Kitsilano

I had to pick up my health card which had been mailed to my temporary post office box in the Kitsilano district of Vancouver. So I piled the pups into the truck and headed on up.

I've been trying to figure out the best way to get from here to there. So far, no way has cost less than hour or not involved getting struck in urban traffic at some point. Today's route, along the boundary line and then up highway 99 which turns into Oak Street is probably the best, although it still takes a long time.

Kitsilano is in the western end of Vancouver nestled between Granville Island to the immediate east and the University of B.C., on the city's jutting promonitory point to the west. It is an architecturally eclectic, demographically mixed neighbourhood of students, elderlies and upscale yuppies. The overall sense is: quiet and trendy.

Bowhow Box & Berkeley Bungalow

The main drag is West Fourth Street which is a non descript, fairly ugly commercial strip containing a mix of book-stores, health spas, bistros, cheapo import shops, home & futon stores, Lexis dealerships and second hand stores. In fact the Salvation Army store and the BMW show room stand face to face. The Mexican restaurant looked like it had passable norteño food with (they said) an entré or two from Oaxaca or Yucatan. Several doors down there was a French bistro, offering first and second "assietes" and a fixed price dinner for $26.00. I took note.

Kitsilano Beach Park (Low Key & Very High Dollar)

Away from Fourth street, everything becomes rather sedate and relaxed. Even in leaf-bare winter the trees have an emollient effect. I walked the doggies around and they were quite happy to sniff the wealth of doggie news insensible to us but evident to them.

We walked on over to the "Beach" area, which feels like a promonitory into the bay even though it isn't. I stared out over the bay, past Vancouver Island and out onto the immensely far away see horizon of the Pacific.

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One of the features that keeps on impressing me is how immense this area really is. On a map, Vancouver looks smallish - a decent sized city rather like San Francisco. But the sheer scale of things around here dwarfs the Bay Area. To my left lay a vast expanse of water... to my right a towering wall of mountainous rock that dwarfed the high rises at its feet.

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Kitsilano is an enticing urban alternative to pastoral Aldergrove. I need to find a quicker route so I can explore some more.

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