Day 10
Sleep Deprivation
Again, I got up after getting not enough sleep. Again, my worries about oversleeping kept me up, even though there's no real chance that they'd forget to get us off the train.
Pulling into the station again required a whole bunch more backing up. I don't know if this was for the same reason as in Edmonton, but I find it very depressing to discover rail travel just as they're starting to wind the whole thing down. I can only hope that rail travel will someday enjoy the same sort of rebirth as has happened to the cruise industry. Even as nice as our trip on the train had been, it's still very easy to see that the cars we'd been on were very old, and probably not under any immediate threat of being replaced or renovated. And, all along the rails on the way out, we got a chance to see miles of rail being torn up, and a century's worth of broken down or abandoned train cars.
Pulling into the station, though, we got to see the VIA train that was to make the return journey later that evening, all spruced up for its passengers. One of the porters had mentioned to us that the VIA cars spend two days in station, being cleaned and restocked for the next trip.
Another thing we saw sitting on the tracks were a set of VIA cars that'd been specially painted with the "Diet Pepsi" logo and color scheme, with a flatbed car holding a few Isuzu Troopers painted similarly. Curious, because the VIA lounge cars serve Coke and not Pepsi. Anyway, it looked like some kind of off road/train promotional event was going to happen sometime soon. I can only hope that whatever they had planned, they also had the good sense to invite P. J. O'Rourke along so I can read his angle on it.
New station in a new big city, and again no rental car agency. While Robert was retrieving the baggage (which was a lot less stressful than watching the decoy luggage go round and round for an hour at the airport), I noticed that there was some guy standing in the middle of the station holding a "Budget" rental car sign.
I found out that he was actually there trying to drum up business (fancy that), instead of just assuming we'd find them in the yellow pages as we had to in Edmonton. Harrumph. Again, I find myself getting stuck with Budget. Let me tell you, they did a number on ours.
We got a car, but as nicely as that car would go, stop and corner, there always has to be something wrong, and this "something" turned out to be a non-functioning air conditioner. Argh. Just once, I'd like to get a rental car with more than 5,000 miles on the clock that didn't have something major broken. With the car in Edmonton, it was the incessantly feeping trip computer, the radio station display that kept fading out, and the driver's side seat that always wanted to keep one of my cheeks (southern hemisphere) two or three inches higher than the other, and another one of my cheeks (northern hemisphere) flapping in the breeze outside the window. With this car, it was a busted air conditioner.
We stopped by the motel, which turned out to be downtown. Well, you don't expect something that calls itself a "Motel" to be downtown, and you also don't expect it to have more than two floors, but I was wrong. Anyway, it wasn't too far from the rental place, so we didn't do a very thorough job of getting lost on the way there, but showed up way too early to check in anyway. We had three or four hours to waste before they'd let us in. Pity, because I really wanted a shower and nap.
Still, there were sights to be seen, so we could go see some. We set out in the rental car, with me behind the wheel, and not the slightest idea of where to go. I got us good and lost until Robert got the map open and right side up, and found the part that said "Vancouver" on it. We went to a place called "Lighthouse Park", which was on the waterfront (not big surprise here) and right next to a fairly expensive neighborhood. We got out of the car, hiked around, took a few pictures, and provided nourishment for all the local insect population. The sign down by the lighthouse said that people were only admitted in the presence of a tour guide, and that there are only tour guides there on Wednesday through Saturday. This being Monday meant that we didn't get too much farther.
It was a nice walk and the scenery was beautiful. This wasn't the first time I'd been to the left coast, but it was the farthest north I'd been out there, and it was my first glimpse at those huge old trees they make out there.
We drove back to town and parked the car at the motel. They'd given us a parking pass, even if they didn't let us in yet. We set out on foot for a downtown location of a chain of Sushi restaurants I'd picked up a brochure for.
To tell the truth, I really wasn't expecting too much from a Sushi chain restaurant, but what we got was better Sushi than I've ever had in New England, and at very competitive prices. The service was lousy, but we'd come to expect that from Sushi places. Robert and I shared a luncheon plate Sushi assortment. Of particular note was the salmon. Normally, I can't stand salmon Sushi, but this stuff was amazing. I guess I was in the place for it.
When we returned to the motel, they finally gave us our room. I went up to the room with the idea of taking a shower and a nap. What really happened was that I just laid down "for a minute" and didn't open my eyes again until about four hours later. By then, it was just about dinner time.
There are a lot of Asians in Vancouver, especially with the upcoming communization for Hong Kong in '97. Canada has opened up their immigration regs for the people from Hong Kong, and there's an enormous brain drain going on, making for a huge influx of immigrants to the Vancouver area. This, according to some locals, has given Vancouver the nickname "Hong Couver." We're talking really big Chinatown, and very strong Chinese presence there. I guess the part that irritated me the most, then, was that wherever I saw anything printed in any language other than English or French, it was always in Japanese. I would have expected to see a lot of Chinese written all over everything, but outside of Chinatown itself, the predominant third language was Japanese. Actually, there wasn't that much French, either, so Japanese was almost a second language.
I asked around about this, and was told that while the Chinese come to Vancouver to live, the Japanese come to Vancouver to spend a shitload of money. As someone we talked to said, "The Chinese just live here. The Japanese are buying the place."
Well, we had this restaurant guide to Canada, which aside from having painfully inaccurate information about when places were open, seemed to have some good recommendations. It had a very large section on Vancouver, and said that while there are a lot of good Chinese restaurants in Vancouver (no big surprise again), the best of the best (and possibly, the best on the continent) is a place downtown called the "Beijing." As it happened, it was also a couple of blocks from our motel. Naturally, we couldn't pass up something like this.
I don't know if I'd go so far as to say that it's the best on the continent, but I will say that we both nearly went hoarse that evening, just from making "yummy" noises during and after dinner.
Oh yeah, if you can't stand yuppie "foodie" eating stories, skip down a ways, because it gets real self-indulgent from here.
The first good sign was when we walked in and found a live lobster tank next to the front door. Something you don't normally see in a Chinese restaurant anywhere, and definitely not what you'd expect on the west coast, given that I don't think that lobsters are native to the place. They also had live crab, prawn and cod in the tanks.
The service was absolutely fawning. I didn't think better service would be possible, had I not watched how they were treating the Japanese couple (eating all the most expensive dishes) at the next table.
The menu was overwhelming. Not because it had more dishes than other Chinese places, but because they all sounded so much neater. We were so busy trying to sort through it that when the waitron came, (time out to put another extremely expensive ribbon in the typewriter) all I could get out was "Coke, please." Even that was good. They floated little lemon slices in it, and it was that really good Canadian real-sugar stuff. I had three of them.
The food was magnificent. I won't go into how magnificent it was, because I can't afford to go back for more anymore.
Robert left a pretty big tip. Like I said, the service, like the food, was wonderful. This was even more surprising considering that they were also darn near spooning every mouthful into the mouths of the Japanese couple at the next table for them, and the waitrons were still somehow able to give us excellent service between the other couple's mouthfuls, and get back to their higher paying table before one of them had a chance to burp and shout "more".
Watching Robert leave the tip is always fun, too, because after a week, he was still overwhelmed by the local currency, even though with the exception of the Loony, it's in all the same denominations and sizes as the US stuff, and for that matter, he's never had trouble with the Canadian coinage he picks up in the US. Must be something psychological.
Even after we'd paid the bill and tip, one of the waitrons detected that our teapot had gone empty, so he went and fetched another port and refilled our cups, even though it was clear that we were about to leave, and despite our protestations that he really needn't do that.
While we were carrying our overfull bellies back to the motel, still making "yummy" noises with what remained of our vocal cords, we were overflown by a pair of Canadian geese, who'd somehow found a nesting place in the glass and steel towers of downtown Vancouver.
Oh yeah, here's something else weird, and please excuse me for going on for so long about eating, cars, and sitting around like a lump, because those are simply the things that interest me the most.
I'm always interested in the types of cars you see in different cities. For the most part, Vancouver looked more typical of a US city than any other Canadian town we'd been to, with a couple of exceptions. The first exception was that beyond the normal background noise of indistinguishable family cars, it seemed like every other car in Vancouver was a Mazda Miata. What wasn't a Miata was probably some other sort of convertible, and whatever was left over was just a full assortment of Volvos and Jaguars. Mostly convertibles, though, which seemed to be in conflict with the sort of weather you'd expect in a place like that.
Go figure.
Getting back to the motel meant taking a detour through the adjoining bar. Robert decided that I needed my nightly Pina Colada which was just his excuse for getting himself a Rusty Nail. The only way I can stand to share a room with the smell of a Rusty Nail is with a Pina Colada in my hand, so it seemed like a reasonable trade.
Gee, the people in Vancouver sure were friendly. Trouble was that there didn't seem to be as many with that really fun accent we heard so much of in Central Canada.
Well, shower, and more Meech Lake news on the TV, and that was it for the day.
On to Day 11. It's Always Something!
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