“You guys from Bay Ridge?” This guy comes up to us. We were caught of guard and thinking who the heck did we bump into in Vancouver. We didn’t even recognize him. Turns out it’s this guy who has seen Victor on the train going to work and remembers seeing us walking around our neighborhood. They were on the last leg of their cruise vacation. We laugh about it till this day. What a small world. It was our last day and we spent it walking everywhere.

I love industrial areas. One of my favorites back home was the Domino factory on the waterfront in Williamsburg. Part of it was demolished and it’s being turned into condos. Walking to Granville Island, we happened upon this cute industrial site. Cute? Industrial? I liked the murals painted on the cement silos. It’s a public art exhibit by Brazilian twin brothers Gustavo and Otávio Pandolfo. They are known for spray painting characters on buildings and walls. It was created for the Vancouver Biennale. They are a non profit organization whose mission is “To make Public Art accessible, engaging, and motivating to create vibrant and inspired communities.” Quoted from their site.

Granville Island has shops and eateries. It’s located across False Creek on a Peninsula. It was used as a fishing area by First Nations.

Vancouver was known as Granville until they changed their name in 1886. The early 20th century was an industrial boom for the False creek area. In 1909, a second Granville Bridge was built, this one was made of steel. The tidal flats of the creek had two sandbars and in 1915, the Vancouver Harbour Commission went ahead with a reclamation project that would dredge almost a million cubic yards from False Creek creating the flat island you see today. The first tenants were from construction, forest, mining, and shipping sectors. For a more in depth history of the place, read here. The island’s industrial past is apparent in it’s surroundings. It was nice sitting around eating and looking at the mountains surrounding the area.

Gastown is a cute area at the north east end of Downtown. It was Vancouver’s first downtown and is named for Jack “Gassy” Deighton, a seaman from Yorkshire, steamboat captain and barkeep. He arrived and oped his first saloon in 1867. There are shops and restaurants. We saw a lot of southern BBQ and decided to eat Korean in West End. We eat a lot of BBQ back home so we wanted something different.

We were sad to leave. It was some of the cleanest air we ever smelled besides Iceland. It was refreshing to see so much nature. Oh Canada, we really miss you.

These are called heritage houses. The old houses of Vancouver. They are so cute.

View from the airport.