Vancouver is that city. The city who walks into the cafeteria and gets the biggest helping of mac and cheese, because the lunch ladies love him. His table is always the popular table, because he's there. He gets extra credit on every assignment and he doesn't even need it. He's not the star quarterback. He's not the valedictorian. But he's naturally athletic, near the top of the class, and somehow he ends up being chosen to make a speech at graduation.

How do you go wrong with a deeply forested spit of land at the delta of the Fraser river? Surrounded by stunning mountains, yet only subject to gentle hills? Protected from the whims of the Pacific (and the Pacific Plate, which rumbled to the tune of a 5.5 earthquake well offshore on Sunday morning) by an island larger than Belgium? A Northern city whose summers are cool and whose winters never drop below freezing, except on the mountains? How on earth could anyone screw that up?

We'll never know, because on so many levels, Vancouver gets it right. I spent my day in two halves. The first was entirely taken up wandering the mammoth (10% larger than Central Park, almost the size of the entire Vancouver downtown) park that crowns the peninsula upon which the city sits? Stanley Park (yes, the same Stanley of cup fame) is a majestically preserved slice of Cascadian deep woods within walking distance of beaches and luxury condos. It's an utterly entrancing park. I initially intended to spend just an hour speeding along the outside, but not only did I greatly misjudge the length, (8km taken at a stroll) but I misjudged my own interest as well. There was a lot to do. I walked along the rocks, put my feet into the harbor, was pooped on by a bird, washed my shirt off in the water, dried my shirt off on some rocks, cursed the heavens, and eventually bought a bottle of Powerade and drank it in one continuous, minute-long gulp.

The outer-walk of the park has a number of attractions. There's a gun that goes off every night at 9pm and a collection of beautiful totem poles that you already know about if anyone has sent you a postcard from Vancouver. There was man on the beach constructing Inuksuks. He was simply unbelievable at stacking stones that you would never have expected to stack. A large crowd was watching him build. By far the most hilarious sight in the park is a send-up of the famous Little Mermaid statue in Copenhagen. The Vancouver edition is a lady in a wetsuit. The sculptor has a fantastic deadpan quote that you can find online in which he denies all inspiration from The Little Mermaid statue. It's a master troll at work.

After completing the rounds of Stanley Park and enjoying part of an hour of quiet solitude in the interior, I headed back to the hostel to wash and change my clothing. After getting a haircut (the best and quickest I've ever had, from a small Asian lady) I set out exploring the downtown. As I mentioned yesterday, Vancouver's CBD is built up with apartments and office buildings, and space is running thin. The zoning here is magnificent; every luxury condo has a bottom floor devoted to retail, and it's all full and vibrant. One thing spoils the mirage. Vancouver has a large and very visible homeless population. I know nothing about local politics and the city's homeless policy, but it is clear that while Vancouver is a city of tremendous opportunity for many, it is not for a significant subset of its population. Not to mention of course, my trip has only really taken me through the city's wealthiest areas.

As it grew close to dinnertime, I made my way towards one of the city's Northern districts, an area intriguingly called "Gastown". My tourist map labeled it as a top restaurant and shopping district. This turned out to be accurate, although perhaps with the addendum that the restaurants and shops were mainly for tourists. Frankly, I'm not sure what I expected. I leeched WiFi from a closed Starbucks and looked up reviews of nearby restaurants until I settled on a nice little sushi restaurant. There, I had the pleasure of being served by two Asian women who were tremendous at their jobs. They were literally sprinting to the kitchen to fulfill orders.

Gastown actually does have an interesting history. It was the original city center of Vancouver, named after a sailor with the nickname "Gassy Jack" (it was because he was a blowhard, not what you're thinking, gosh) who founded the city's first tavern there. It burned almost completely to the ground during the Great Vancouver Fire in 1886. The area was then rebuilt with many charming stone buildings. The cobblestone streets hold an annual bike Grand Prix.

I ended my exploring by going up to the Vancouver Lookout, which is like the Calgary Tower, the Space Needle, the CN Tower, and so on. If you remember my Calgary blog, I gave a fairly dismissive treatment to the Calgary Tower because I was deathly afraid to approach the ceiling to floor windows. But the Vancouver Lookout had smaller windows, starting at my waist. This simple change made all the difference in the world. I had no fear at all. While riding up in the glass exterior elevator, however, I stayed well to the back.

I stayed a while in the tower, watching the sunset and the city lights turn on. Today's photo (the winner of a crowded field) comes from the daylight hours. One of the most fascinating aspects of Vancouver, which becomes plain from the tower, is that it is the heart of a massive metro area. 2.3 people live in the greater Vancouver area. Just 600,000 live in the city boundaries itself. Just ten km away is a large collection of high rise buildings that represents the suburb of Burnaby. Apparently visitors often mistake it for Seattle or Victoria, it's that big. The suburb of Surrey is much closer to the ground, but it's actually expected to overtake Vancouver in population in 20 years. Then, across the Vancouver harbor are the uber-wealthy enclaves of North Vancouver and West Vancouver, which have the look of Jersey City. Vancouver's downtown is tremendous, but it's eerie to realize it's surrounded by a bunch of suburban imitators.

Some days I wish I could post more photos here. Today is one of those days. I passed up on several more aerial shots, Stanley Park shots, Inuksuk shots, and some interesting ones I took of the sunset through some glass items in the gift shop.

Two stray observations before I end. One, the most popular sports team in stores is far and away the Vancouver Canucks. But #2 are the Vancouver Whitecaps, the city's MLS team. They beat the BC Lions, a CFL team, quite handily.

Second, there are a lot of Starbucks around this city. Did anyone say... Seattle!