Vancouver and my plans

I think Rio has been bumped from the top spot of my favourite cities. I think the top spot is now filled by Western Canada's Vancouver. I know the latter doesn't have the nightlife of Rio, but you may have guessed from this blog that's not high on my list of priorities. What Vancouver has, is well everything. From beautiful snow capped mountains in the distance, to close by Grouse Mountain, beaches, parks, a wonderfully condensed downtown and residential neighbourhoods with great shopping and outdoor sports shops galore. It also feels like everything is well designed in Vancouver, everything feels close, people even seem to dress better. Okay maybe I'm exaggerating but it's great to visit a large city, with all the amenities of a large city and yet find friendly people and natural beauty. I can see why it was recently voted as the number one place to live in the world. Can you believe I developed these feelings for the city in a day and a half?
I stayed at the Hi Jericho Beach. I originally booked here to have a few relaxing days figuring out what to do next. But as I mentioned in the last post, I'm booked on a 5 day sea kayaking trip from tomorrow, so I've spent all of today making the trip across to Vancouver Island and then across to Quadra Island, where I am now. This meant leaving the hostel at 6am, walking 20 minutes to a bus stop, taking two buses, first to downtown and then to Horseshoe Bay for a ferry connection to Nanaimo on Vancouver Island. The crossing took about one and a half hours. I then waited two hours for a connecting bus service to Campbell River (another hour and a half journey) and from there a ten minute ferry ride across to Quadra Island. Thankfully I met some really nice people on the trip and have arrived with time to pack for my departure tomorrow. I've booked a taxi for the ride to Coastal Spirits tomorrow morning, I'm slightly concerned to see the taxi has been parked outside the pub next door for several hours. Oh well.
I realise I haven't posted about the Grand Canyon, but I've been particularly busy the last few days.
I did take some photo's of the ferry crossing, but for some reason deleted them while watching Spiderman. Well at least now I'll have plenty of room on my memory card for photographs.
Hopefully I'll be back online Friday or Saturday with some photo's and stories of my kayaking adventure.