Wednesday June 24th

5:31pm

Our last day in Canada today. What did the weather do? It rained. On the day we were going to do some shopping! Of course!! Not quite as heavy as it was when we went to Toronto for the day, but still quite wet. Still, this did not deter us! We got onto the bus and headed for Granville Island, well known for arts and crafts and suchlike. We began in “Net Loft” and discovered a shop called “Beadworks” – a shop FULL of beads!! Hooray! I was delighted. I knew Mathew was rolling his eyes...I didn’t need to see his face...!!!

BUT, as I looked around the shop, as many beads as there were, I realised two things. I could get most, if not ALL these beads from the websites I use on the internet. Secondly, I could get things SO much more cheaper on the internet. Half the price, if not, less. For example, a 16cm string of round Amethyst beads was being sold here for $44, which at the time was roughly £25. I could easily get the same thing in the UK for £6 – roughly $14.

Still, I ended up buying some beads made of wood, bone and a couple of bali beads, but I was so disappointed with the shop in general. I was expecting there to be much more unusual and quirky beads rather than anything else. I quickly came to the conclusion that it might be best for me if I don’t visit bead shops ever again, and stick to websites where they are cheaper and there is just as much choice. Beads are incredibly overpriced in actual shops, and they probably get their stock from website anyway!

We continued to walk around Granville Island but didn’t go into many more shops at all – there were lots of very nice shops yes, but the problem was: we’d seen a lot of it elsewhere, OR we’d already bought something like it elsewhere. Perhaps we were art and crafted out? It was midday and I was feeling fed up. Fed up with being so disappointed with the Museum yesterday and with Granville Island, BOTH of which I had been looking forward to! I think after all that has happened on this holiday, my expectations had just rocketed right the way up.

We got ourselves onto a bus and went into “Downtown” Vancouver, and this was where I was looking forward to doing a little more shopping. But what did I buy?
Nothing.

Yes, nothing.

Why? Well....there was nothing there! I guess I felt the same way about Toronto. Maybe we missed something, I don’t know...but I just felt neither Toronto or Vancouver were particularly exciting, and they barely had any shops unless you wanted to eat all the time. Plenty of places to eat. Okay, in Toronto we had lots of other things to do, but in Vancouver, it was the “Tower” and “Shopping” on the list.

And speaking of shopping – the shopping centres here are very different to English ones. Hardly surprising really, but the shopping malls here are underneath or on the first floor of office blocks, which I can appreciate regarding weather and temperature issues in winter...! In Toronto, I knew about an indoor shopping centre but we never went to it, I never saw it.

In Vancouver, this is how it went. There didn’t seem to be any sort of advertising or signs for any shopping malls whatsoever...unless it was from the other way. We just suddenly stumbled upon them, and there was the entrance. We ended up mostly going through back entrances or side entrances which didn’t actually look like an entrance to a shopping mall at all until you opened the door. It was weird walking down steps which we weren’t quite sure were leading us to the mall, despite the tiny sign on the wall next to the stairs...and then there we were in the mall! It just seemed that nobody wanted anyone to know where these malls were – you either knew where they were or stumbled on them by accident – which is what we did with all four of them.

Also there was only a store guide at the front entrance to a mall – nowhere else....unless they were hiding...! When IN the mall, the choice of purchases was either something to wear or something to eat. Hmmm. That was it. Rarely anything else seemed to be anywhere else really! Even outside, this was the choice of shops with the addition of drugstores and banks.

There were NO quirky little shops anywhere (I get the feeling that shops in Toronto and Vancouver may be spread out over a larger space...perhaps we were in the wrong area or something....but hey, how were we supposed to know when there are no signs and very little information to go on!), and I don’t recall seeing a music store ANYWHERE either. Perhaps these aren’t seen as mall type stores here? Or perhaps as I said earlier, they were on another street 20 blocks away which we didn’t know about! We also spent ALL afternoon looking for a bookstore...

We went into 4 shopping malls, and found a news stand / kiosk, and a bookstore which sold gifts and stationary. And one bookshelf of books. Hmmm....something wrong with that! Fed up with the search for a simple bookstore, we decided to go up the Lookout Tower which was TINY in comparison to the CN Tower in Toronto! It was still raining at this point, so we knew the view wasn’t going to be too spectacular...but we spent quite a little while up there, and noticed someone had drawn a comical stick figure in chalk on one of the car park bays on the rooftop parking lot. And we saw Gastown which we then realised was very close to the Tower, and we hadn’t realised this before!

Eventually we decided to call it a day and descended in the elevator which had its opening doors DISTURBINGLY on the OUTSIDE of the actual elevator. I stayed well back....! We found the road with the bus stop on it, and what did we see opposite the bus stop?

A BOOKSTORE!!!!

“Chapters” it was called. A giant bookstore. We had been looking for it ALL DAY and there it was, opposite our bus stop. And you’ll probably laugh at this – we didn’t buy anything!! But we did have a good look around. We spent around 40 minutes in there, Mathew saw lots of books he could have bought, I saw lots of beading books and one I was looking for on the First Nations. But the reason why we didn’t buy anything was because we can easily buy any of these books on the internet, where it is cheaper.

But that’s okay. I knew I would go home with lots of ideas anyway, and some knowledge of finding the right thing online with the right search words. So today’s lessons learned were:
1. Books are cheaper from websites
2. Beads are cheaper from websites
3. Don’t visit bead shops or bookstores – buy off websites to avoid disappointment!

We ended the day with a meal at a place we went to before, the name of which escapes me, which was like a little treasure not far from where we were staying. It was a charming place with friendly staff, a good menu filled with Mediterranean and Balkan dishes, great food for great prices. And the best thing? They remembered us from the first time round....and we got FREE DESSERT!! :o)