Our Vancouver Visit: Familiar Ground

My cold is a bit better today, so we headed down to our old neighbourhood for a few hours. Our first stop was (predictably) for sushi on Davie Street. Samurai Sushi isn't quite as good as Shiro, but it's cheaper and still pretty great. I stuck with sushi

while Bob had a bento box which included the largest California rolls we've ever seen.

After sushi, we stopped for a bit of gelato on Denman Street at Mondo Gelato. While their dark chocolate was Bob's favourite when we lived in Vancouver, his love of Mondo was sullied a bit today after realizing that their chocolate absolutely pales in comparison with Berthillon's. "Just what does Berthillon do to make theirs so great?" Bob wondered aloud. Oh well, I guess we'll just have to go to Paris again to try to figure that out! From Denman Street, it was just a few blocks to our old street

and only a block more to our beloved Stanley Park. We decided to drive around the park first, to take in the beautiful views

as well as to see some of the windstorm damage the park sustained back in December.

While this tree was one of the largest uprooted trees we saw, even more striking were the areas that only had a few standing trees where there was previously such dense forestation that it would have been impossible to count individual trees. Prospect Point was especially sad, completely destroyed by wind. "The park will never be the same in our lifetimes," Bob said, and that comment set the mood for the rest of the drive around the park. After our drive, we decided to raise our moods and get out of the car to do a walk we've done many, many times: around Lost Lagoon and then out to the Pacific Ocean at Second Beach, then around the seawall to English Bay. It's a beautiful walk, and only two minutes from our old apartment. The lagoon was in lovely form today,

with nesting swans

and turtles crowding every rock in the water.

The view from the seawall is always beautiful

and English Bay was peaceful on this very warm day.

Although three days into our visit, we already miss aspects of London, our neighbourhood, and our flat, with a neighbourhood like our old one, it's difficult not to get sentimental about Vancouver, our old neighbourhood, and our old apartment too!