The Demise of a View

 

Last year on my birthday, and again this year, it seemed like we dined at the top of the world overlooking the breadth of Vancouver in a full 360-degree circle from atop the Empire Landmark Hotel in its revolving Cloud 9 Restaurant.  Next year, it will not exist.  At the end of September-the hotel, the restaurant, and the view will be gone.  The building is being demolished.  It will be replaced with condominiums.  Then, only a few will enjoy the spectacular vista this site afforded.

In just a year since our first visit, it seems that much of older Vancouver is being demolished for high-rise, high-priced buildings.  At $500 per square foot (as best as we can determine the going rate to be currently)-only the well endowed will enjoy the pleasure of downtown living in Vancouver.

Nevertheless,  is a lovely place.  The city streets are pleasant to walk.  The restaurants are plentiful and varied.  The cultural options, like museums and plays, are enticing.  As I said earlier, the trees and parks, such as Stanley Park, are divine.  If I won the lottery, I'd be first in line for the next new condominium.

In spite of the restaurant's impending final curtain, dinner was delicious.  Resigned to their ultimate fate, the staff were attentive.  Some will retire.  Others said they plan to move elsewhere.  Night after night, some have been there enjoying their clientele and the view for more than twenty years.  Like them, I will miss what I have enjoyed, if only for two.

There is another revolving restaurant in Vancouver.  This may prove to be yet another adventure if we continue the tradition of traveling to Vancouver in July.  It may be even dreamier than this and with the same magnificent sunset.  Only time will tell.

If it is, I'll share the experience with you.  

Stanley Park, Vancouver, BC

Stanley Park, in Vancouver, British Columbia, is remarkable for its size (1,000 acres), its foliage and its extensive walking/jogging trails.  It is situated on a peninsula and nearly surrounded by English Bay and Vancouver Harbor.  A circular drive along its waterfront allows drivers, bikers, roller skaters, and walkers to mingle freely, and safely along specified pathways, in a serene environment at the edge of a major metropolitan city.  Like Hong Kong, Vancouver's skyscrapers rise like an impenetrable wall to the south.  Yet, Stanley Park gives the city's residents an escape to the forest.

Anyone living in the city would be hard pressed to avoid a daily stroll or ride along its paths.  The park feels safe and inviting.  Were it not for the $1000/square foot real estate price for entry into this city, I could live within walking distance of the park in a heartbeat.  Even the occasional tram or bus load of passing tourists, from the city or from the cruise ships anchored in Vancouver Harbor, don't detract from the allure of this place.  The movie industry also covets the mystique of this place.

Along the route of our travel through the park, we stopped for a view of Native North American art rendered in the form of totem poles.  These hold a particular fascination for Jimmy, who possesses an array of wood carving tools, and a desire to duplicate one of the totem poles.  Nearby this display are lawn bowling greens, and a broad expanse of grass that begs for a soccer match or a game of fetch with one's dog.

For thousands of years the park was inhabited by indigenous peoples.  Beginning in 1858, the land was re-occupied by British colonists in search of gold in the Fraser Canyon.  When the city of Vancouver was incorporated in 1886, the park was officially created.  This act preserved around half a million trees, hundreds of years old, with some standing as tall as two hundred and fifty feet!  The only danger the trees have faced in the last one hundred years have been three serious winter storms blowing in across English Bay that toppled many.  Wise-minded guardians of the park have replaced them.

Now take a stroll through Stanley Park with us...

    

Queen Elizabeth Park

We made a stop at Queen Elizabeth Park located along our route into downtown Vancouver today before checking into our hotel.  Like Butchart Gardens, this municipal park has been reclaimed from the overgrown hillsides of a rock quarry once used for building the city's first roadways in the early 1900s.  Before the arrival of Europeans, this site was an old growth forest, and home to gray wolves, elk and bears with a salmon stream running through it.  None of these creatures are found there today, nor is the old growth forest.

 
Finding ourselves with some time available for exploration, our quest was to see how this site compared with our favorite park in Victoria-Butchart Gardens.  The answer is, only to some degree.  The meticulous maintenance of Butchart Gardens with its wide variety of plants outshines this municipal park, but it is evident that Queen Elizabeth Park holds its own in popularity.  The paths were well populated with visitors.  There is no entrance fee which is a plus.

The paths wind up and down through several garden areas and through several stands of trees.  A small waterfall and some ponds adorn the park grounds creating several attractive photo sites.  There are expansive views of downtown Vancouver with its surrounding mountain ranges near the park's restaurant.  A few steps away is the Bloedel Floral Conservatory with its exotic plants, flowers and tropical birds.  We enjoyed a bronze statue of a photographer with his three subjects situated between these two buildings, then watched a child play in a water fountain nearby.  A bride and groom held our attention as their real life photographer took pictures of them in the lower gardens.

Notably, the surrounding blocks of homes near the park are being bought up and demolished.  New apartment buildings are rising in their footprints.  It is strange to pass block after block of boarded up homes awaiting their demise.  Even more amazing are the "Sold Out" signs pasted across each development's signage.  Vancouver is in demand.  Construction is booming both here and downtown.  Apartment or condominium living is becoming the norm.  In a very short period of time, the older homes with their tree adorned yards will be gone, just like the old growth forest of Queen Elizabeth Park.