(Note: The blog wasn’t updated for a day because the ViaRail train from Vancouver didn’t have wifi. Resuming now, and sorry, no photos today.)
Friday, Oct. 2nd, was rainy in Vancouver. Dave and I returned to the Red Umbrella Cafe for breakfast because yesterday’s experience there had been so pleasant and the food was great, especially their omelettes. And the second time didn’t disappoint.
From there, we walked back to the hotel and checked out, leaving our luggage with them for the morning. Since the hotel was right next to Stanley Park, we wanted to walk through the park to the Vancouver Aquarium, so we did. The rain had stopped and we had a beautiful 40-minute walk through the forested paths, noticing several black squirrels along the way.
The aquarium was nice, with exhibits about tropical water animals, frogs, British Columbia shore animals and corals, plus outdoor exhibits featuring rescued seals, sea lions and sea otters. We spent about 2 hours viewing all the sea creatures. Afterwards, we caught a taxi outside the aquarium entrance which was driven by a pleasant, talkative Iranian man who had immigrated 30 years ago. He brought us back to a street near the hotel where Dave and I found a Chinese dumpling restaurant for lunch. Then we picked up our luggage from the hotel and had the same taxi driver take us to the train station.
At Pacific Central train station, we checked in for our ViaRail trip to Saskatoon, and waited about 45 minutes to board. We were charmed by the “all aboard” call given by a train employee with a French accent. The train was really long, about 20 train cars, and we had to walk maybe halfway down it to get to our sleeper car. We were greeted by our car’s attendant, Patrick, and given directions to our seats. I was somewhat disappointed that our seats, which would turn into bunks, weren’t in a walled compartment. Instead they were in the open and appeared to have no room for our carry-on luggage. We sat down and the train departed just before 3 p.m.
A single woman sat across the aisle from us and we introduced ourselves. She was Carola from Switzerland and she said she was learning English, so it wasn’t very good. But we still could carry on a conversation and then we went to dinner with her at our 5 p.m. seating. We were seated at a table for 4, along with an older man named Bill from Michigan. There were a choice of four entrees from the menu and Dave and I chose the miso salmon, which was very good. There were several dining car attendants and we were well cared for, even meeting one of the chefs during the dinner.
After dinner, we sat in the domed viewing car while it got dark, as we went through forested and field areas next to the Fraser River. We returned to our assigned seats a little after 8 p.m. and Patrick made them into bunk beds, with a very heavy curtain separating them from the aisle.
Around 9 p.m., Carola, Dave and I crawled into our respective bunks to sleep.
