after getting up at 6, attempting to find the cheap ferry to victoria island from downtown seattle, deciding to go to vancouver instead, and couple of hours of driving we arrived in beautiful vancover where we stopped to take pictures of the awesome view of the city.

so without any real idea of where we were going, we wandered around the city looking for the legendary chinatown.

second real mistake:  no canadian currency.

third real mistake: no idea at all of what the exchange rate was.

chinatown really did meet the hype.  cleaner than sf, and more street than la, and it was huge. 

all kinds of goodies like crazy fish.

and this hairy fruit in the background.  we were told it would taste like lychee only sweeter, but it tasted more like foam only sweeter.  next we made it to the visitor's center where we were told that we should go to stanley park since america doesn't have parks... i was like who do these canadians think they are, telling us we have no parks...

stanley park is dope... the girl at the vistor's center was right, we don't have parks...

first stop in stanley park:   totem poles.

thas the tribe o peggy pole in the lower right corner.

stanley park lives right on the water showcasing vancouver from the flip side.

and while it was right next to the city, it was full of stuff like raccoons.  this guy along with his friends roamed the bushes of prospect point.

the real reason though we visited prospect, the awesome view.

throughout vancouver were the remnants of one of the other times i had been up there: world expo '88.

and on our way out of canada, after i got us lost on a one hour detour, we passed the peace arch which sits right on the border. 

fourth real mistake: everyone told us all you need is a license to get back in.  that was all well and great til we were reading the visitor's guide in line "a license is not enough" to get you back into the u.s.

i swear though, after a wait at customs for half an hour, it seemed clear the u.s. didn't want us back.  instead, this custom's guy grilled us to the core at the border.  "where are you from?" "where are you going?" "how long were you there?" "what did you buy?" "who's car is this?" "why did you rent it?" "where were you born?" "recite the pledge of allegiance."  "is tupac really dead?" "what are you doing up here?" "why are you in seattle?"   and so on and so on for like five minutes.  until...

"where do you work?"

"microsoft"

"get out of here"... and we were off.  guess that's a guy who's down with microsoft.  either way, still a biznatch... making me all sweat at the border.  but all in all still a great trip.   props to vancouver.

 

peggy was not so fond of my driving on the way home.