Kathy's Tourism "Challenge"

I was hired by the Museum of Vancouver just in time to take part in the best job perk I've ever had. Every year Vancouver Attractions, Tourism Vancouver and the Hotel Association of Vancouver offer up a little Tourism Challenge for all of the front line staff in the tourism industry. The Museum is a tourist attraction...so I got to take part in the challenge!

A week full of adventure trying to collect at least 15 stamps from attractions and hotels around the city! The passport acts as a pass for me and a guest to try out all of our tourism finest...and if you collect the minimum of 15 stamps you earn a pass that is good for a year of unlimited experience for all of these places! Sweet!!

So this special post highlights nothing but a photo recap of the 'challenge' I've had in the past week...it's a rough life eh? ;)

Last Sunday I began the passport to adventure with Mark and Sasha and her first ever trip to Science World. Then a ferry boat ride to Granville Island for dinner and another ferry boat ride home. (Well, we are about a 15 min walk from the ferry at Science World and Sasha loves the ferry rides so much that this little benefit of the pass I have earned was my main motivation for cramming the challenge into my week) One fun day worth 2 stamps to my passport. (Sasha took the pic of Mark on the ferry ride...she's mastering my camera!)



Mid week I spent a morning visiting the Maritime Museum (thrilled with their Climate Change exhibit and look forward to spending more time there one day) and the M.R. MacMillan Space Centre before dropping off my new employee paper work at the Museum (which I have toured pretty thoroughly since being hired). Another 3 stamps complete.

Thursday I spent the day with my buddy Ali and we ended up covering 8 stamps worth of tourism goodness (you've maybe seen all of these if you're on facebook where I posted for our mutual friends to enjoy Ali's creative posing capabilities, hehe): a quick hello at 2 hotels; the Art Gallery; the Bill Reid Art Gallery; the Harbour Centre Lookout; the Convention Centre; Tourism Info Centre; and an hour long harbour tour boat cruise! A super fun whirlwind and fabulous way to spend a day off ;)











To finish the week we had 2 days of family adventure fun! On Saturday we had Che with us too, so we all headed to the Aquarium where Sasha was thrilled to see beluga whales after singing about them for so long (now that song will be stuck in your head for a while - gotta love Raffi)...but still not super keen on sitting through the whole show (or the dolphin show. just wanted to keep running around). Cute to see the baby nursing underwater, and the other beluga is due any day now...






Sunday Mark, Sasha and I had a North Shore adventure which started at Maplewood farm. The cow did a whole lot of moooing, which Sasha expected...but she wasn't prepared for how loud they are in real life. Many kids actually got pretty freaked out by the cow which was pretty funny. And for a farm there are pretty much all your standard farm animals...though you may not see peacocks often.




Nice stopover for lunch at Granma's where Sasha shows us what the cow says - moooo! And here's a pic Sasha took of Granma. beautful!


Fully nourished we set off to trek around Capilano Suspension Bridge and the Treetop Adventures (suspension bridges between trees). Sasha had a blast running around this place, had no fears of an heights, and made me and a group of folks on the trail laugh when she started to state "But I really want to climb a tree! I want to climb that tree like a monkey!" lol!

Everywhere we go if we see water Sasha will play with it; and she'll play hide 'n seek anywhere (she's 'hiding' in the pic of her crouching) and she loves maps and pretending like she knows where she's going with them, hehe.




Crazy week of fun with family and a friend, enjoying sunny days, ice cream and more...and 16 stamps complete. Now we can do this stuff whenever we want! yeepa!!