20240911 Wednesday, September 11, 2024 Viking Orion Embarkation
After breakfast at the ARC, we had our bags repacked and by our doors by 9am. They were to be taken directly to the ship for us while we took a bus tour of Vancouver. This took us driving through Chinatown and Gas Town with excellent commentary by our guide Pejmon, a Persian Canadian. He provided us with insights on the multiethnic Vancouver communities and how rather than a melting pot, they are a microcosm of the world with concentrations of various ethnic and cultural groups in different districts or suburbs of Vancouver. He lives in North Vancouver, which has a large population of people of Persian descent.
As we drove through Chinatown, we heard about the importance of Chinese laborers in the unification of Canada through construction of the Trans-Canada railway, but also heard a little about the cruelty and discrimination the Chinese experienced with head taxes and immigration laws making it impossible for Chinese to reunite with families for decades. We also heard a little about the horrors of the First Nations children being taken from their families and indoctrinated in residential schools, with hundreds disappearing, eventually to be uncovered in unmarked graves at the residential school sites in the last 20 years. It seems all countries have their dirty secrets, but understanding and studying history is the only to prevent repeating the same tragedies over and over again.
Interestingly, we learned that Gas Town wasn’t named for the use of gas for lighting, but because it was established by a loquacious gentleman who opened the first bar to serve the timber and lumber workers on the waterfront of what was eventually to be renamed Vancouver. Someone who had the gift of gab was known as being gassy, so that was how what is now Vancouver got originally named Gas Town. It wasn’t until the Canadian Pacific Railroad decided to make its Pacific coastal terminus at the site of present day Vancouver that the city’s name was changed to make it more sophisticated. The fact that Captain George Vancouver spent less than a day anchored off shore didn’t seem to discourage the Canadian Pacific Railroad from using his name for their new Pacific Terminus. At the time of Captain Vancouver’s marine survey of the area, the Spanish had already claimed the land. It was subsequently turned over to the British by treaty negotiations over distribution of territories between imperial powers in the western hemisphere.
We did get to disembark the coach in Stanley Park where we got to take pictures of the Totem Poles and our ship at the Canada Place terminal across the bay from Stanley Park. Pejmon gave an informative and interesting talk about the meaning and evolution of totems in Salish culture, as well as highlights of the interactions between the indigenous people and imperial colonists that eventually came to rule the land.
One interesting thing Ben noticed in the temperate rain forest of Stanley Park was that storm damaged trees weren’t cut down at the base. Instead, they were topped 30-40’ in the air and the top of the snags were cut in a jagged manner to simulate real trees that had been snapped in half by storms to create animal habitats. Owls in particular like to nest in snags.
We drove past Stanley Park’s “Little Mermaid”, and learned that although Vancouver and Copenhagen are sister cities, Copenhagen would not allow Vancouver to have a replica of their Little Mermaid, so if you look closely, you can see Vancouver’s statue is a girl with swim goggles and human legs with what do you call them- feet.
We made a second stop near the Lions Gate Bridge and learned that the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco and the Lions Gate Bridge in Vancouver were both built by the Guinness Brothers from Ireland. They are the same Guinness Brothers of the dark stout beer fame and also the Guinness Book of Records fame. In both circumstances, they became unimaginably wealth by understanding that these West coast cities needed room to expand for their rapidly growing populations. They bought up “worthless” properties isolated from these cities by fast moving water passages, and then built bridges to connect them to the busy cities. Once connected, their “worthless” land suddenly became extremely valuable. Marin County north of San Francisco and both North and West Vancouver have some of the most expensive real estate in either regions.
The Film Production Company Lions Gate Films is Vancouver based and Vancouver is basically Hollywood of the north. The bridge got its name from a mountain north of Vancouver that is shaped like a lion’s head.
As we drove through the Coal dock neighborhood between downtown Vancouver and Stanley Park, we saw some of the most expensive real estate in the downtown Vancouver core and learned that there is an awful lot of investment from the Middle East that is essentially money laundering driving this development. Vancouver has the highest per capital ownership of extreme luxury and sports cars in all of North America with lots of Lamborghinis, Ferraris and McLarens on the streets, some of which are being driven by teen children of wealthy Arab expatriates who own these high-rises.
We ended up back at Canada Place at noon and had to go through the check in and customs process. This took 45 minutes because there were 3 ships (Holland America’s Zaandam, Viking Orion and Grand Princess) that had to have all their passengers cleared through US Customs and Immigration. Once we got past US Customs and Immigrations, we got to break away from the huge crowds and onto the relatively deserted Viking Orion.
The differing demographics of the passengers on the three ships were distinct. While there is a lot of crossover between the Princess and Holland America ships with lots of families and kids with strollers, the Viking demographic is majority retired professionals in better physical condition, well traveled and more intellectual.
As the afternoon progressed, quite the deck sail away party had broken out on the Grand Princess, which was docked across the pier from us. They had loud music and dancing all around the pool deck while we had a stoic mandatory stoic safety briefing coming ove our PA system. The Grand Princess sailed off before us, and as they sailed off, although we had problems with a broken air conditioner during our transpacific crossing on the Grand Princess last year, we certainly had a fun time. We may come to miss that element of fun during the multiple sea days we have ahead of us on this itinerary.
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The sail away from Vancouver was very scenic with the ship passing under the Lion’s Gate Bridge. We were also pleasantly surprised to see the ship head north between Vancouver Island and the Canadian mainland instead of heading south and out the Strait of Juan de Fuca. This will take us up the Strait of Georgia for the first time. We didn’t see any orca whales but the islands were very scenic.
Janet managed to get us reservations for the Chef’s Table for our first night. They featured an Asian fusion menu. The Chef’s Table has a different wine pairing for each phase of the meal. This is a nouveau cuisine restaurant with small fancy portions for each course. The amuse bouche was a chilled King crab seasoned with coconut milk and curry topped with coconut foam. This was paired with a Portuguese Sauvignon Blanc. The first course was a Lobster and Chicken Shu mai, which were hearty and juicy. There was a Lemongrass and Red Chili Granita which is kind of like a shaved ice topped with lychee foam to cleanse our palates before the Peking Duck main course arrived. Instead of the round steamed buns served in Beijing, a burrito like wrap in a Mandarin pancake containing shredded duck with hoisin sauce was served under slices of duck breast and a piece of crispy skin. Dessert was a trio of miniatures which included a green tea cheesecake, yuzu créme brûlée, and chocolate banana spring roll. The green tea cheesecake was good enough to warrant seconds, which the head waiter was more than happy to oblige us with.
The dinner experience did take us nearly 2 hours, which was enjoyable. The Star Theater in the bow of the ship had a screening of the 2020 Call of the Wild movie, featuring Harrison Ford and a CGI dog who was the main character. Ben wasn’t really able to get into that, so Ben retreated to the stateroom to do today’s blog and do his soup run at Mamsen’s which conveniently is very close to our stateroom. They had a really delicious split pea soup. Walking through the ship at 10pm, it was nearly deserted with just a handful of people at the bars and musicians playing classical music to a handful of people scattered around the huge atrium.
This will certainly be a quieter experience than our Princess cruises.
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