Vancouver

Six days later, we reached the last stop on our trip, Vancouver.I can not believe that I am already in Vancouver, it feels like a just a few days ago I was on the east coast in Halifax.Vancouver is located on the west coast in the Pacific Maritime Ecozone at 49°15'N and 123°10W. Vancouver is located by the Pacific Ocean and Halifax is located by the Atlantic Ocean. Both of the two cities have similarities and differences. The climate in Vancouver is different from anywhere else in Canada because of its proximity to the Pacific Ocean. Summers are cooler and winters are more mild. Summer temperatures average 13°C and winters temperatures average -1.5°C. Both Halifax and Vancouver recieve approximately 1400mm of rain annually. After we checked into our hotel, we decided to get something to eat and then take a tour of the city. Fortunately for us, we found a tour that includes food and touring.We took the Gastown Tasting Tour, which is a small tour in the Vancouver Food Tour. We got to taste many different foods from Vancouver's historic Gastown region. This tour wasn't just one meal, one seat, one menu or just one drink. This was a tour of all the best food and restaurants Vancouver has to offer in the cities different regions.  Before going on this trip, I had no idea what tapas were, but now I love them! Tapas are a spanish snacks made from different mixes. I prefer the mix of cheese and peppers.

For breakfest the next day, I had leftover tapas from the Gastown Tasting Tour we took yesterday. After I had finished my breakfest, we decided to take another tour of the city. We found a FREE guided tour of that offers many tours for specific regions of the city, called Tour Guys. Our tour guide Steve, was very funny and relaxed. He often told us random facts about Vancouver and about the areas we visited in Vancouver. An example of a fact he told us was, Vancouver's total population is 545, 671 and its population density is 5,335/km². We spent the whole day touring the city. First we started off at Stanley Park. Stanley Park has many things to offer with many gardens,  recreational space and forests. It felt like we were in the nearby Pacific Rim National Park! Next, our group went hiking in Grouse Mountain. The trail that we followed was very rocky and rough, which made my bad legs ache. Vancouver is an urbanized towns, so most of the land is concrete, with the exception of a few parks and mountains.Vancouver is situated on a peninsula in southwestern British Columbia between the Pacific Ocean and the Coast Mountains. Before Vancouver was urbanized, the area was orignally a temperate rainforest, with large pockets of maple and alder trees and swamplands. When I was at Stanley Park, I could tell that this land used to be a rainforest. After many more landmarks and parks, we reached our last stop of our tour for the day. Our tour guide, took us to an old port where shipments from across the world were delivered and handled many years ago. The port is no longer running because the company that owned the port was bought out by a larger shipping company.Vancouver is the main shipping center for western Canada. Vancouver is involved in heavy trade with many Asian countries, shipping many of Canada's natural resources. Vancouver used to be a major fishing industry, but overfishing resulted in the resources diminishing. Vancouver's largest industry now is forestry because of the abundant amount of trees around Vancouver. After our tour was over,we walked back to our hotel and had dinner. After dinner we stayed in our hotel room, and watched the movie Avatar, but I fell asleep before it ended.

After we had checked out of our hotel, we had our last breakfast of the trip, at a pancake restaurant called Molly's Reach. We spent the last our last day at the Vancouver Aquarium, watching the exotic sea animals from belugas to sharks. The Vancouver Aquarium was fun, but it was much like Marine Land, which is a theme park close to St. Catharines. After the Aquarium, it was time for us to end our trip and say good-bye to Vancouver. I can not believe how fast this trip went by! It was sad to leave, but it felt good to go home and relax, but I knew I had a long car ride back to St. Catharines ahead of me.