Vancouver

We spent two days in Vancouver, seeing the sights.

The suspension bridge at Lynn Canyon Park.  It's not as big as the Capilano suspension bridge, but then again, it's free.
There was an area of Lynn Canyon Park where people have build hundreds of rock cairns.  It was very eerie looking.
This one looked a lot like a bird to meHere it looks like a wall.
Some of the builders incorporated wood into the cairnsEric is inspired and builds a cairn
The finished cairn.This is where I lived (middle apartment) for 2 months in Vancouver, in 1993.  Not the best of neighborhoods.
The apartment manager lived in this apartment.  It looks as junky as it did then, so I assume the same manager lives there.After that I moved next door, to a newly renovated building.  Top floor here
In the evening we took a walk around Robson Street, and ran into a group of people demonstrating against consumerism.  Apparently they're trying to make the day after Thanksgiving, the biggest shopping day of the year, into "Buy Nothing" day.We saw another guy doing ballon sculptures.  Homer Simpson turned out great!
Here's the balloon sculptor, underneath Mickey Mouse.The next morning, we had breakfast in the revolving restaurant on top of the Empire Hotel.  Here's a view of Robson Street from the restaurant.
The building that has straps on it, below, is supposed to be very earthquake proof, because the straps hold the building suspended on a central cement column.We fed some seagulls leftovers from breakfast.  As soon as we went on the balcony, they flocked around us.
They were very acrobatic, trying to catch the pieces of muffin we threw them.
A walk in Stanley Park along the seawall path, looking at a yacht club.This is part of the old zoo in Stanley Park.  Most (all?) of it is now abandoned.
There were peacocks wandering around Stanley Park.  This one wasn't shy at all.In the distance, the freight cranes of North Vancouver.
The Totem Pole area in Stanley Park, now closed to visitors.Sylvia with the sulfur piles of North Vancouver in the background, and a lighthouse.
There's a colony of raccoons in Stanley Park. I've never seen raccoons this unafraid of humans!
One of them went for the camera strap that was hanging down while Eric took this picture.Some love nibbles
Eric pretends that he has something to feed them.I let this hotel in downtown Vancouver use my name.  I hear it's done wonders for business.
We took some pictures with the self-timer around Jericho Beach Park.Before we left Vancouver, we drove around the University area, checking out some of the neat houses there.