Long weekend in Vancouver

And so I headed out to Vancouver during the long weekend. The main thing was to meet up with relatives and visit grandma more than sightseeing and exploring the city this time. It was the first time for myself to try park'n fly but we had to use the service since the whole family was visiting. I was a bit weary that my car might get broken into or scratched, although I told myself that my VW was like 6 yrs old already - which sort of made myself feel a bit better. I had to transit through Calgary but was lucky enough to upgrade one leg of the flight to biz class from points earned from Aeroplan. After meeting up with the family in Vancity (we headed there on different flights since it was hard to book tix at the last min), we proceeded to pick up our rental car - a PT Cruiser. The pros to the car was that it looked pretty nice from afar due to its unique design, along with the fact that the car only got 2700 clicks on it. The cons however; was that the car lacked power (esp torque), requires a big radius for doing a U-turn, and various viewing angles were awkward.
Now, to the city Vancouver; lots of people told me that Vancouver is a nice city - one that is even better than Toronto, and also ranked atop one of the best cities to live in the world. The scenery was nice alright with the marina looking fairly nicely, lots of pretty girls possibly it's close to Asia, and of mountains overlooking the ocean view. However, the transportation infrastructure is just TERRIBLE! I can't beleive that their roads are mingled like spagetti, there are only limited alternate roads for detour, and there's no highway to most parts of the city. Motorists find themselves stuck in traffic for hrs if there's an accident or detour on one street. Other cons include lots of drug addicts in the city - interesting why the gov't decide to legalize drugs and also have drug houses offering free injection. My relatives told me that it was to control AIDs from spreading too quickly in the city as people were using recycled needles for drugs before they were legalized. Despite this fact, I think by doing so; people are encouraged to use them more and causing additional crime and prostitution in the city. Last observation was the slow pace of the city (motorists, getting served in a restaurant), I guess it's a retirement city afterall; and maybe i'll like it if i'm 70 or so... Eitherway, it's a nice short getaway from work and the hectic life in Toronto; and somehow i'm motivated again (not really from Vancouver trip)... but it's another story for another day :) Here's some pics!