English Bay

The main point of the weekend, or at least the thing that everything is planned around, is the Celebration of Light fireworks show Saturday evening over English Bay. There will be two more shows this coming week, but those folks don't realize that it is going to be really hot and incredibly smoky - so we're glad we reserved this weekend. We stay at the Sylvia, right across the street, and there are thousands of food options in the neighborhood, which makes it all very easy.

The challenge is always figuring out where the tide will be when the show actually happens - the tide is typically rising on these summer evenings. We want to be in the front row. If we're too high, there will be folks in front of us. If we're too low, we'll get wet, and by then there won't be any place to retreat to, since several hundred thousand people will have filled in behind us. But despite M's apprehensions, we got it right. People who set up in front of us had to move and we still had a few feet of dry sand between us and the water when the show ended.

When we first started doing this, the show was sponsored by Benson and Hedges, but that was a problem in the politically sensitive northwest. HSBC took over for awhile, as I recall. Now Honda is the main sponsor. It's set up as a competition among national fireworks teams (are there really such things?) - this night was put on my Japan and they did a very nice job. One of the things we like about being up close is that you see so much more of the low level stuff and the choreography - not just the big blasts high in the sky.

Here are links to a couple of our earlier trips:
2008: English Bay
2006: English Bay

Stanley Park

When D was young (heck, we were all young), we came up here every summer for a weekend at the Sylvia Hotel, a bike ride around Stanley Park, and the fireworks. I guess that routine ended when D began high school, so while we've been back to Vancouver many times, we've done it differently.

But this year M and I decided to come back - we pretty much picked up the routine where we left off - albeit without D. The bike ride was great - thought a bit crowded. The weather was wonderful.

Writing this a week later, I'd note that right after we left, the heat went up and the smoke from the BC forest fires blew in, and the last week was probably not very pretty up there (or down here, either).

Kitsilano

We checked into the Sylvia, dropped off our bikes in the storage room, and made some last minute decisions about dinner. Which led us to Kitsilano, on the other side of English Bay.

We walked along Sunset Beach, hopped on the water taxi below the Burrard Bridge, and then walked up to Oddfish on 1st Avenue. Oddfish is among the newer of Vancouver's 2000-3000 great restaurants - it only opened earlier this summer. It had a nice neighborhood vibe - we sat outside and felt we were the only customers who weren't chatting with their friends as they walked past.

We caught the last little ferry back to the other side and walked back along Sunset Beach (appropriately name) to the hotel - well, I guess we stopped so I could get ice cream first.

English Bay

I had plenty of time Saturday morning to drive into Vancouver and walk from the Burrard Bridge along the shore to Denman, checking out beaches, outdoor sculpture, and old haunts.

It looks like they've updated the setting of the A-maze-ing Laughter sculpture in the triangular plaza where Denman and Davie converge on English Bay. I love most public art, but few pieces are as funny as this. And there are several neat sculptures down at Sunset Beach.

A-maze-ing Laughter (Yue Minjun)

Engagement (Dennis Oppenheim)

Inukshuk (Alvin Kanak)

217.5Arc x 13 (Bernar Venet)

Delany's was an early morning routine when we used to come up for the fireworks and stay at the Sylvia.  D and I would play chess here in the morning, until he reached middle school and preferred to stay in bed. But I kept going back, and although we haven't stayed at the Sylvia in many years, I always enjoy spending time when I'm here, with coffee, my notebook, and a Vancouver paper.

Previous posts from English Bay

English Bay

We haven't stayed at the Sylvia Hotel since our last fireworks trip in 2008, but it's still a favorite hangout in Vancouver. After Lynn Canyon, we headed back into the city and camped out for an hour and half in the bar with some appetizers and a beer, reading, and enjoying the wonderful sun break over English Bay.

A few years ago, I ran into Cheryl Wheeler's song about the Sylvia Hotel. It's not exactly a happy song, but any song about a place we've come to know well can't exactly be sad.

English Bay

Vancouver's West End is one of the densest residential neighborhoods on the west coast - although in the last twenty years some of the city's other districts may have pulled ahead.  There's a remarkable combination of old and new, of houses and apartment buildings, of tree-lined streets and commercial strips.  And then there's English Bay and Stanley Park.

I took a quick lunchtime walk down to the Hotel Sylvia and the beach.  I bought a latte at Delaney's and sat on a bench in the rain.  It was very pleasant and very different than those summer weekends when we've stayed at the Sylvia and watched the fireworks with 300,000 other people.

Previous posts:  English Bay 2008, English Bay 2006

Vancouver

Every year, we go back to the Sylvia and to English Bay for the fireworks. This year the weather started a little gray but kept getting better all day. A huge crowd, as usual, but we had front row seats, as usual.

The seawall was reopened so we did our regular loop, then D headed off for the room and the TV, while I rented a kayak down at the beach for an hour or two.

Vancouver

Back to Vancouver and the Sylvia Hotel for fireworks, bike riding, and food. For the tenth year in a row, we set up our front row seats on the beach. This year's pyrotechnics were provided by the Canadian team. We couldn't ride the entire loop around Stanley Park this year since it is still closed between Siwash Rock and the Lion's Gate Bridge from last December's storm.

English Bay

I walked down Denman to English Bay several times this week - our annual stays at the Sylvia make this place seem a bit like home. A falafel sandwich one night sitting on a bench at the beach and a late afternoon (when these pictures were taken) stroll admiring the beach when there aren't 400,000 people lining up to watch fireworks (see blog from last August). Thursday morning - the last day of the conference - I got up early and had coffee at Delany's before going over to the Sylvia for breakfast. I wish I'd had my camera - beautiful light on the freighters in the bay and just incredibly relaxing (and much cheaper than the conference hotel, too).

English Bay

Nine years makes it a routine. The Sylvia Hotel, fireworks on the beach, and biking around Stanley Park. The only variable is the tides, which tonight were supposed to peak right during the show. We staked out our place based on my best guess, with 40 feet of dry sand between us and the sea at 5PM. M was reluctant to trust my optimistic judgement, while D gleefully predicted my doomed reputation as a coastal geologist. We got the tide right on, and despite some concern about a few little waves, we stayed dry.