Sightseeing in Vancouver

Well time for more updates from my Vancouver vacations, nothing exciting if you are looking for star sightings but I had fun with the stuff I DID see.

Tuesday, Sept 9th 2009

I intended to go sightseeing that day but made plans with a cool Supernatural/Twilight fan from Kansas, named Angela, to go back to Granville Island to the "V" set as she is a Lost fan too! So we went to the "V" set. We did waited for a bit hoping to see Elisabeth Mitchell but she wasn't on the set when we arrived, but we made friends with one of the PA's on the set, a lovely lady named Lynn who actually pulled out the call sheet and told us when EM was on set! So we hung around for a bit. Finally she did come on set but turns out she was filming a scene on the stairs on that set so not a great visibility for Angela, nor did we manage to get to talk to her. Shame for Angela but she was still happy. She had atleast seen her!

Some pics from the "V" set that day:

This sign with warning about the filming going on cracked me up so I had to take a pic of it lol, guess I'll be watching ep. 2 of this show and keep a keen eye on ppl in the FAR background..I may be in it lol

Here is a pic of the main set without all the ppl:

The street they filmed it on 2nd st near the entry to Granville Island was dressed up to look like a street from New York City, pretty funny to see NYPD cop cars and NYC taxis...in Vancouver lol

They even had the sales stands that ppl who has been to NYC surely must recognize lol.

Then after a bit we decided to get going as she had gotten the address of a Supernatural set up in Delta, just outside Vancouver. About 30 min drive from where we were. It turned out to be longer for us cos we spotted some more sets on the way there, went by one of them which turned out to be a kiddie movie set for "Diary of a Wimpy kid" or something like that. Turns out it is from another successful book series of the same name. I have never heard about it, but we were told it sold like 20 mill. copies in the US?? ohhkayy... We asked who was there and was told mostly kids around 12 years old, cute but er..NOT what we were looking for :p so we left hehe.

After a bit more driving we arrived to the set, thanks to Angela's GPS lol. Sadly though Jared and Jensen (two main leads in Supernatural for those not watching the series) had left the set hrs ago. So we didn't stick around much, we did however snapped some pics and by doing that we got proof of the set guys really DID tell us the truth and not telling us BS to scare us off. They didn't seem to care how much we snapped pics. So no big secret there apparently.

Pics from the Supernatural set, I do believe this from episode 6 season 5 they are currently filming:

The car has a sticker that says Supernatural filming production or something so had to take a pic of that lol

Not sure if this will show up in the episode but I took this pic anyways from inside the car as we drove buy, it was raining outside:

Some pics of the actual house, the house was hidden behind alot of trees so I did the best I could with pics...freakin trees covering it! lol

After that excitement it was time to head back to the hotel, I got back to mine, ate some lunch and chilled for a bit. then headed out to meet up with my friend Summerstone from Twitter and we hung out until it started to get dark.

Wednesday, Sept. 2nd 2009

Time to do some serious sightseeing in Vancouver. I opted for the hop on hop off trolley tour. I enjoyed this, this tour is divided into 2 loops, one blue that covers Granville Island, Vanier Park, Yaletown, Chinatown, Gastown etc...and the red loop covers Stanley Park, English Bay, some of the swankier hotel sites and so on. LOVED the driver's stories and humorous comments hehe. I did go off the blue tour at Gastown and had lunch there at the Old Spaghetti Factory. Nice choice. Nice area too but that was in the daytime as I trust the locals when they say do NOT go there alone in the evening. When you are visiting a city ALWAYS listen to what the locals say about which areas are safe and which ones aren't. I have yet to be hurt on my travels cos I listen to what ppl tell me to do and take no unnecessary chances! Took some pics of course of the sites we went by, I didn't hop off at many places cos well most places you had to pay admission and the coupon book we got on the trolly tour was mostly for restaurants and you had to spend so and so much to use them, pffff lol

Some pics taken on the "blue loop" of the tour:

Vanier Park, this is the Space Museum, and no the roof is not supposed to be an UFO as I thought, apparently it a replica or symbol of a hat used by one of the local native tribes in this area:

A locomotive that is displayed in the Roundhouse, Yaletown. It was open for the public on this day:

More of Roundhouse, Yaletown. This was one of the first buildings built after the big fire that burnt down then entire small town of Vancouver in 1886. After that fire when the city was rebuilt it was a rule that the houses were to be made of fire resistant material, bricks etc.

BC Place where Bon Jovi has played, this is where the open and closing ceremony of the 2010 Olympic Winter Games in Vancouver, BC, Canada will take place, also AC/DC played here last Saturday...which I did not know until too late otherwise I'd gotten tix! This stadium capacity is 60 000 ppl. The roof there is a teflon roof and it is held up by fans constantly blowing towards it to keep it up. They were suppose to build a retractable roof over it but reports now say that it may not happen as it is too pricey, time will tell what happens I guess. Next to it is the GM place also the official home of the Canucks, one of Canada's hockey teams. (not pictured here though), venue capacity here is 20 000. Bon Jovi has played there too on their earlier tours I believe.

Edgewater Casino:

Library Square on Homer and Robson st. the building is mostly in glass, and in the front alot of local performers, demonstrations, artists and so on are entertaining etc the bystanders. Speeches even are done there.

Towards Chinatown:

This building is in the Guinness Book of world records due to be the narrowest building in the world. It only is 1.8 meters deep (about 6 feet). They even have a sticker or sign from Guinness stating this:

Here you see how deep it is, not very deep LOL.

Gastown, which name comes from "Gassy Jack" which was a nickname for a Yorkshire born gentleman named John Deighton who talked the workers there into helping him build a bar there so they could drink all the whiskey they could. The bar was up in 24 hrs and called the Globe Saloon. It is no longer there as it burned down in the big fire. But a statue of Gassy Jack is there:

This is also the oldest intersection in Vancouver. The nickname "Gassy Jack" isn't cos the guy loved to "break wind" but cos he was a motormouth, aka a chatterbox lol.

The Gastown steam clock which I heard go off without seeing it at first and wondered what the hell the noise was, when I saw it and read the sign on it I got why I heard that funny sound lol. How it works can be found here

This isn't of any historical value but it was a sign outside a bar in Gastown I had to take a pic of, as the comment or saying on it cracked me up lol, one side:

and the other side:

Gotta love this kind of humor lol!

Gastown is reportedly the fave "hangout" place for the Twilight cast members as "everyone" seems to know they used to hang out in Yaletown. However it is NOT recommended to go to Gastown alone after dark as it is a "dangerous area". Highly recommended to cab it to the place you want to go to and when it is time to leave wait for the cab to pick you up INSIDE the bar/club you are at. It is however perfectly fine in the daytime. Worth a visit in the daytime IMO. Yaletown on the other hand is safe at any time of the day or night.

Then it is time for the sights from the "red loop" of the trolley tour:

First off the start of it at Canada Place, as you see there is a huge IMAX theatre here too:

This building will be used as a media center for the media during the Winter Olympics 2010. It has a "live roof" as in grass and plants on the roof. You can actually see it from Stanley Park too (which I'll show later) and to me it reminded me of the Opera House in Oslo, Norway for some reason, must have been the contours of the building.

This is a huge gallery Downtown Vancouver, unfortunately I forgot the name of it:

Stanley Park, Vancouver:

This park is actually BIGGER in acres than Central Park in NYC! They have imported the black squirrels from Central Park into Stanley Park due to some connection in the past I cannot remember, but if you are interested in finding out about the park and it's history this is a good site for info, Stanley Park

There was several stops on this, I only got a few pics, one stop was Totem Poles but didn't get pics of them this day, I did however go back there on Thursday Sept. 3rd. (more on that later), and got pics. So for now here are some random pics from the Rose garden part of the park:

This shot is nearby an amphitheater there, not sure what the story is behind the statues in the pic cos I forgot lol.

I couldn't resist and took this pic of JBJ's "Fave birds" (not really lol) some Canadian geese lol

Some more random pics from Stanley Park:

What can I say, I love horses!

I believe this is Sequoia Grill at Stanley Park

Prospect Point at Stanley Park

Some Vancouver skyline view from Stanley Park

Same buidling with that will be used as a media center for the Winter Olympics and here you can see how it looks like from the waterfront, this view is from Stanely Park.

Lions Gate Bridge, view from Stanley Park

"Bird's eye view" of Lions Gate Bridge.

Then final pics from the "red loop" this day, English Bay, and the other day here Robert Pattinson had been spotted somewhere here. It leaked out on the radio that he was there and I suspect he was LONG GONE by then lol.

Saw this on the way there:

Finally English bay

I enjoyed the tour though. Then I had a quiet night at my hotelroom and went to bed.

Thursday, Sept. 3rd. 2009

This is today as I am typing this. Today is the day when I finally was gonna meet my longtime Bon Jovi buddy and one of the MAIN reasons why I actually came to Vancouver. He came to my hotel around 11:30 and was sweet to drive me around to whatever sights I wanted to see. So we went back to Stanley Park cos I wanted to take a closer look at the Totem Poles there. Got some cool pics of them. And low and behold they were friggin filming there too! What was filming? NO clue as we didn't bother to ask, we were too busy chatting Native American arts and Bon Jovi and he told me about his job etc! It was GREAT to see him again and he gave me the bestest hug as I remembered it from before LOL.

The Totem Poles in Stanley Park:

And another view of Vancouver from the Stanley Park side, took this while Jon was on the phone with some client :-).

He took me to 2 main Bon Jovi sites here in Vancouver. Where they were recording Slippery When Wet, New Jersey and Keep The Faith. The studio is Little Mountain Studios but now it was just a building even though the name was still there. Not sure what it is is for now. I was surprised how LITTLE it was, it is like some "nobody place" but PERFECT for a hugely popular band to hide out when recording! I loved it!

Little Mountain Studios, and well..me LOL

Then it was off to see the "birthplace" for the name "Slippery When Wet" which as any longtime Jovi fan and probably those new ones who did their research of the band's history know by now, The No 5 Orange Showroom Pub which is a strip bar where the boys hung out. They saw some stripper taking a shower onstage, all soaped up and the boys being young, lil drunk and horny were all like "wow I bet that's wet..." and one thing lead to another and they came up with the title "Slippery When Wet". So to the more new fans out there, NO it is not from the street signs that reads "Slippery When Wet" lol. My buddy told me that the area there is shady but since I wasn't alone and daytime I didn't feel unsafe really.

Me outside the No 5 Orange Showroom Pub

Then this pic is taken by @ThatDamJonGuy (Jon on twitter) on his blackberry, which he did tweet asap it was taken lol:

He also took me by Gastown as there were some sights there where the boys hung out but the place no longer exists. Same with another club they hung out at. But still it was cool going by the old Jovi haunts in Vancouver. Even passed by Marble Arch club that is being used in Motley Cruë's video "Girls Girls Girls" if I remember my friend's story correctly.

Then tonight I went out to have dinner with Anna from Australia, who I met outside the cast hotel during my first week's stay. It is her last night here and she's off to Australia tomorrow.

So that is all the excitement today really lol.