 Sight Seeing in Vancouver, British Columbia
A Revolving Restaurant and An Unusual Clock
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| Our Vancouver Adventure
Our trip begins
We finally arrived at our hotel where Lynn and I had a room, on a high floor, with a great view of the city skyline and the Vancouver Harbor. The view was especially nice at night with the city and waterfront lit up. The harbor was a busy place giving us a front-row view of the activity. This included boats coming and going, ferry boats, fishing boats, cruise ships and sea planes. We could see the location of a past World's Fair from our room. One feature I found interesting was a floating fuel-dock out in the harbor. Because it was surrounded by water, boats could be refueled on all four sides. During our down times while resting up for our next activity, we often found pleasure just sitting on our balcony and watching the continuous show out on the water. Our hotel being right on the waterfront gave us a nice base-location from which to explore part of the city on foot. Because we had no tours scheduled for our first day, we were able to take a casual walk along the waterfront. Most of the activity had to do with tourism or transportation. There was a cruise ship in port, sight-seeing watercraft moving across the water, ferries going from port to port as well as sea planes taking off and landing. To add to the perception of great harbor activity were helicopters coming and going; with some being sight-seeing flights and others being used for transportation. Vancouver Harbor is a very busy place indeed.
The waterfront is also home to a lot of marinas each of which provides berths for many big boats. I found one marina to be unusual to me, it was where float planes are tied-up while waiting for customers. This was the source of a lot of the aircraft activity taking place over the harbor. Overlooking the float-plane docks was a great blue heron standing on one leg with its back to a cold breeze. It looked as if it was an old man overlooking his domain. Across a narrow stretch of water, I saw a man on a dock with a crab trap that contained a lot of crabs. The scene brought back memories of the six years a group of friends and I went on an annual crab fishing adventure in Oregon. Along the way we saw what looked like a small building on stilts. There was no way to get up to the entrance door. It was a mystery that revealed itself when we got closer. It turned out to be an unusual sculpture made of cast aluminum to honor the memory of a freight shed that was located on the Vancouver City Wharf in Cold Harbour. The sculpture is half-scale of the original wooden structure. Our route took us past the caldron for the Olympic flame for the 2010 Winter Olympics held nearby. It now appears as if it is being used as a large sculpture. Also seen was a tent-like structure from a bygone World's Fair held in Vancouver.
As we walked, a round structure on the top of a building could be seen in the distance. It looked as if it might be a revolving restaurant like I've seen in other cities. It was decided that it would be a good venue for lunch. So, we headed toward the building finding it easy to find our way because the tall structure was easy to see from all the places where we were walking. It didn't take long to find the entrance to the rooftop restaurant. It is called, "Top of Vancouver Revolving Restaurant." The way up to the restaurant was via an outside elevator that had transparent walls giving us a dramatic view during our ride to the top. The elevator arrived in the center of the restaurant where we stepped onto the moving floor. A panoramic view of the city presented to us as we entered the dining room. The round structure made its way around one full revolution in one hour. Our foursome found a nice table next to the window for our lunch.
Lunch was a leisure affair with good food and service while we watched the city appear to move slowly below. The scenery below revealed places that it was thought would be good places to visit after lunch. It gave us a chance to check out the location of various tourist spots from an aerial viewpoint. One area we were interested in was Gastown, which is the old downtown of the city. From our high view point we could see the railroad yard that is located right next to Gastown. I've always enjoyed visiting the older parts of cities during my travels. They have a lot in common with gift shops and fun places to have a meal located in re-purposed historic buildings. Resident towers in view could be seen with trees and landscaping on the balconies and roofs of several buildings. One building had what looked like a fancy house built on the very top of the tower. At one point a view of the harbor moved into position where a cruise ship could be seen tied up at the dock. It was the Seven Seas Navigator cruise ship owned by Regent Seven Seas Cruises. It reminded me of when Lynn and I ended our Alaska cruise in Vancouver aboard the Coral Princess.
Our lunch lasted about 1 1/2 hours when it came time for us to descend back down the street level. As the elevator went down, the objects in the street scene appeared to get larger until we finally stepped out on the sidewalk. From there we found our way to Gastown with all its great stores and eateries. The sidewalks on both sides of the street were lined with old restored buildings, shaded by mature trees. Many of the old buildings looked as if they had housed factories from a century ago. The walks were paved with red bricks with an occasional section of the old cobble stones showing. Also, there were street lamps made with white lighted glass globes reminiscent of a street scene from the 1890s. From each street lamp were hanging baskets of colorful flowers giving the appearance of a festive time. It's a fun place for a stroll through a historical area.
As we walked, I spotted something a short distance down the street like I've never seen before. It looked like a giant grandfather clock except there was steam coming from the top. As we got closer, I could hear a mechanical sound of gears moving. Finally, up close it was revealed that this was a steam powered clock. During my travels around the world, I had never seen anything like this. I had to get closer so I could study the mechanism. The mechanics of the clock are very much like those of a conventional grandfather clock. Glass was on all four sides making it possible to see that the clock mechanism was powered by gravity pulling down weights on chains just like a grandfather clock. Like a conventional clock, a pendulum swayed back and forth to maintain accurate timing. The difference from a standard clock is that when the weights had to be raised back to the top, a steam powered motor pulled the chained weights back to the starting position. Yet another difference is the use of steam whistles to announce the time instead of using chimes or bells. I enjoyed watching all the action inside the clock case. After seeing the unusual steam-powered timekeeper, it was time for us to find our way back to our hotel. It had been a very good day. I always enjoy seeing something I've never seen before. This story includes only what we saw while walking from our hotel during our two day stay. There is so much more to see in and around Vancouver, a person should plan for much more time here. However, we had to catch a train to Toronto.
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