Bye Bye Vancouver

After we left the aquarium, we took a slow drive around Stanley Park. It's a very large park with a beautiful scenery. We were hungry so daddy set the GPS to bring us to Chinatown for some Chinese food. We arrived and looked around for a car park and finally found one. Walked around to look for a restaurant and finally settled in a simple shop to have some rice. Wow! It sure felt like it's been a while since we've had rice.. yummy!

After lunch, we walked around Chinatown for a while then went back to the car. We spent the rest of the day driving around Vancouver looking at the sights. We got tired at once stage so we parked the car in Stanley Park and you all took a nap. Later in the afternoon, we took a drive to the Capilano Suspension Bridge. But it was too late as the opening hours was till 6pm. So we took a drive around that area and finally headed towards the airport.

We had dinner in the airport and had to wait a while more before the check in counter finally opened. Daddy asked you to pose with this "Canadian Mountie":

When we finally got to go into the departure hall, it was rather late. But our flight was only at 2am. So we wondered around the airport (which had very little to see.. and many shops were already closed). I wonder where you got your energy from. I was feeling super tired but you had the energy to run around and keep us on our toes! But the moment we boarded the plane you fell asleep even before the plane took off. As the plane was relatively empty we were given separate seats (scattered) so that we could get nearly a whole row of seats to ourselves. Of course there was no way you'd sleep or sit alone, so we both squeezed in the 2 seats beside the window.

We finally arrived in Taipei in the wee hours of the morning and we walked around a little and went back to the playground we discovered on the trip to Alaska which you kept reminding me about. Daddy took this picture of the pretty umbrellas hung on the ceiling.

At last we boarded the flight and very soon (4 hours actually) we were back in Penang.

Vancouver Aquarium

The first stop was Stanley Park where the Vancouver Aquarium is located. After finally being able to get the parking paid for our car, we headed to the entry. We were not issues a ticket to enter. Instead, we were each given this:

Yup, a stamp on our hands. First stop was the fishies... We walked around then it was soon time for the Beluga show. We headed outside and at first you insisted that you didn't want as you thought that it would be hot outside. But when you realised that the weather was really pleasant, you were quite happy to wait for the show to begin. At first I was wondering why there were so many people at the aquarium, then I realised that it was a Saturday (we lose track of the days when we're enjoying the holiday).

Waiting for the show to start in the beautiful weather

And soon the beluga show started. The handlers shared information about the belugas and introduced the 3 adult beluga and 1 baby beluga.

After the show we stopped for a quick snack before heading to watch the dolphin show. There were already lots of people standing around the pool waiting for the show to begin. So we walked around and found this platform which gave us an unobstructed view of the area where the dolphin show was being held. Yay! Daddy had amazing shots of the dolphin's acts:

We went back in for a quick look at another area and I took this picture of you. It's wonderful that the aquarium was built with "little people" like you in mind. See.. they have steps all around the aquarium for you to step on so that you can get a better view of the marine life:

One of daddy's best shots (after many tries..):

Jellyfish

We left shortly after that at around 1pm as we were feeling hungry and weren't too keen on the snacks sold in the aquarium.

Bye Bye Diamond Princess

As we were going of disembark the ship with all our luggage, we had to wake up early and finish the last minute packing before heading to the Explorers Lounge and wait for the call to disembark the ship. Here's the final few shots daddy took of the scenery from the ship before we left:

The Lion Gate Bridge early in the morning

As we approached the harbour

The ship has docked

We pulled the bags off the ramp and cleared immigration and we're now in Vancouver, Canada. After finally clearing immigration, we wandered around looking for the car rental. Ah Ma had already pre-booked a car for the day. After making the calls, we found out that we had to take a taxi to the car rental. So we hopped into 2 taxis and off we went. After a rather long wait, we finally got the car. And off we went for the first place on our itinerary.

Second Last Day on Diamond Princess

Today is our last day on the ship. We are at sea the whole day and the first thing daddy saw was this:

The embarking of the British Columbia pilots

We spent the day wondering around the ship, having a yummy lunch by the pool. And while we went to the Kidz Zone for some fun with the other kids (yes WE because you insisted that I had to go with you) daddy got these shots:

There were quite a few children there I guess because it was a day at sea. And it was ice-cream day. So when the time came, the carers did a quick check for allergy and then we were all bundled up and headed to Deck 14 for ice-cream. Soon it was 5pm and we headed back to our room. We spotted them:

Dall's Porpoises swimming with the ship

We had our final dinner and filled up the nomination form for our two wonderful waiters who were just wonderful throughout our dinners in the ship. We tried to get an early night as we had to wake up early the next day for self-disembarkation.