Tour de Cherry Blossom (Location Scouting)

It was supposed to be more than location scouting, but the cherry blossoms around ~55th between Cambie and Victoria are either a different species from the ones on Comox Street downtown or the climate up there is noticeably colder, because a total of 5 to 7  trees were in bloom, while the remaining ones are only getting ready.
Having obtained a list of cherishable streets from the internet, I took the bike on the bus over Lions Gate Bridge, the Skytrain to 49th and Cambie and headed East. A note on the Skytrain Station on 49th Avenue.  Why didn't anyone send the person(s) who came up with the elevator layout, which requires a handicapped, post-pregnant, or cycling passenger to take three (3!) elevators to get to street level, back to undergraduate studies?

 

The first highlight was close by.  Quite a lot of trees that were not in bloom yet should make this a very nice spot in a couple of weeks. The sky view unfailingly reminds me of God's hand reaching down to Adam in the Sistine Chapel.

 
 
My stomach reported back not long after.  This is where I went. The $9.99 Goat Biryani was fabulous and was much larger than it photographed and even though the brewers of this Cola apparently can't spell, they brew great Cola.

The next spot showed its potential for the coming weeks.  A couple of blocks further, these smaller trees caught my attention.  Looking at the stem morphology , these might actually be cherries! Just how they survived the winter unmolested by birds is beyond me.













Then it went on to Fraserview Park. This is where Vancouver still feels like Vancouver!  At the intersection of Stirling and Bonnyvale I finally realized what had been troubling me. That noise, or better the absence thereof.  I listened for 2 minutes and could not hear a single car, not even from far away. Try that anywhere else in Vancouver!  Fraserview Park boasts very fancy German-made exercise machines.  Fancy looking that is.



When I tried one out, I realized that they must have been ordered by fat office slobs, who couldn't be bothered to see whether they are actually useable (the machines that is, not the slobs. Slobs are never useable).  The gentle back-and-forth swinging of one's feet in the contraption would only be called exercise by seniors, but unfortunately the steps are so high that seniors probably will have a very hard time getting up there. Or is that the intended exercise?  Thankfully, close by a cherry tree close to full bloom reminded me of the purpose of this trip.

And this is also the area where it is supposed to be happening. Duff Street runs South-North between Brigadoon and 54th Avenue and from the two ends one can see either Richmond/Fraser or the North Shore mountains framed by ~ 5 blocks of pink, if one arrives at the right time. We shall see.

 I cycled downhill from Gladstone and 54th Avenue to Renfrew and 1st, where renewed stomach activity necessitated spending $3.11 at MacDonald's (unfortunately no Burger King in sight), and then the Millenium and Expo lines of the Skytrain delivered me back to Burrard (It is always a joy to enter a skytrain when the crowds are flocking to a Hockey Game. If a Hockey Hero would enter, they'd lick even the most calloused toe, but if someone actually exercising tries to get a bicycle into a half-full skytrain, they can't even move a cheek by 20 cms without grimacing. Go figure!) Back on the bus to North Vancouver, I finally witnessed the first other human beside myself that has realized and was using the convenience of bicycles on buses.