A walk in Vancouver

23.5.2015, 3 p.m. West Vancouver, Canada

Went for a walk in the morning with a relative with whom I am staying. I had been going for a morning walk everyday with him on the Seawalk, which is a path along the shore built around 1967 for walkers and joggers, but today we turned left towards Ambleside Park, from where one can have a nice view of Stanley Park across the water, and Lions Gate Bridge which connects West Vancouver and Stanley Park ( the bridge was designed on the model of the San Francisco Golden suspension bridge ).

 Vancouver is the city where a lot of Canadian elders come to settle after retirement, because of its relatively temperate climate as contrasted to other parts of Canada which become extremely cold. The average hottest temperature ( in July and August ) here is 22 degrees Celsius, or 72 degrees Fahrenheit, while the average coldest temperature ( in December and January ) is 1 degree centigrade or 34 degrees Fahrenheit. This may be contrasted to Alberta which has minus 30-40 degrees centigrade temperature in winter. Today ( 23.5.2015 ) the temperature was 17 degrees centigrade. I did not need a pullover, but my relative told me to take it along in the car just in case, because the weather can change very fast here.

 I saw a lot of elderly people having a walk, and also many younger people running for exercise. Many North Americans are very health conscious.

 Healthcare is free for all citizens in Canada under the Canada Health Act, 1984, but one has to pay for medicines if one is earning above a certain amount annually. If one is poor, even medicines are given free ( see online Healthcare in Canada ).

 At a pier where we went to we saw some Chinese doing crab fishing. It is done with a kind of net  in which some bait is kept ( usually  some fish, or chicken's head etc ). The rules for crab fishing are very strict. A Dungeness crab  measuring less than 16.5 cm. in width, or a female crab, must be thrown back into the water, and in fact I saw a crab fisher throwing a small crab back into the water.

 I love crab meat. The white meat is in the arms covered with a shell, and one must break the shell with a hammer or something to get to the meat. It is delicious, and I find it tastier than lobster, which is also one of my favourite sea foods.

 On the way we saw young volunteers taking old people, who could not walk themselves, for a walk. Volunteering is common in Canada.

 Towards the end of the walk we saw near the shore a totem pole, belonging to a Squamish band ( tribe ), My relative took my photo standing in front of it, and I will post it later.

 The Squamish Nation are the native Americans ( formerly known as 'Red Indians' ) in British Columbia, Canada. Like all native Americans in America, they were at one time treated very badly by the white people who came from Europe, and driven into reservations, but now they are better off, and own a lot of properties, including a part of Park Royal, the huge shopping Centre in West Vancouver.

 After our walk we went to a Whole Foods shopping centre in Park Royal. I was not very hungry as I had had a heavy breakfast of sardines, ham and fried eggs, so I had a green salad with green peas and chilly sauce. The place is one of an American food supermarket chain specializing in organic food, owned by the company Wholesale Food Market Inc. One can buy all kinds of organic food items there, and also eat at the restaurant there.

 Now I am looking forward to having some delicious

roganjosh' ( a Kashmiri lamb dish ) which my relative's wife is preparing for dinner