A little more than a week ago my wife and I flew to Vancouver and overnighted there. We spent the day wandering around town, took the SkyTrain to the harbor, took the ferry to Granville Island, wandered around the island, returned to the hotel, and went to bed so we would be up in plenty of time to board our ship.
It had been 60 years since I had been in Vancouver. I was astonished by several things. First, it has grown substantially. When I was last there it was a slightly grungy factory town. Now it’s heavily built up and mostly new.
Second, it was very clean and neat. Even the SkyTrain was neat and tidy, more so by far then the El in Chicago.
Third, it was demographically very different from the Vancouver I remember or, indeed, from any city I had ever been in. By my casual observation, a remarkable number of the people are of East Asian extraction.
We boarded our ship early the next morning. It was the Coral Princess, pictured above. Our stateroom had a balcony. You can see the balconies along the side of the ship in the picture.
Next stop, Ketchikan.
