Our Skytrain day

Typical shop in Chinatown, Vancouver BC

In anticipation of some friends coming to visit next month, today Smart Guy and I went over the border to Vancouver, BC, and rode the Vancouver Skytrain to Chinatown. Although the two of us have visited Vancouver in our car a time or three, it's a whole different experience when you ride the wonderful Skytrain to your destination. You are not encased in the walls of your car but are out there sitting with the populace, listening to Mandarin, Cantonese, and what I think was Portuguese on the Skytrain. Not to mention Canadian English, eh?

We had lunch at a Chinese restaurant (see above), and the view out the window shows Pender Street, unless we took a turn that I forgot. Anyway, the food was fine, but next time we will try Foo's Ho Ho Restaurant on Pender. It was closed when we wandered by, and we ended up in this place, but after checking out the menu, next time we will try Foo's.

The Skytrain was really an experience. For $6 we parked our car in the Surrey Skytrain lot, where we could leave it for up to 12 hours. We bought an all-day ticket for the Skytrain, which cost us each $7, and it includes all-day transfers up and down the line, as well as unlimited rides on any Vancouver buses. The unfortunate part for us is that by the time we wandered around Chinatown, getting lunch and taking in the sights, we didn't have much energy left over to catch a bus to, well, anywhere.

Once we returned to the Skytrain terminal, we checked to find what train we would need. At the top is our current stop, Stadium-Chinatown, and we only needed to catch an Expo line train, which would take us back to King George, the last destination on the line. We found our car easily, and after having almost six full hours on our adventure, we drove across the border with our trusty Nexus passes and headed home. It was a great day, and I want to say thank you also to Jo, a blogging friend who lives in Vancouver, for her supportive and descriptive phone conversation last night.

Our first, but not our last, Skytrain day! On another note, I ordered this light beer for lunch, which I learned to love during my trips to China. Now I'm home, needing to rest up for tomorrow's hike to the Mt. Baker High Country!
:-)