Day 1: These boots are made for walking'

Lying in bed at the Westin Bayshore, waiting for room service breakfast on a beautiful British Colombian morning, enjoying a relaxing start,  I hear:

 

BrrrreeeeeeeeeEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHhhhhhhhhhhhhhh...

Not sure what it was, but it's gone -

BrrrreeeeeeeeeEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHhhhhhhhhhhhhhh...

Shortly followed by -

BrrrreeeeeeeeeEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHhhhhhhhhhhhhhh...

Like mosquitos. Both in sound and number.

OK. I go to the window and see a float plane (AKA sea plane) taking off over the river, with at least two more queued on the water waiting to take off. Emma explains that this part of the world has the highest density of small aircraft on the planet. 

I believe her.

Fortunately we woke up with less jet lag than I feared after 26 hours of travel, so the float plane's don't ruin our sleep. The weather's perfect, with a forecast of perfect weather until we leave . Niiiiice.

We took a slow start to the day, setting out around midday, walking into Vancouver via the sea wall on the north side of town. this part of the city has clearly fallen on hard times. I saw at least two multi-million dollar yachts for sale.

Over coffee we arranged a few activities to take us up to Saturday, and watched people do things in a very relaxed Canadian fashion. In this case it was falling off a building, very slowly, as part of some sort of cliff climbing competition or demo.

Vancouver is a very pleasant and liveable city. The setting is gorgeous, it's clean and bright (maybe not so bright during a Canadian winter, but we'll be long gone by then), and as is often the case in Canada, full of incomprehensible polite people. 

Example: we rushed across an intersection just as the light was changing, in front of a driver turning into the street. When the driver stopped to let us cross he - apologised. In Sydney he would sworn like a crazy man before hitting the horn, us, or both.

In classic Emma and Brian style we took a wrong turn and ended up at the wrong end of town. Normally when we get lost we end up having adventures, usually involving the local wildlife. Today was no exception, this time being an encounter with a moose. It was a five foot tall plush moose in a Royal Canadian Mounted Police uniform, but it was still a moose.

Having walked the length and half the breadth of central Vancouver we had dinner at Cardero's, a restaurant close to our hotel. Being on the water, and in one of the largest fishing ports on the west coast, My choice was obvious. Naturally I decided to have the pork. 

Emma wanted the Atlantic lobster, but wasn't sure it would be fresh seeing as how on the Pacific. Laura, our waitress, assured us it was fresh, having been traumatised that very afternoon witnessing the lobsters being dispatched by the kitchen staff.

Excellent meal, and we're far too full for the highly-praises apple strudel (sob), so we retire and collapse around 10pm. Exhausted after day one. At 10 pm.

Meh. We're getting ooooooold.