It was one of those funny coincidences that happen all around us that we only seem to notice from time to time... Tony Bennett was kicking off this year’s Vancouver Jazz Festival and had been sold out immediately and for months. But as luck would have it unbeknownst to us at the last minute the concert date was changed and as a result of this a number of tickets became available the very morning Jennifer was looking on the Ticketmaster website. Serendipity! So a few clicks later we had two 10th row tickets in our hot little hands and off we went!
We scooted off on a Thursday morning and arrived a mere hour and a bit later in Vancouver. The plan is to build a direct rail link from the airport to downtown for the 2010 Olympics, but until then we had decided to take the Airport Shuttle to the hotel. Unfortunately with the NHL Draft and the UNESCO’s Urban Planning forum in town at the same time traffic was messed up and we had a longer than desired wait for the bus - at least it wasn’t raining!
Once we made it downtown we hiked over to our hotel, the Kimpton-owned Pacific Palisades hotel. Located on Robson Street in what looks like a refurbished 1960’s style apartment complex, the hotel is uniquely decorated with a number of local artist’s work as shown with the chandelier on the left. The hotel is right in the middle of the city and offers easy access to Stanley Park as well as all the other parts of the city you may want to visit. One great thing we found when planning this trip was that you can get some great discounts on hotels etc when you book it through the Tourism Vancouver site.One other great thing about the hotel is that in addition to having an excellent restaurant (Zin) in the hotel, the hotel is literally about 100 feet away from one of the best Chinese Noodle houses around called Hon’s Won Tun House. The place has been around forever and despite it’s ‘stuck in the 80s’ decor serves up amazing noodle dishes quickly and cheaply. There are several elevated kitchens surrounding the room each with it’s own speciality (BBQ, Noodles, ,Chef Specials etc). I can’t finish without describing the Potstickers, available with pork, beef, chicken or vegetarian - they are simply the best potstickers we’ve had ...ever. If you are ever in Vancouver or New Westminister you owe it to yourself to try these out!
After a late lunch we strolled down Robson street to the Vancouver Art Gallery which was hosting 2 exhibitions we have been waiting to see.
Some Assembly Required is an exhibition on the latest in modern pre-fab housing from some of the most interesting and innovative architects around. We have long been considering the notion of modern pre-fab for the vacation home we plan to build in Invermere some day, and this exhibition put it top of mind once again.
The second exhibition was about the critical works of the iconic Canadian Architect Arthur Erickson. It is a wonderful retrospective with lots of interesting models and documentation and over the next few days we made every effort to see as much of it as we could (see the Arthur Erickson photo gallery for more).
After a lovely dinner at Zin we were off to see Tony! The concert was held in the Orpheum Theatre which was opened in 1927 as an extension to the Chicago Vaudeville circuit and restored by the city of vancouver in the mid-70s. It’s an incredibly beautiful and intimate theatre - every seat feels like you are right up close to the stage, and the acoustics are sensational. Throughout the night Tony Bennett would occasionally turn off his mike, step to the front of the stage and sing without any amplification and you could hear him as if he was sitting across the table from you. Needless to say, the concert was an event and in addition to being a wonderful singer Tony is quite the raconteur, filling the space between numbers with endless stories from his 60(!!) year career. After I think it was 6 standing ovations and encores we floated out into a beautiful West Coast night and headed back to the hostel through the vibrant Robson street district.
Vancouver Trip Part I - Tony Bennett
Thursday, June 29, 2006