Stanley park and such

Next we arrived in Stanley park and tried to navigate ourselves around, see me and one of my many trusty maps :) When we figured out what we actually wanted to see we headed off in... erm.. that direction ;) We saw lots on the island, just its an island with a road through that takes you from downtown Vancouver to north Vancouver and its amazing. Its a park within a city, every city should have one in my opinion :) Anyways, what did we do?? well we wandered around for a bit getting a little lost with all the different trails on the island. We walked abit and took in a little of the scenery from the side of the water. It amazed me at how dumbfounded I was by the amount of water around there, I suppose I have forgotten what its like to be next to the water :( and that saddens me a little. So we sat and talked a little about the mountains that you can see in the background of this pic, we discussed where to head to next and had some fun on the beach :D it was only a little bit of sand but fun still. Alot of the time we were just in awe at the beauty that Allah (swt) has laid on this earth that we take for granted every day. We stopped at the infamous totem poles in the park that have been moved around from one place to another, there were little plaques there to tell you the story behind each one. We also got into a little tiny argument about what something meant on one of them too, to the point that apparently a lady was stood there just listening to us, heehee. We climbed tree stumps :) well she did, I just took pictures. We also found the rose garden that wasnt really up to much at that time of the year which was a little disappointing but what can you do?! It was pretty and very peaceful there, probably because there were no roses. Then we pottered around, there was more walking involved inbetween these sights and there was also a big sit down at one point to take in the mountains and the lake (from opposite sides on a field) masha'allah.. truly amazing. I could have sat there all day and it reminded me of being in Hertfordshire when I would sit in a park all day, with either friends of h2b :) that was nice, I cant wait to get back into that insha'allah.
After Stanley park we got back on the bus and wandered through Chinatown, which is amazing by the way!! Ive seen china towns before, was overcome at the one in Toronto, but this is by far the most amazing one Ive seen yet alhamdulillah. These are the gates to enter the town, everything is in chinese, even the street signs and signs on the stores. We wandered into a few little shops before being pointed in the direction of a restaurant to eat our tea :D (evening meal) That whole experience was interesting to say the least... mainly because of the people around us and their conversations, but that is something else and I pray that I remember that time for the rest of my life from this blog. It was a nice vegetarian meal and we didnt eat it all so decided to pack it into several little containers and give it out to the people on the streets if they would have it insha'allah. Ive never done this before and my friend told me there were ways to do it and we shouldnt assume they will take it because they too have options like us. In the end we found 2 people who were involved in the street programs to look after those homeless around that area, so we gave it to them and prayed our intentions would be rewarded and someone would have some food that evening. It was weird.. as we handed over the food and turned around, I got quite emotional and I dont know why.
After this we got back on the bus and headed over to the lookout for the evening pictures (which I posted in the last blog) then we wandered around for a little bit and went for coffee. We found a little coffee house, a chain no doubt that served some nice stuff.. Im sat at the back in the photo so with the long glass mug is my London Fog, which is earl grey tea, vanilla and hot frothy milk yummy, and a slice of lemon cake which was lovely. We stayed in the coffee shop, after getting some comfy seats, for about 2 hours and I had such fun. These are the times I enjoyed the most, when we could just sit back and enjoy the surroundings, people keep asking me about my best times, I swear it was when we were sat down in a park, coffee shop, on the bus, just watching the world go by without having to think about anything. Alhamdulillah.... After coffee it took us far to long to get back to the b&b, the bus never came so we ended up getting a taxi back and there are a few stories about our time at the bus stop too :P but thats for face to face stories :D For now thats the end of this post :D Salams