Chinatown Vancouver

Well what a difference a day makes, not to the
weather, we had another  cold night and brisk day today.
The difference is geographical, today we went to
one of the more crowded parts of Vancouver, Chinatown.
 
Chinatown is fine, but neighbors a definitely grittier
part of Vancouver just north of China town from East Pender
is the Eastend docks, east of gastown, where the self-naming
'underbelly' of Vancouver lives. There was an edge
to the area. 
 
Chinatown is an original one, and the tourist leaflet(!)
claims being the oldest and cleanest China town in
North America, or at least Canada. Its the real thing with 
lots of dried goods on sale, I could identify
walnuts and apricots and pigs trotters and scallops,
and cinnamon sticks, but that was about it
without purchasing intent. 

We went to the Sun Yat Sen Classical Chinese park next to
the paid entry garden. It was empty and the pond was frozen
so the turtles and ducks had cleared off. The garden is
authentic in so far as all the limestone and supplies,
including gardeners, embarked to Canada from China to
undertake the project. A lady came out to tell us they
had great discounts in the Teracotta army gift shop, 
but we declined.There was a big plaque commemorating
the 300 odd Chinese Canadian veterans by name whom
served during WW2 in the entrance to the
community centre. 

We fell short of finding the restaurant area, not tourist oriented, 
so decided to eat uptown. Funny that Richmond has sprung up as a 
new Chinatown more in the vein of HongKong, and old china town
seems to carry on has it has done for some time now.