What a beautiful surprise. We are from Melbourne Australia. Our Christmas or Holiday season is in summer with no chance of snow at all in anywhere in Australia. Whenever our kids watch Christmas movies or American TV programs they always see beautiful Christmas decorations on snow covered houses and trees. They always ask when we will have snow on Christmas so we brought them to Canada to see all the holiday season fun including black Friday sales.

We heard about Vancouver a lot and we always wanted to go to see and experience this wonderful city. A vast multicultural population, endless activities, and excellent infrastructure, Vancouver is welcoming to all. The city has great public transportation, but how walkable Vancouver is, we did not use it. A great walking city, Vancouver is clean, green, safe, and easily accessible.

Vancouver’s downtown harbour front and Canada Place are iconic national landmarks welcoming local residents, visitors and ships to the West Coast. Canada Place is a multi-use facility that includes FlyOver Canada, Vancouver Convention Centre East, Pan Pacific Hotel, Port Metro Vancouver cruise ship terminal, World Trade Centre office tower and VINCI Park parkade. Vancouver’s Waterfront area offers great views of Burrard Inlet, the Port, and North Shore Mountains. Also it is a beautiful walking or jogging area to see and enjoy beautiful autumn colours on the distant mountains and Stanley Park. This is one of the must do thing if visiting Vancouver. If you don’t want to walk you could hire a bike and can really enjoy not to miss the beautiful scenery of this great city.

We visited beautiful parks like Stanley Park, the Chinese Garden, Japanese Garden and Pacific Spirit Regional Park. Also we went to some of the museums as well. Stanley park has been voted the top attraction in the city. It is city’s largest park and has one of the most loved as well as a designated national historic site. The park covers 400 hectares with rainforest, mountains, coastlines and the Seawall. There are many trails throughout the park, which are used to hike, ride horses, cycle and walk. Aquarium is located in Stanley Park as well. The park has some beautiful gardens as well as monuments and sculptures.

There are totem poles from the First Nations cultures. Totem poles serve as important illustrations of family lineage and the cultural heritage of the Native peoples in British Columbia, Canada, and coastal areas of Washington and southeastern Alaska in the United States.

We did Science World, Granville Island as well as Robson Square, Vancouver Aquarium and the Police Museum. We are planning to do Capilano Suspension Bridge Park and Grouse Mountain upon our return from road trip to Rockies and Seattle.

We are planning to hire a car and drive to Kamloops, Revelstocke, Lake Louise, Jasper, Banff, Calgary, Seattle and back to Vancouver. We think it will be long drive but will be truly worth it. Yes it is snow season but we want to experience this so we are hoping it will be enjoyable. We don’t need to rush may be 4 hours drive a day and then rest. If we like a town then will stay few days extra to enjoy it.