Escape from the Trolley Troll

Since I’m falling deathly behind in posts, I’mma crank another out. This one is a tale of goodbyes, ideals, and a blitz. What does that all mean? Follow me back to April of 2008.

If you’ve read my posts in the past or have talked to me personally within the last half year, you’ve probably heard me mention my good friend Maya Suzuki who was studying at UCFV on an exchange from Japan. As all good things somehow unfortunately come to an end, so did Maya’s stay in Canada. On April 20th, Jean and I decided to have one final ‘Hurrah’ for Maya and so we headed into Vancouver for a relaxing Sunday night eat-festa.



We decided that a special occasion deserved special food, and chose The Salmon House in Stanley Park which was the perfect setting.







After a sumptuous dinner and basking in the sunlight flooding through the large windows, we headed outside to the coastline for some photo ops.




We miss you Maya!



Since we just finished stuffing ourselves at a posh(ish) restaurant, we decided that it was the perfect time to stuff ourselves further with an outing for chocolate fondue. It was a deliciously Jean/Erin ending to a lovely evening.




Oishi desu yo ne!

We ordered no less than three full sets of fondue and felt accordingly bloated and sick after. I recall walking down the street hunched over. Perfect. It was then time to say goodbye…日本の幸運を！ (with your job search)

For several months, Jean and I had been planning a luxurious getaway in Vancouver which was to include a dinner out at Morton’s Steakhouse and then a girls party night at our (deluxe) hotel of choice. What started out as those kinds of thoughts, kind of morphed over time and by the time the 26th of April rolled around, we were booked in at the Empire Landmark Hotel with dinner as a TBD. We were wary as the hotel had a frames-based (yes, frames!) website and frankly, it just looked a bit…gaudy. I suppose the thought that hotels usually look worse in pictures didn’t sway us – but I wish it would have. We were greeted in the lobby by a guy named Jerk or Judd or Chazz….I can’t really remember, but he was very kind and gave us a room which was an executive upgrade! Yay! And it was up on the 38th floor! Double yay! So up we went…






Looking east down Robson Street

The view was really great and Jean and I both concluded that we’d never slept so high in the air (not counting airplanes) so that part was exciting. The part that was not exciting, however, was the ghetto rooms they gave us…their description of an “upgrade” seems to be quite different from most humans’ definitions. Case and point:



Tilted lampshade: check. Pink, shiny wallpaper bubbling from water damage: check. Perfect.

We decided that since we were staying in a hotel with a revolving restaurant, we should head up there for dinner to try to recoup some of the glamour lost through the room. As I thought we were heading for ramen, I didn’t bring anything fancy…so up we went in our scrubby clothes. I felt so sorry for the married couple sitting beside us, clearly on a date (though they didn’t talk to one another)…she was wearing a dress.




I didn’t realize how massive Jean’s hands look here

I’m going to be honest…the only reason we ate here is because the Entertainment Book supplied us with a coupon – and I don’t think I would eat here without one. The view was great, but my food came garnished with a giant dinner roll with a Buffy-like stake through it.


Classy.




Lion’s Gate Bridge



After staring for a while, we headed back to our balcony to do more staring.




Robson again, but at night this time.

Me and Jean decided to head out for a night excursion so we strolled up and down Robson, shopped at Konbiniya, and ogled Japanese boys working in the ramen shops near Denman. We then had some late-night chocolate fondue in our room before snuggling into our oversized singles for a semi-decent sleep.

Upon waking, we set out to use the tourism passport that Jean scored through work – basically, it is a ‘get in free’ pass to any tourist attraction in Vancouver. Our first destination was the trolley car which was to take us around so we could blitz Vancouver, tourist-style.



Our first stop was the Vancouver Aquarium in Stanley Park, Jean’s place of work.



We weren’t there to visit, but to pick up some onigiri and attend (much to my misunderstanding) the ‘Goodbye Salmon Fry’.




Some friends behind the scenes at the Aquarium.

My thoughts (and apparently I’m not the only one) was that a ‘Goodbye Salmon Fry’ meant we were frying up some salmon to eat and saying goodbye to something, someone, etc. After being reprimanded by Jean that this was most certainly not the case, I understood that this meant we were releasing small salmon(s?) into the wild and saying goodbye. I think my interpretation was more comprehensive.


This was my salmon fry. His name was Scrubby.


Go! Be free Scrubby! Swim with the fishes!


You can’t really see him, but he’s there. I kept having to chase a crow away who was eyeing up Scrubby.


Jean releasing her salmon fry, Chief Kitten.



We then headed back out to wait for the trolley and I munched on the dericious onigir.





We continued on the trolley through Stanley Park and watched some innocent Korean tourists get made fun of by the horrendous trolley car driver. He also stole Jean’s chips and threw them across the trolley and made her go get them. He was a trolley troll.



Eventually the we were able to escape the trolley troll by leaping onto the False Creek Ferries to scoot us over to Granville Island.











Once arriving on Granville Island, we made a beeline for our next free stop, Roger’s Chocolate. We each had a little coupon that scored us one free truffle!



We then motored through the markets and jumped back on the little ferry boats, this time headed for Yaletown.






The floating houses from the other side for once…



We passed this strange object…that I believe was the item in question in this post.







We knew we had arrived in Yaletown when we were greeted with P.Diddy’s schooner.





Since we headed to Yaletown with no particular goal in mind, we set out again to find the trolley and hop back on to ride on down to Chinatown.



Vancouver’s Chinatown is pretty authentic-looking (bearing in mind I’ve never been to actual China…yet) and one of my favorite places to go when there is to Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Park.










I practiced my Tai-chi here. Jean didn’t agree that my Tai-chi was flawless, but it flowed like tears in a stream.



Soon we were back on the street after sipping some oolong tea and more Tai-chi (on my part). Back onto the trolley we headed.





Our next destination was the Vancouver Police Museum which, frankly, we couldn’t have been more excited about - it was in the old city morgue! Our driver directed us where to get off and where to go, but he failed to mention they were closed on Sundays. Boo.





Since it was 20 minutes until the next trolley, Jean concluded that we should head west on foot, through the downtown eastside which you may or may not have heard about…


I saw this guy and his friends in Calgary too.

After several interesting individuals crossed our path, we were in Gastown.



Our next tourist stop was the lookout at Harbour Tower.










The Canada Post building, naturally.




Through the pollution, you can see Burnaby.





I gotta be honest…after sleeping 38 floors in the air, the Harbour Tower did nothing to rattle my bones. With its $13 price tag that we didn’t have to pay, I give it a giant thumbs down. But you should go to it. Maybe.

We headed to the Delta Hotel next so Jean could collect more stamps. While she was busy with the stamp people, I was more fascinated with this interesting creature at the bus stop.





All kinds of weirdies on the bus. As long as no one is donning a ‘Scream’ mask, we are all still okay…

After hopping on the trolley one last time (with the horrible trolley man again, no less!) we headed back to my car at our stank motel and called it a day.