For the backstory, please see the post "Courage, Dear Heart!"
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My family spent the evening of our arrival in Vancouver strategizing how we would spend our one full day there before embarking on our cruise. My dad discovered the Hop On and Off Trolley, which proved the ideal way to maximize the amount of the city we saw within our party's walking limits.
Our journey took us past several public art installations:
We left the trolley long enough to tour the Classical Chinese Garden, a peaceful and remarkable quiet refuge in the middle of the urban bustle. Although a number of Japanese gardens exist in North America (with one near us in Fort Worth), this one, according to our guide, is the only Chinese one.
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| bonsai crape myrtle |
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| Silk double-sided embroidery, free of knots and loose ends on both sides |
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| Limestone sculpted by the sea |
We reboarded the next trolley which passed the gardens and arrived at Canada Place to eat lunch and change to the Stanley Park trolley line. This was our first glimpse of the port from which we would sail the next day.
On the way to the park, we passed the Olympic torch:
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| Olympic torch from Vancouver's winter games |
We disembarked the trolley again for the Stanley Park Rose Gardens:
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| Photo credit: my dad (Amore was inside the tree trunk.) |
A musician played a traditional Chinese instrument along the path from the garden to the Vancouver Aquarium, our next stop:
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| Sea Lions |
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| Beluga whale |
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| Moon Jellyfish |
The trolley picked us up next to the harbor to take us to Prospect Point and the Tea Room at Stanley Park, where we ate supper and enjoyed the view, grateful for the mild and sunny day God gave us in Vancouver.
