Vancouver to Toronto by train pt1

Hullo blog! No I'm not dead, not in a horrific train wreck in the Canadian wilderness being eaten by bears, beavers and mooses... what is the plural of moose or is it one of those words that's both singular and plural cuz it's surely not meeses... Anyhoo my apologies for not updating you earlier. I'm back in the land of Oz and just coming to terms with reality so I thought I'd better update you before someone sends a search party off into the wilds of the Canadian plains to find me. I'm gonna have to back track a bit to remember stuff so bear with me (no pun intended)!

Okay so I managed to get a late checkout of my hotel in Vancouver but still had 7 hours to kill so I dropped my bags off at the train station and took a 2 hour walk around to Granville Island to take a look at all the little shops there. I didn't really take photos because there isn't really anything to snap except shops and I'm sure that if you really want to see that then you can google maps it or something. Had a poke around the shops for an hour or two then took the ferry back to the train station to read and wait for the departure.

At 6pm they opened the 1st class lounge which wasn't much to speak of, not really a lounge per se as it just had more bench seats but they did have free coffee, tea and hot choccie so I had one of them and kept reading as the train wasn't due to depart until 7:30. Finally boarding time rolled round and I hopped on the train and met my bunkmate George. Interesting fella, a recently retired logger from Victoria (the Canadian Victoria not Aussie). We chatted as the train drew out of the station and unfortunately they weren't serving dinner as it was too late but I'd grabbed some food while I was out and about during the day so I wasn't very hungry. Just peckish. Went for a wander around the train and the sky car which was a clear domed viewing car. Very cool at night being able to see the front of the train and the plume of smoke and train signals. When we came back our personal attendant Jeff (who I managed to call Greg for the first half of the trip) had turned down the bunks - complete with mint on the pillow! We didn't have anyone in the seats next to us for the whole trip so it was pretty good that we could sit on one side and sleep on the other. Pics below. I'll split this trip up into a coupla posts otherwise it's gonna get to long. Needless to say that eventually I crawled up into my bunk (I was on the top) and read for a while before trying to get to sleep.Click the pics to enlarge.

The Tellus world of science which was near the train station

interesting buildings from the ferry ride

woah.... nice boat

Can't remember the name of this stadium but it was neat looking

No idea what this was but again, neat looking

snow!

my spot on the train, the seats fold down into the lower bed and the top folds down into the top bunk.

my bunk all made up

choccies on the pillow :) a nice touch