The totem poles of Stanley Park
The Sun Yat-Sen Garden in Chinatown
Day 2: Monday, September 17, 2007
A Stolen Bike
Posted by Nick on 9/22/2007 at 12:55AM
Mike and I ate breakfast at a place called De Dutch, a local chain that sells giant-sized pancakes called "de pannekoek." After filling up, we went to a place on the West End that rents bicycles. We rented two and made our way to Stanley Park, a wooded area capping off the Vancouver peninsula (and the largest urban park in North America). We spent the morning and early afternoon riding around the park. We checked out sites such as the 9 O'Clock Gun and the Totem Poles as we made our way around.
After boring of the park, we rode across downtown and parked our bikes in Chinatown. We checked out the Sun Yat-Sen Garden, which consisted of a small pond, plants and some traditional Chinese architecture. Afterward we found a place to eat called Kent's Kitchen. It had a line outside so we assumed it would be good. It was. It seems like all the authentic Chinese places have English sounding names (see Joe's Shanghai in New York City).
After lunch we took our bikes over to a district called Gastown, which is the oldest part of downtown. We walked up and down the streets looking into shop windows. When we returned to where we had left our bikes, we discovered that Mike's had been stolen. His twisted lock remained attached to the pole where it was left, but the bike was gone. We had a long walk back to the West End where we had to pay $275 for the missing bike. We split the cost and left feeling dejected.
We went back to the hotel to grab a shower and then met up with Rick Patri, the V.P. of Sales for the company we were there visiting. He took us to eat buffalo wings at a place called Wings. We ordered about 4 different flavours (spelled Canadian style) and watched Monday Night Football while devouring them. After dinner we traveled around to a couple different bars in the area, then headed back to the hotel at about midnight.