Steve's Favorite Spot in Vancouver

It is the Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Classical Chinese garden.  It is a recreation of the garden of a scholar-official during the Ming dynasty.  I found it beautiful and serene.

The structures in the garden include a reception hall where the scholar-official would formally receive visitors, the scholar-official's study, and pavilions.  They were built in China, then dismantled and shipped to Canada.  A major design element are these limestone rocks known as "taihu stone."  They are only found at the foot of Dongting Mountain, and are almost never exported from China.

The garden is separated into two parts, representing yin and yang energy.  The decorations on the yin side are composed of curves; on the yang side  they use straight lines.  Note the stonework on the floor and the latticed windows in these two pictures:

This is the reception hall, where the scholar-official would formally receive visitors:

The hall contains this incredibly detailed silk panel, which is not painted, but needlepoint!

This is the courtyard outside the scholar-official's study:

Feeding the koi in the pond:

By train to Vancouver

The train to Vancouver left Jasper around 10 PM, something like three hours late.  The waiting was stressful, and Steve was concerned about making sure we had seats together (they do not do reservations in economy class).  It turned out to be a non-issue, because the train was not very full.  In fact, it was empty enough that we each got a pair of seats to ourselves, which made it easier to find a comfortable position to sleep in.

When we woke up, we were traveling along the Thompson River, through a scrubby, semi-arid landscape.

 

The landscape became more lush as we joined the Fraser River for the rest of the way to Vancouver.

And we arrived in Vancouver almost an hour early!  Some combination of intrepid train-driving and lots of padding in the schedule, I expect.