Winding down vacation... our day in Vancouver

I'm hesitant to write this post because it has been so much fun re-living vacation through sharing it with all of you, and now it has to end!

I was really excited to spend a day in Vancouver since it's an Olympic city. After 24 hours in the city, we realized Canada is confusing. It's LIKE America, but they spell things with a "ou" like "flavour," and there's no NBC. Just when you forget you're not just in another US State, a commerical for yogurt with "fibre" comes on the TV and you have to do a double-take.

You might remember seeing Canada Place during the Vancouver Olympics. The ship docked there for its last stop of the cruise, and Canada Place was the only thing we saw that actually dwarfed the Radiance of the Seas!

They say Canada Place is British Columbia's #1 tourist attraction. It's a beautiful building and it seems there would be lots of opportunity for events there.

It's situated on a long pier lined with Canadian flags and the names of all of the provinces & major cities are written on the ground.

There was a huge storm coming in and we almost got caught in it!

This is what I was most excited to see in Vancouver! The Olympic Couldron!

I don't remember seeing this pixilated whale during the Olympics... it's a digital world, and we're just living in it.

After we walked around by the water for a while, we decided to go to see one of the local attractions, the Capliano Suspension Bridge. I don't have a ton of photos from the Capilano Bridge because we were up in the trees and it was raining and oh yeah, I was trying not to fall down into the canyon below.

Scary!

Once safely back on solid ground, I did manage to get some neat naturey shots.

That afternoon, we walked along the river cameraless and sort of explored Vancouver a little bit. What a lovely city. It was clean and quiet and even though we were wandering the streets, we didn't really run into any areas that weren't well-kept and safe-feeling.

We were so exhausted from the whole trip, we decided to stay in, order pizza and rent an in-room movie. We stayed at the Westin Grand on Robson Street, and I definitely recommend it. You can count on Westin for a good night's sleep on the Heavenly Bed and awesome little shampoos.

The movie was Limitless... which... meh. It's such a great concept, but the movie could have been so much better. I cannot say the same for the pizza though! We picked the right random pizza joint, that's for sure. I forget the name--Tony's or something (shocker), but it was great!

So here ends our journey through the vacation of a lifetime. We will have a hard time outdoing our Alaskan cruise vacation, and that's OK with me!

Ketchikan, Last Stop in Alaska

When the days drew nearer and nearer to the last day of our vacation, our mantra became "we still have (three, four, five) days until Monday!" We had this talk with ourselves when we got off the ship for our last official port of call.

Ketchikan was worth the wait. It was the quintessential Alaskan fishing town. Practically the whole town was built over water.

It was a bit of a rainy night (surprise surprise... Ketchikan is one of the rainiest cities in the US) and the flowers had the beautiful dew that hadn't evaporated yet.

While on the ship, we listened to one of the presentations by "Jimmy" (the... shopping director?) about our upcoming port of call, and he recommended going to see the Great Alaskan Lumberjack Show. We saw this on the list of available activities when we were booking the cruise, but we decided not to do it because we figured it would be cheesy and touristy.

It was totally cheesy and touristy. But it was a lot of fun! At the beginning of the show, they announced that there was a photo contest, and we could send in the images for consideration for next year's calendar! I think I got some pretty good ones.

They did all these crazy events and had a "competition" between the two teams. It was totally staged and completely rehearsed. Most of the events were races, like which team can cut a piece off of this log quicker.

Chop this log in half...

Now, chop this log in half while standing on this flimsy stick!

Scare all the children with this chainsaw!

And now, climb this tree really fast!

The last event was the famous log-rolling event. I guess they try to knock each other off the log by splashing each other? I'm still not really sure. But the photos are cool!

I forget which team won... but (of course) it came down to a tie in the last competition and they had to go into "sudden death overtime" or something. But one of them won, and it was a good show.

Since we were going further and further South on the ship, the sun was going down earlier and earlier. When we left Ketchikan that night, it was the only time the sun ever actually dipped below the horizon. It's funny how we take that for granted.

Chef's Table Dinner

Out of all the memorable meals on our trip, this one was truly a treat.

Chef's Table was one of the specialty restaurants on board. It was a Chef's Choice 5-course set meal, each with a different wine pairing.

First of all, the service was unbelievable. The server couldn't possibly let us go to any trouble at all. When I asked where to find the ladies' room, he walked with me all the way to the nearest ladies'. Then, when I got back, he was standing at the door waiting for me so I wouldn't have to open it. They did everything perfectly, right down to serving the eldest woman at the table first. (There were only 11 people at the table). Served from the right, cleared from the left... there was even a choice between sparkling or still water.

There was a printed menu at each place, and thank goodness for that because I never would remember all the details of the wonderful meal.

So let's get to it! The first course was Lobster and Alaskan King Crab Leg Salad with pear-grapefruit slaw, citrus dressing and micro greens. It was paired with Sauvignon Blanc from South Africa. Beautiful!

Next up was a Soup Trio. Green pea bisque, double oxtail consomme and porcini mushroom soup. I wanted to take three baths in every soup. The chef talked about each dish, how it was prepared and how it would be served. Then the sommelier talked about each wine, its origin and any special notes.

The soups were served in little cafe cups--no spoons! An Australian Pinot Noir accompanied.

The third course was Chinese-Style Duck Roll in a sruspy crepe tempura with Hoisin reduction. It was served with sake. The sake was most definitely not my favorite, but the duck roll was to die for!

The entree was Roasted Double Lamb Cutlet with potato-pancetta risotto, broccolini and port wine glaze. And no lamb meal can go without Cabernet Sauvignon. I started the evening with a huge headache, and it didn't get any better throughout the night, so I didn't drink much of each wine, but Cabernet is my favorite and this one was devine, so I had to finish this glass.

For dessert--oh glorious dessert!--a trio of tart, gelato and whipped cream. Warm Granny Smith Apple, Pecan and Pine Nut Tarte, Green Apple Gelato and Calvados-whipped Cream. Believe it or not, a Sauvignon Blanc again! It was a Chilean late harvest sauvignon blanc grape, which, we learned, makes it sweeter. It makes total sense. The longer the fruit sits, the sweeter it gets, right?

After dinner, the hosts presented us with a cookbook and an apron. I'm so excited to wear my Royal Caribbean apron use my Royal Caribbean cookbook!

Port of Call #3: Icy Strait Point

Icy Strait Point was the most unique port of call of the trip. No jewlery stores! It was a teeny tiny little town with a beach walk and a nature trail. We didn't spend a lot of time there, but it might have been my favorite port of call. It was sort of isolated and hidden.

Hmm... why is the ship out there... and we're on land? We were tendered, which means we have to take little boats to shore. It was a new experience.

We spent quite a while with this tree stump. It had a huge rusty chain strung through it. It was a pretty neat sight. Nature and man-made items are fun to photograph.

The views were gorgeous and we saw an old fishing boat. A classic Alaskan scene!

Port of Call #2: Skagway

As you probably know, until 1867 Alaska was property of Russia. Skagway was a town where the Russian influence was more noticable than anywhere else.

On our way into town, we walked past a huge collection of painted rocks in the side of the mountain. They were each painted with logos of ships and years when they had visited Skagway. There were also rocks painted with captains names and years. It's said that the higher up the captain's name was painted by his crew, the more loved he was.

I also giggled at this sign... someone apparently couldn't figure out how to put the gangway onto the dock!

They dock the ships pretty closely. I thought this was a fun shot. There were four or five huge cruise ships in that day.

We played around near the smaller boat docks for a little while before heading all the way into town.

We had an excursion planned for the afternoon, so we had a little time to explore town. We happened to be lucky and there was an old steam engine train gearing up for a trip. We had a great opportunity for photos.

And I think this is one of my favorite photos of the whole trip. You can't tell what year it was taken!