Our Vancouver Visit: Our (Old) Neighbourhood (Again)

We keep finding ourselves drawn back to our old neighbourhood to eat, walk, and enjoy the familiar surroundings. Today we joined the always-out-the-door line at Kintaro:
As usual, it was worth the wait to slurp up wonderful noodles in spectacular broth. I don't know how long it takes them to make their soup stock, but it's wonderfully nuanced and rich--we always emerge from Kintaro glowing from ramen contentment. We wanted to walk off some of our lunch, so we decided to head into Stanley Park, where one of the trees uprooted in the December windstorm is now a twisty, animal-like sculpture next to the seawall:
We passed by the marina
and stopped in at the free viewing area of the aquarium to visit our friends the sea lion
and the seals.
Herons dotted the shoreline all around the seawall, fishing to satiate the new heron chicks squawking in their nests.

Since the far side of the seawall is still closed due to the windstorm, we decided to cut into the park toward Beaver Lake.
The lake was as lovely and serene as ever:
Regular readers will recall Bob's penchant for "talking" with squirrels, and the squirrels around Beaver Lake were no exception.
As we made our way through the park on trails that we have walked many times in the past, we began to fully realize the extent of the windstorm damage. Areas that were previously fully shaded by the dense canopy were now bright with sunlight and while the path used to give us the sense of being completely isolated from the nearby city, we didn't quite get that feeling today. At one point, we came across a tree that had fallen directly across the path; only the central section had been cut away, leaving the rest of the immense tree intact.
As a reminder of the amount of time represented in this single tree, someone had marked the dates of its rings, estimating that the tree had lived for 800 years before the windstorm pulled it out of the ground.
Many other trees along the path showed the sheer force of those December winds,
but we were happy to see other impressive trees that had survived the storm.
We cut all the way across the park, emerging at the picture-perfect view over Third Beach,
briefly walking on the seawall again
before cutting back in toward Lost Lagoon, where a common Stanley Park sight greeted us:

After our long walk, we had some great coffee at Melriches, just up the road from the park. After getting used to Monmouth coffee in London, it's nice to be reminded that Vancouver has some pretty great coffee too--and you don't have to pay extra to have your coffee "to stay" like you almost always do in London, which is a nice bonus!