna sashimi. Hands down delicious.

But my fav place, hands down, was Brix in Yaletown. It is situated in a cozy, cute courtyard (with incredibly bad acoustics in certain locations) and the food, from beginning to end, is amazing. Jag had the lamb and I had the duck – both wonderful choices. I highly recommend this place.

Jag and I had a “mussel challenge” going throughout the city at Joe Forte’s, Brix, Cardero’s, and Bridges. They were all equally fantastic, and after eating mussels for years in A’dam, I can tell you that all of these beat Dutch mussels. They were the tastiest mussels I’ve had in years, and all cooked to perfection. Yummy.

And as if that wasn’t enough, I also just happened to be there during the yearly firework show where different countries compete against each other. On Wednesday night, Canada kicked it off with a 30 minute show which can easily be seen from the comfort of Jag’s apartment. The US of A made its premiere appearance on Saturday night, and I have to say that in my completely unbiased opinion that the USA was incredible and certainly did better than the home country. Apparently all this doesn’t matter, though, because the Chinese (who perform this Wednesday) win every year. Surprise, surprise.

USA represent

Needless to say, I am all about Vancouver, even with those proud, maple leaf touting Canadians. Just kidding! I don’t know what all the fuss is about regarding Canadians from Americans! The Canadians are a friendly, easy going bunch of folks! And I’m soooo going back, as soon as I can!