Tourist 2 - things change...

I walked across Lions Gate bridge today, I don't think I ever have before.  I've driven it hundreds of times, often in a foggy morning-after-all-night-cramming haze on the way to university.  I've bicycled over it numerous times.  I've even sailed under it twice, but walking was new, and time it was done.  So I did.

My objective was the Vancouver Aquarium in Stanley Park (that's the green stuff in the photo above).  The bridge causeway shoots through the park on it's way downtown, so it was easy to veer off the thundering motorway and step onto a tranquil old-growth forest path that led me down to the famous seawall that wraps around the park.

Like everything new in Vancouver, the Aquarium entrance is gorgeous

The Aquarium has been around for donkey years.  Every school kid in town has been on a field trip at least twice, so I was interested to learn that there were 'new exhibits' at the aquarium and that it's been re-designed.  Unlike the old times where you could wander around outside and take in the big chain-linked monkey enclosure (monkeys at the aquarium?), and watch the otters slide down their turquoise concrete spiral slide; it's now all very eco-realistic and signed and labeled and amazing.

There was an Amazon rain forest (right in downtown Vancouver!!).  I liked the blue macaws holding hands...

I think they're a happy couple

and I could've napped like the sloth too after my long walk there....

There was a Tropical Zone where they had a shark feeding encounter but I couldn't wedge my way past the squealing pre-teens to see the frenzy.  That was fine though, after seeing "Jaws" everything else is a bit tame.

So I checked out the BC Coastal waters section which was nice.  Lots of anemones and starfish and jellyfish and salmon and corals and fish and  little shrimp desperately trying to hold to their pebbles as the fancy tidal machines whipped the water back and forth in mock moon-pulls.

The otters where still there, in a fancy new pool with real rocks and real seawater.  No chlorine in this day and age!  And there were seals, frolicking in their own little private oasis.  Belugas have taken center stage from the old killer whales, except the stage is long gone.  No more Skana to leap into the air at a trainer's command, doing tricks for the gathered crowd.  Instead we learn about the beluga's environmental plight and conservation efforts through educational and interpretive displays as the big white galoots lazily glide around the pool.

 I guess it's all good - all this change.  The new Aquarium is clean, and carpeted.  The animals and sea creatures look happy and content and not crying at you through the plate glass to be sent back home.  The signage and educational opportunities are so abundant the aquarium should hand you a diploma on your way out the door.  But I miss the old stinky penquin pool, where the birds would swim in a never-ending circle in their huge glass doughnut.   I miss the stupefied polar bears coping with the temperate Vancouver summers when all they had was a little wading pool to dip their toes in.  And where do unwanted monkeys go?  I hope they got to retire in a real zoo...

Inner Coal Harbour - just a gratuitous scenery pic