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CANADA | Vancouver, Canada Travel Guide
Wednesday, April 24, 2024
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Sightseeing in Vancouver
Granville Street in downtown Vancouver, Canada
Photo: McPhersonm80
Sightseeing in Vancouver
Vancouver has its fair share of visitor attractions. A good place to begin is Canada Place which is within easy walking distance of the center of downtown. It is right on the waterfront and impossible to miss, for it looks like a huge, docked cruise ship. In fact, this is where all the cruise ships actually dock when in Vancouver. Inside, there are some shops, a food court and the local IMAX theater. It is a place given to leisurely wandering and exploring
Harbour Centre Tower
Look up from almost any point in the city and you’ll see the Harbour Centre Tower, 555 W. Hastings St., the best lookout point in the city. For CAN $9, you ride an elevator up one floor below the restaurant (the ride is free if you’re eating up there). The large, circular area at top offers 360-degree views of Vancouver. It’s especially impressive at sunset.
Gastown and Chinatown
Keep walking past the tower and you’ll end up in Gastown. We go into more detail on this in the shopping section, below. There are a couple of Vancouver’s standard attractions here: the steam clock, which blows every 15 minutes, and the statue of Gassy Jack, where you can feel sorry for somebody named “Gassy.” Jack was a sailor and politician who opened one of the first establishments here, the Globe Saloon, in 1867.
Head through Gastown to Chinatown. It’s a big Chinatown, but quite frankly, the one in Victoria is a little more interesting. The big deal here is the narrowest office building in the world, the Sam Kee Building, at 8 W. Pender. Seeing its thinness is a little tricky, as until you hit the right angle, it looks like every other building on the block, but it’s really not much more than 4½ feet wide. Nearby is the Chinese Cultural Centre Museum, 555 Columbia St. Especially now, the Chinese force in Vancouver is something to be reckoned with; in the suburbs, there are entire areas where you won’t see a single shop sign in English.
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