10 tips for visiting Vancouver
Impromptu volleyball games are just one of many activities on tap at Vancouver's popular Jericho Beach, which also serves up sailing, windsurfing, and tennis. |
Increasingly, however, a New Yorkeresque pride has been emerging in this, Canada's third-largest city. It came out in full flag-waving force during Vancouver's successful bid to host the 2010 Winter Olympics.
What is so great about this city on Canada's Pacific coast? For starters, it possesses an intimate relationship with nature. The Greater Vancouver Regional District has more acres of preserved natural landscape than Canyonlands National Park, and its diversity of environments alpine, coastal, marine, estuary, bog, temperate rain forest would turn any ranger's thumb green with envy.
Vancouver's human landscape is as varied as its natural one. Much has been made of the city's diversity, particularly its burgeoning Asian community. More than a quarter of Vancouver's residents are native Chinese speakers, about a third of the metropolitan population claims Asian ethnicity, and an overlapping third was born abroad.
Here, we asked locals to share their individual Vancouvers to find out 10 ways to enjoy the best of Vancouver.
1. Seek out a sari.
"People love to go to the Punjabi Market on Main Street to look at all the different fabrics," broadcaster Shushma Datt says of Vancouver's Indian neighborhood, where sari shops, curry houses and aromatic Indian groceries radiate from the intersection of Main Street and E. 49th Avenue. "The shops I recommend are Sunny's Bridal Gallery and Sunny's ID (www.sunnysbridal.com), Frontier Cloth House (www.frontierclothhouse.com), and Guru Bazaar. One of our oldest stores is Rokko's Fabrics (www.rokkofabrics.ca), on Fraser Street. You can find anything there, from a light kurta top to the most expensive pashmina shawl."
2. Make for the mountains.
"Within half an hour of leaving my city office, I can be in the bush, where signs say 'beware of bear'," says sculptor and furniture designer Martha Sturdy, who hikes the North Shore Mountains daily with her dogs. "The gentle 26-mile-long trail includes the Lynn Canyon Suspension Bridge and takes in lakes, waterfalls, city views and old-growth timber giants.
Numerous access points make getting on track easy; North Shore maps are available at Mountain Equipment Co-op (www.mec.ca).
3. Haggle Hong Kong-style.
"I like going to Vancouver's Chinatown Night Market," says filmmaker Mina Shum, whose family emigrated from Hong Kong when she was a baby. On weekend nights from late May to mid-September, the Chinatown Merchants' Association takes over one block of Keefer Street and lines it with booths selling everything from Rolex knock-offs to rice bowls.
4. Canvass Canadian art.
For art in Vancouver, hometown artist and Generation X author Douglas Coupland recommends exploring the 10-block "gallery row" that extends south of the Granville Street Bridge.
"The row offers a full range of Canadian art," he says. Most galleries offer a free Preview guide, with a map of 19 art dealerships, including Monte Clark and Bau-Xi, the city's oldest contemporary art gallery.
5. Root for the home team.
"Our Nat Bailey Stadium is the most beautiful little ballpark I've been in," says local tailor Blair Shapera. It also boasts a bit of history: It has preserved the sod Babe Ruth struck out on in 1934 when he played at the old Athletic Park. When he isn't rooting for Vancouver's single-A Canadians, Shapera comes to watch his son Cale take the mound.
6. Beyond Gastown.
If Vancouverites admit they avoid a part of their city, they typically mean Gastown: Vancouver's oldest district, with brick-paved streets (actually laid in 1972) and "historic" steam clock (actually built in 1977), is considered tourist territory.
But city treasures lie on Gastown's fringes, including real cobbled streets and one-of-a-kind shops.
"Salmagundi West is a wonderfully curated curiosity shop with a Dickensian whiff to it," says CBC radio host Bill Richardson. His one must-see? St. James' Anglican Church. "It has the loveliest interior in Vancouver: very simple, austere, and beautiful thought out."
7. Feel the food rush.
"We try to visit the Granville Island Public Market at least once a week for the treat of shopping," says cookbook author Diane Clement.
The hub of Granville Island, Vancouver's urban renewal showpiece, the market offers some of the best eating in the city. Clement recommends handmade sausages from Oyama and soups from the Stock Market. On summertime's Thursdays, in an adjoining lot, produce is sold from trucks at the Farmer's Truck Market.
8. Get lost in translation.
Those craving a contemporary taste of Japan head to a handful of izakaya, holes-in-the-wall that serve gyoza dumplings, robata (grilled meats and vegetables) and other non-sushi delicacies.
Gyoza King, the oldest of the lot, "makes this great dish with raw tuna, chopped scallions, fermented soybeans, and a raw quail egg," says food writer Andre LaRiviere. "It is phenomenal strangely comforting food." Newer izakaya include Hapa Izakaya and Guu.
9. Head down to the farm.
Thanks to the fertile soil of the Fraser River delta, there are more than 230 square miles of farmland in the Vancouver region. "I love taking my kids to the pumpkin patch at the Westham Island Herb Farm," says Simi Sara, host of two morning programs on Citytv. "The farm sells honeys wildflower, pumpkin and jellies and jams."
The Ellis family welcomes visitors to their farm on Westham Island from May through October for everything from strawberry picking to displays of carved pumpkins. Finish a day on the island with a visit to the Reifel Bird Sanctuary, the home or stopover point for 271 avian species, including a seasonal population of snow geese.
10. Dive deep.
"People don't think there is good diving around Vancouver because they perceive the marine environment here as cold and dark," says Neil Christian, who has worked as an instructor with the International Diving Center. "But that isn't the case. In cold water, you have plenty of sea life."
Creatures on view in local waters include sixgill sharks and giant Pacific octopuses. "A busy dive site is West Vancouver's Whytecliff Park, where you have both beginner and advanced diving in one place," says Christian. "In an area called the Cut, you can see whole fields of plumose anemones."
The New York Times Syndicate
(China Daily 04/26/2007 page19)
