Living the Life in Vancouver

Well folks, the road trip is going on its fifth day and we already logged over 2000 miles in our Honda Civic. If you have not figured it out yet, it takes forever to get out of Canada and more then a few tanks of gas. After leaving 100 Mile House this morning, yes that is a name of a town, we finally arrived in Vancouver this afternoon. The drive south and west was absolutely beautiful with many farms, rolling hills, and river canyons strung out along the way. Most importantly, we crossed Alexandra Bridge which absolutely made the Sister's day. She couldn't get over that they named a bridge after her....ok I am exaggerating that comment but it is always cool to pass your namesake. Unfortunately, I have a feeling that there are not many Azar bridges around but apparently there is an Azar nut company somewhere. I saw someone eating Azar nuts on an airplane once but I am getting totally off subject.
Anyway, did I mention that Vancouver is amazing, and I totally recommend visiting this city to all our readers out there......which isn't many. After arriving at the hotel and getting settled, we struck up a conversation with the concierge. Drew, the fellow's name, turned out to be a history buff and connoisseur of the city. He gave us many suggestions and ideas to keep us occupied over the next couple days. We decided to take a walk and explore the city for ourselves. Our first stop was Chinatown which happens to be the second largest Chinatown in North America.....San Fransisco has it beat. Actually Drew told us that you could consider the entire city a China Town. Some people have dubbed Vancouver Hongcouver due to the large influx of Chinese immigrants over the years particularly after Hong Kong was given to China in 1997. Many Hong Kong residents realized very quickly that Communism sucks, so they came to Vancouver. After walking around Chinatown, we decided to eat at a Chines restaurant. What a concept....well that turned out to be a horrible idea. The place we went to was disgusting. We would have been better off eating food court Chinese that you find in the mall. We were totally disappointed with the place we choose. Sometimes when you travel you strike out but that doesn't mean you give up the game. Next time, we will listen to Drew and go to the Chines restaurant right next to the hotel that he suggested even though it wasn't in Chinatown. After we ate, we took a walk around the harbor and along the coast. The walk was incredible and really showed off the beauty of Vancouver. As we were walking we ran into a film crew getting ready to shoot a Seth Rogen movie. After they saw me, they were begging me to do the movie instead of Seth but I had to politely decline. I still have five weeks of road tripping ahead of me; I don't have time for movies! All kidding aside, Vancouver is known as the Hollywood of the North and has a vibrant film industry. Vancouver's low taxes on the movie industry has attracted big screen films and high-end artists to the city. To top off the evening, we went up to the observation deck of the Harbour Centre which is one of Vancouver's tallest buildings. It offered us a majestic nighttime view of the city. All in all, our first day in Vancouver was a memorable one and we are looking forward to many more adventures in this remarkable city over the next couple of days.