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Vancouver, Victoria & The Rockies
Contributed by Christina Lim
1 January, 2001

Snow-capped peaks en-route to Jasper
Snow-capped peaks en-route to Jasper

What makes a good vacation? The company; the scenery; the feeling of being free to refuse any self-induced routine; the "newness" of things; the exciting sense of the unknown? I suppose it is a little of each.

Both my boyfriend, David ("Dey"), and I had planned for this trip to Canada for at least a year. It was partly a promise I made to my pal, Charlene, who has been staying there for many years now. But the real reason was that I needed to get out of Singapore, go somewhere for a few weeks and just enjoy myself.

The first thing which greeted me when the plane landed in Vancouver was that the day was still so bright, likened to 3 pm Singapore time, even though it was already 7.30 pm. To me, it was a phenomenon as I was just too used to seeing the twilight in Singapore at that time. The day does not darken during Canada's summer days till about 9 pm, so both the locals and "blur" tourists like us had lots more time to do stuff.

Temperatures were on the chilly side due to the rain, and it does rain quite a lot in Vancouver especially, together with its US neighbour Seattle. But this was a real comfort from hot and humid Singapore. Charlene told us later that Vancouver does not experience any thunderstorm, but persistent drizzles.

STANLEY PARK & LIONS GATE BRIDGE

Horse Carriage at Stanley Park
Horse Carriage at Stanley Park

Vancouver is one unique place which has the mountains, nature and city next to one another. There is the Stanley Park, which is much bigger than NY's Central Park, and is filled with acres of tall firs and huge cedars. Some of the trees have been around for a long time, and it is just amazing to have such a big park so near the urban area. There are horse carriages for the tourists to take a simple ride in the park, or you could visit the aquarium or zoo, which is also situated in the park.

Lions Gate Bridge from Prospect Point Lions Gate Bridge from Prospect Point

From Prospect Point (the highest point in Stanley Park), we could see the Lions Gate Bridge constructed in 1935, and which has seen lots of different vehicle models and human generations zipping through it. When we were there, the Gate was still going through some major reinforcement work.

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