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Vancouver's a great city to walk around as its different alleys offer interesting walk tours In some cities, beginnings can be confusing. No, not the beginning of the city, but where to begin the city tour. Vancouver certainly is one such city. Where do you begin in a city which takes its name from a Dutch captain George Vancouver and is often touted as the world's most liveable city and Canada's most walkable city? Where do you begin? In a morgue where crime is chronicled? In a derelict shrine to Jimi Hendrix, who sang Purple haze? In Gastown where the world's first steam clock hisses on the hour? In Salt restaurant that has no kitchen, just a slicer? Or, in Stanley Park which has totem poles, giant sequoias and countless sculptures, one even dedicated to the Air India Kaniskha crash? Vancouver has sparkling beaches and burly mountains. It is a great city to walk around. After all, it is Canada's most walkable city. But why not walk a different alley in Vancouver? There is an unusual walk that begins near the morgue which is now a Police Museum. Wandering through the historic Gastown and Chinatown, one can relive the days of old opium dens, the early drug trade, of the Prohibition-era Vancouver when gangsters and bootleggers controlled the city, of streets cluttered with street walkers, of Mexican bandits and Yankee road agents. The Sins in the City walk can send a shiver down the spine, but it is a 'chilling' start to a 150-year old city.
Not too far from the crime scene is a shrine. At 796, Main St, where Jimi Hendrix's grandmother Nora donned an apron and cooked in what was then Vie's Chicken Inn much before he crooned "purple haze in my eyes, don't know if it's day or night". Now, the Inn is a Hendrix shrine. With gangsters and a singer ticked off the must-do list, meet Gassy Jack — the motor-mouth pilot turned saloonkeeper who probably was the first settler in Gastown, the National Historic neighbourhood where modern Vancouver began. John Deighton earned the sobriquet Gassy Jack because he could talk and talk and talk. The adroit Gassy wanted to set up a saloon. So, one day he ambled up to the mill owners with a barrel of whisky and struck a deal - if the mill workers helped him build a saloon, they could drink to their gills. The workers chewed on the offer; the 12 x 24 feet Globe Saloon raised its brick-and-batten head amidst a maple grove. So, did a thriving neighbourhood called Gastown. The maple trees have withered but Gassy stands there in a toupee and trench coat sculpted in bronze. There is more to Gastown than Gassy, though. It is the food lover's haven. From the old-world Irish Heather Gastropub, where on the rather simple yet 'spirited' menu there's Sidecar, a cognac concoction created in Paris during World War 1; the infamous Irish Coffee that Chef Joseph Sheridan served to shivering sea-soaked travellers in the late 1940s, Old Fashioned (bourbon + sugar + bitters drink), the first drink to be (disputably) called a cocktail and 207 other whiskies. In the Blood Alley, there's trendy Salt that has its food honours etched on the glass wall. But it has no kitchen. Only a slicer that rustles up a charcuterie tasting plate from 10 cheeses, 10 meats and 10 condiments and pair with the finest wine. At Salt, you'll realise that good food need not be cooked, you could merely slice it!
Full to the gill, you can bundle up warmly and head up to the Grouse Mountain to walk in snow and then be beamed up to Eye of the Wind, for a glass-bubble 360-degree view of the city. The Grouse Grind is a 2.9-km trail which the locals call the Mother Nature's stairmaster. It is a steep hike up the hill; if you do not want to hike, you can hop into the red Skyride to the top of the mountain where the grizzly bears laze in snow and enthusiastic skiers with large glasses and oversized snow boots hurtle down the mountain. Do not miss the 65-metre tall wind turbine — it is the world's first wind turbine with an elevator (the turbine generators were made in India) and offers the best view of Vancouver. From the top of Grouse Mountain, Vancouver looks like a deft artist's most exquisite painting — squiggly green of the red cedar and Douglas fir, the hurried turquoise strokes of the river cutting through the city's midriff and Chevron's floating petrol station in Coal Harbour toting up an eerie intrigue. Once you are done with the must-dos in Vancouver and crave for a hot cup of chai with lamb kebabs, head to the Railway Express, Chef Vikarm Vij's food truck that has locals eating out of his hand. Literally. That will be the perfect end to a city tour that began with gangsters and opium dens.
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