Day 7: U.S. and Canada West Coast Drive

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Drive to Vancouver

This day turned out to be another rainy day, starting in Portland in the morning and continuing all the way off and on until the end of the day in Vancouver. Fortunately there were no major traffic delays.

As we drove through the Seattle, WA area we stopped for lunch. I had planned for us to try a local hamburger chain called Dick’s Drive-In a couple of days later when we came back to visit Seattle, but we noticed one on our way to Vancouver so we tried it then. We don’t understand what people like about their food, but at least they’re not expensive.

After trying Dick’s Drive-In, and not finishing what we ordered because we didn’t like it, we ordered teriyaki, something that’s very popular in Seattle. It was very good, but not as good as the teriyaki we ended up getting two days later in Seattle, but more on that for the story for day 9.

Before checking into our hotel, we stopped at Save On Foods at 1250 Marine Dr, Vancouver to purchase our public transit day passes for both days. At the time of this writing (April ’24) the all day pass for all zones per adult is $11.25.

The day pass worked great for us because we stayed in a hotel in north Vancouver on the other side of the water from where all of the sites are. Using the all zones day pass allowed us to use the SeaBus or the land busses into the part of Vancouver that’s on the other side of the water where most of the interesting things to see are located.

Click here for a link for the Vancouver public transit schedules and maps.

After checking into our hotel we took a bus into the city to get dinner at Pholicious Vietnamese Restaurant at 430 West Pender St (click here for their menu.) On our way to dinner we made a point of walking by the Deloitte Summit building because I’m very interested in cool architecture, and this building is pretty cool looking. The Vancouver Public Library, right across the street from it, is pretty cool looking as well.

After taking photos of the cool buildings, we walked to nearby Pholicious Vietnamese Restaurant. The prices there are good, the phở was good, and the fried spring rolls (chả giò) and bánh mì were OK. The people running the place are very friendly and the place was busy when we were there.

After dinner we walked a few minutes to Vancouver’s Chinatown.

From Chinatown we took public transportation to Queen Elizabeth Park. This 52-hectare park is the highest point in Vancouver and provides great views of the city, the park itself, and views of the mountains if you’re there on a sunnier day.

We decided to walk part of the way to and from the park to get some exercise. The walk leading to Queen Elizabeth Park from the metro was an uphill climb through a nice looking neighborhood.

We only saw a portion of the park, but we liked what we saw.

The park itself is free to visit, but within the park is a conservatory (Bloedel Conservatory) that does have a fee to visit.

We then took public transportation to Olympic Village for views of Science World and BC Place Stadium across the water during sunset. Due to the rain, the sunset wasn’t spectacular, but it’s still really neat looking the way the colors from those two buildings, along with light from the other buildings, reflect in the water. And the way the rain was making the Seawall (the world’s longest uninterrupted waterfront path) reflect the light from the street lamps created a really neat mood.

From Olympic Village we took public transportation to Gastown, a quaint neighborhood that looks charming at night when the lights are on, and on a rainy evening (like we experienced) I think it must look even more charming with the lights reflecting off the streets covered with faux tiles made to look like cobblestone.

Gastown has shops, restaurants, speakeasy-style bars, and much more. We spent a little while walking around part of the neighborhood, then headed back to our hotel.

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