Vancouver

Jacquelyn and I took a trip to celebrate our anniversary and drove up to Vancouver, British Columbia in Canada.

 At the border at Freedom Park they have the Canadian flag in a massive flower display.

 We got stopped and had to go into the office at the border crossing because we had pepper spay in the car. It's illegal to take pepper spray across the border into Canada and they confiscated our little container.

 The main object of our visit was Capilano Suspension Bridge Park.  Here's Jacquelyn with a totem pole.

 More totem poles and me.

 Here's the famous suspension bridge over the gorge.  It's really long and high and is very wobbly but safe.

 We went on the tree tops trail.

This is part of the cliff walk.  It was a lot of fun to see.

 The next morning we went to the Vancouver Temple.  It was a great way to start the day.

 First stop in the city of Vancouver was Chinatown.   We also walked through downtown on a different day to see the tall buildings.

 Then we went to Stanley Park where there were lots of trails along the water front and through the trees.

 More totem poles.

 The next day we went to Richmond, a suburb, and took a tour of this Buddhist temple.  A strange thing happened there; they invited us to a free lunch (called Second Serving).  It's all vegetarian.  We bought a container (with metal spoon and fork) for $3 since we didn't bring our own.  Then we set in a big hall with all the Buddhist people and monks and trainees that came to eat. They served us a variety of vegetarian dishes that they scoped into the bowl one right after the other.  What luck to be there at just the right time.  We had an unusual experience.

 Then we went to the town Steveston when they film the TV show Storybrooke.  They happen to be having  races called the Dragon Races.  There were hundreds of people racing in dozens of boats (4 or 5 per race).

 They have a fish market dock where the boats pull up and the fishermen sell their catches directly from the sea to the customer.

 Octopus for sale anyone?

 Sea urchins too.  We saw a Chinese lady buy one, break it apart and remove the spines, and eat the middle raw.

We checked out another Buddhist Temple for our last stop.  This is the Happy Buddha.  He was a monk that became one of the original Arhats of Buddhism.  They say this lovable icon is the embodiment of happiness and prosperity.  We learned a little about their religious customs which seemed very strange to me.

Cool Pictures from Stanley Park

I just love these two pictures we took Friday at Stanley Park on our trip to Vancouver, Canada. The first one is at Beaver Lake and the second one is "Girl in a Wet Suit".