2 to 4 hours, not including shopping, eating, and sightseeing stops
Best Time: Any day during business hours, but Chinatown is particularly active
in the mornings. If you arrive before noon, you can indulge in dim sum at many
of the restaurants.
Worst Time: Chinatown's dead after 6pm,
Vancouver Chinatown and
Gastown are two of Vancouver's most fascinating neighborhoods.
Gastown has history and great old-fashioned architecture. Chinatown has all that
plus the buzz of modern-day Cantonese commerce. One small travel advisory,
however: The two neighbourhoods border on Vancouver's Downtown Eastside --
otherwise known as skid road -- an area of taverns and cheap rooming hotels that
is troubled by alcoholism and drug use. While there is very little actual danger
for outsiders, there is a good chance of stumbling across a scary-looking
down-and-outer here and there, particularly around Pigeon Park at the corner of
Carrall and Hastings streets. The tour route has been designed to avoid these
areas.
Begin the tour at:
1. 999 Canada Place
Vancouver
With its five tall Teflon sails and bowsprit jutting out into Burrard Inlet,
Canada Place is supposed to look like a great sailing ship. Some folks see it,
some don't. Inside it's a hotel, cruise ship terminal, and convention center.
Around the outside there's a promenade with plaques at regular intervals
explaining the sights or providing historical tidbits.
To follow the promenade, start by the fountain with the flags of Canada's
provinces and territories just above it and head north out along the walkway.
(Note: An ongoing expansion of the cruise ship may block your access to the end
of the pier. If so, proceed directly to stop 2.) At the far end of the pier --
the prow -- a pair of bronze lions point up and out toward a pair of peaks on
the North Shore also called the Lions . Turn and look back over the railway tracks: The line
of low-rise older buildings just beyond the railway tracks is Gastown.
To continue the tour, walk back toward shore along the promenade, drop down the
steps, turn left, and curve along the sidewalk until you pass the
restaurant. Then turn left and go up the steps and walk along an elevated
pathway until you see a large wooden abstract sculpture. You're now at 200
Granville St. in:
2. Granville Square
At the east side of the plaza is a set of stairs leading down to 601 W. Cordova
St. at:
3. Waterfront Skytrain Station
Though this beaux arts edifice was converted to the
Seabus Terminal in the 1970s
(Skytrain, was added in 1986), this building still shows its origins as the CPR's
Vancouver passenger-rail terminal. Look up high on the walls and you can see oil
paintings depicting scenes you might see as you take the train across Canada --
much easier then than now. On the main floor there's a Starbucks and some
tourist shops.
Leave by the front doors, turn left, and wander east onto the cobblestones of
Water Street, Gastown's main thoroughfare.
4. Steam Clock
A quirky kind of timepiece, the Steam Clock gives a breathy rendition of the
Westminster Chimes every 15 minutes. It draws its power from the city's
underground steam-heat system. A plaque on the base of the clock explains the
mechanics of it all.
Carry on down, past Hills Indian Crafts (165 Water St.), where Bill Clinton
picked up a little bear statuette as a gift for you-know-who. Cross to the south
side of the street at Abbot Street and continue on Water Street until you come
to the Gaoler's Mews building (12 Water St.). Duck in through the passageway
and:
Take a Break--The name Gaoler's Mews refers to Vancouver's very first jail,
which was built on this site. When that burned to the ground in the 1886 fire,
the jail was replaced by a fire hall. You have to
come this way eventually in order to reach:
5. Maple Tree Square
A historic spot, Maple Tree Square is where Vancouver first began. The statue by
the maple tree (not the original one, but a replacement tree planted in more or
less the same spot) is of Gassy Jack Deighton, a riverboat captain and innkeeper
who erected Vancouver's first significant structure -- a saloon -- in 1867.
Just a half block south of the statue is a little laneway with the rather
foreboding name of Blood Alley. So far as I can ascertain, nothing too nefarious
ever happened here; the name appears to have been invented to appeal to
tourists. Strangely, however, there's nothing much to see in this sanguine spot.
Continue south on Carrall Street to W. Cordova, turn right and walk 1 block west
until you reach Abbot Street. Turn left and walk 2 blocks south down Abbot,
crossing W. Hastings Street and stopping at W. Pender Street, where you get a
great view of the:
6. Sun Tower
At 500 Beatty St., it was the tallest building in the British Empire when it was
built in 1911 to house the publishing empire of one Louis D. Taylor, publisher
of Vancouver World. Not only was the building big, it was also slightly
scandalous, thanks to the nine half-nude caryatids that gracefully support the
cornice halfway up the building.
Cross Pender Street and continue on Abbot Street, rounding the curve of the
building on your right-hand side until you come to the entrance of 179 Keefer
Place at:
7. T&T Supermarket
So you've seen supermarkets? Unless your hometown is Hong Kong or Singapore, you
haven't seen one like this. Just have a gander at the seafood display inside the
doors: king crab, scallops, three different kinds of oysters, lobster, geoduck,
all alive, some pinching mad. Farther in is a host of wondrous products for
sale, including strange Asian fruits like rambutan, lychee, and the pungent
durian.
Outside, walk 1 block east on Keefer Street to Taylor Street turn left. Walk 1 block back up to Pender
Street, then turn right and walk 1 more block. Now you're in Chinatown, an area
distinguished architecturally by tall narrow buildings with recessed balconies;
commercially by a profusion of vegetable and apothecary shops; and culturally by
the sheer exuberance of immigrant life.
First stop, at 8 W. Pender St., is the:
8. Sam Kee Building
The world's thinnest office building -- just shy of 1.5m deep (4 ft. 11 in. to
be exact) -- was Sam Kee's way of thumbing his nose at both the city and his
greedy next-door neighbor.Just behind the Sam Kee Building is the forlorn-looking Shanghai Alley, which
just 40 years ago was jam-packed with stores, restaurants, a pawnshop, a
theater, rooming houses, and a public bath. More interesting is the Chinese
Freemason's building, just across the street at 1 W. Pender. The building could
be a metaphor for the Chinese experience in Canada. On predominantly Anglo
Carrall Street, the building is the picture of Victorian conformity. On the
Pender Street side, on the other hand, the structure is exuberantly Chinese.
One block farther east on Pender Street is the:
9. Chinese Cultural Centre/Dr. Sun
Yat-Sen Classical Chinese Garden
A modern building with an impressive traditional gate, the cultural center
provides services and programs for the neighborhood's thousands of
Chinese-speaking residents. Through the smaller inner gate, the Dr. Sun Yat-sen
Classical Chinese Garden is well worth a visit. The only full-size classical
Chinese garden outside China, it was modeled after a Ming Period (1368-1644)
scholar's retreat in the Chinese city of Suzhou.
Exit the gardens by the gate on the right-hand (east) side, then turn left and
you'll find the Chinese Cultural Centre Museum and Archives at 555 Columbia St.
From here, go back up to Pender and turn right and continue going east, peeking
in here and there to explore apothecaries like Vitality Enterprises at 126 E.
Pender. At Main Street, turn right and walk south 1 block to Keefer Street and:
To continue the tour, stroll east on Keefer Street.
Turn left and walk 3 block north up Gore to and you come to 303 E. Cordova St., where
stands:
11. St. James Anglican Church
Architect Adrian Gilbert Scott had designed a cathedral in Cairo before getting
this commission, and it shows. Step inside to experience a hushed and beautiful
gloom. One block east on Pender, the Vancouver Police Museum in the former
Coroner's Court (240 E. Cordova) is well worth a visit. Among other displays,
the museum has the autopsy pictures of Errol Flynn, who died in Vancouver in
1959 in the arms of his 17-year-old personal assistant.
Back on Gore Street, walk north, passing by Sunrise market (cheapest veggies in
town) to Alexander Street. Turn left and walk 1 block west on Alexander to the:
12. Crab Park Overpass
City Hall calls it Portside Park, and that's how it appears on the map, but to
everyone else it's Crab Park. It was created after long and vigorous lobbying by
eastside activists, who reasoned that poor downtown residents had as much right
to beach access as anyone else. The park itself is pleasant enough, though
perhaps not worth the trouble of walking all the way up and over the overpass.
What is worthwhile, however, is walking halfway up to where two stone Chinese
lions stand guard. From here, you can look back at Canada Place -- where the
tour started -- or at the container port and fish plant to your right.
To bring the tour to an end, return back to Alexander Street and walk 2 blocks
west back to Maple Tree Square .
|
