DLTK's British Columbia Road Trip
Day 5: Vancouver
This morning mommy woke up first! What a surprise! We went to the hotel restaurant for breakfast and then headed to the
Vancouver Aquarium in Stanley Park.
We admired the statue fountain made of bronze at the entrance to the aquarium.
We had arrived just in time for the Beluga Whale Show so we headed over there. These white whales are native to the artic region. They have a dorsal ridge instead of a fin – they use this ridge to break the ice and make air holes. The whales jumped out of the water a little. They can’t jump as high as a dolphin or a killer whale because they are built to stay comfortable - they have 15cm of blubber all over their bodies. Belugas can only swim 20km per hour and have very small pectoral fins so they don’t get cold “hands”. There were 5 females and 1 male. One of the females was pregnant; her baby was expected in July, after 14 months of gestation.
After the Beluga show we wandered around a bit until it was time for the dolphin show. The aquarium only had one dolphin and it wasn’t a bottlenose kind. It was a Pacific White-sided Dolphin. Mommy liked the white racing stripes on its back. The dolphin was new to the aquarium but had already learned to jump high in the air and retrieve a ball.
Next we visited the seals and the sea lions. The sea lions were sunning themselves and were quite grouchy, they barked and snapped at each other a lot. We also saw a cute sea otter that spent most of his time floating on his back – even when he was eating.
Under the aquarium were many tanks of fish. The tanks showed different underwater habitats in the BC area. We marveled at the sea stars, sea urchins, sea cucumbers and anemones. We had fun trying to spot the flounders. Flounders are funny flat fish that blend so well with the sand you can only see their eyes. We saw one ruffle its fins and bury itself in the sand. We also saw jellyfish, turtles and frogs. Kaitlyn and Mommy saw one frog stick out its tongue to catch a cricket!
We were all tired so we stopped at the gift shop for T-shirts and post cards and then headed back to the hotel. Tasha and Daddy went to the swimming pool. It wasn’t the best pool we had; it was cold and the painting of the killer whale on the bottom was disturbing.
Mommy and Kaitlyn visited the kid’s center on the third floor. It was full of toys and dolls. Kaitlyn loved it. I think she has been missing her toys. Daddy and Tasha joined us. Tasha seemed to have fun too, even though the toys were a little too young for her.
We had a nice supper in the hotel, complete with ice cream for dessert. Then we returned to the room and played Spyro the Dragon. Tasha and Kaitlyn both played (with a bit of help from mommy). Tasha did great until she got to the parts with tougher creatures that stressed her out a little bit.