Saturday in Vancouver

On saturday we picked up the car eventually, our b&b owner wasnt the most helpful. We had told him when we arrived that we wanted a car and what day, he said leave it with me.. which resulted in picking up the car at 12pm saturday afternoon, we werent impressed I can tell you that!

After picking up the car we drove straight over to Granville island just south of vancouver, its a small piece of land (still attached) with a big fishing influence and lots of market stalls and shops. We parked quite a distance away and walked into the centre of the island where all the stalls and the indoor market was, it was originally intended for us to just check out and spend a little time there. With us being super late because of the car it looked like we would spend even less time there, but we were there for quite awhile and I wish we could have stayed longer. Maybe next time, insha'allah. Anyways, we walked over the water which was very pretty and into the area of the shops and habour, sort of got ourselves sorted with where we actually were and headed in THAT direction. We found a cute little hammock shop on the island which I have always wanted.. maybe when I live in the sun I can get one for the back porch.. what?? cant I dream?! insha'allah of course ;P Then we grabbed the nicest fish and chips I have tasted in a lot time masha'allah, the chips were the nicest Ive tasted in North america and the fish was soo fresh with hardly any batter on and straight from the water. It was nice to have something that fresh, and yes I ate it! cant go all the way over there and not have the fish, as much as people are screaming thats not a true vegetarian! 'get a life!!!' We wandered around a little more and spent 20 minutes watching some dude play with fire sticks and climb on top of some little tower made of a skateboard and several different pieces of piping, WITH firesticks!! I took a little video of him, he was funny. Tiny little guy :P Then we wandered back to the car, saw some ladies about to pay for the parking ticket so I offered them ours as we paid for the whole day cause we thought it would be cheaper. They were nice girls, asked how much we wanted, we declined obviously to which she replied.. 'wow, us girls rock' which i thought was pretty cool alhamdulillah.

After the island we drove north to the capilano suspension bridge which is masha'allah amazing. I took most of my pics there on my film camera, so waiting to get them back but I still have some to post. We spent a good few hours there in all the different trails and little bridges within the park which was pretty cool. We saw 2 little chipmunks having a little fight which was funny.. there was also alot of rocking on the bridge, from the website I thought it was very stable (which i was unimpressed at) but alhamdulillah it was moving everywhere. My friend got used to it for the way back but some people were really terrified. After we finished here we got back in the car and drove about 5 minutes to Grouse mountain which was pretty cool. This picture is at the top of the mountain and you can see the wires for the cable car that you ride up there. The ride took about 6 minutes, we were such tourists complaining that it was too quick and not enough chance to take in the scenery. I was amazed at the snow up there, I originally thought it would be very icey, but after a few pics and some time playing I found out it wasnt at all which was nice. Since getting back into snowboarding I really miss the snow now :( which is something I never thought I would say. We had a little food up there too, our table was next to the window so we had a lovely view of vancouver from there while we ate which was nice masha'allah. Not something you will be able to do everyday, unless you live there of course, there were a few people in the cable car dressed up all fancy too so I assume that in the end it just turns to be one of those places that you go to for a posh meal. Although its an expensive $37 taxi ride away and thats per person!!! I wonder if the close residents actually get passes or some sort of discount, I know I wouldnt go up there often for that price! The view was a amazing though and highly recommended if you want the scenery pictures, although it was freezing up there and I mean cold! we saw the bears on top of this mountain (check out the video I uploaded) behind a big cornered off area obviously heehee, but was nice to see masha'allah.
We got home late after this little adventure but was nice to sit back down and just take everything in after such an exhausting 2 days, alhamdulillah. Then it was time to plan our next day which was a trip up to whistler so another early start :D Thats the next post.
Peace and salams, Ammena