Well, I’m afraid I have rather too little to say about Vancouver, having been assured that it truly is worthy of its accolades as the most liveable city on the planet.

Truth is that it rained and, though I had my waterproof coat with me specifically in preparation for this city, I wasn’t very organised about sightseeing. I rested on the laurels of booking my trip to Victoria Island, which was one of the highlights of the whole 9 weeks. I had hoped to go to Whistler but options were limited to a bus ride or hiring a car, which I didn’t really want to do and  being told that the rain would not do Whiustler any favours was my perfect get-out. Next time, perhaps.

I did, however, walk around a bit, to Chinatown and back through Gastown, the trendy district that reminded me of my Sunday afternoon walk back from Ronnie’s through Soho.

Vancouver possibly wasn’t as lively as I was expecting, probably because it was still in partial lockdown, I think, and many of the more colourful shops in Chinatown weren’t open. Or possibly that, living in Hong Kong, the sights of Vancouver’s Chinatown are less of a novelty for me.

There are lots of pictures in the gallery that follows of road junctions in the city. I found myself fascinated by these throughout my Canada journey not least because of the sheer photogenic orderliness of them: the clearly-painted yellow traffic lights and the perfect synchronisation of the pedestrian crossings, where a white man tells you what to do for a few seconds before a walking orange man counts down your seconds of freedom to cross the road. I love the mature trees in Canadian cities, and the fact that people have a lot of space to themselves and the spatial awareness and consideration to maintain social distancing.

I took a stroll one afternoon along to Stanley Park, which was spectacular in its autumn livery, a place of relaxed enjoyment and people socialising away from traffic. Truly these are outdoors people, who take advantage of the calm organisation into pedestrian lanes and bike lanes, and the peace and quiet.

I did have to waste a couple of mornings travelling out to near the airport to take two separate PCR to fly tests because it seems that Canadian providers were not quite up to speed yet with the to-the-letter requirements of Hong Kong authorities which require proof that the PCR tests are ISO 15189 certified by the local governing authority. I was assured of this my booth of the providers I used who, in the end, could not come up with any certification that mentioned ISO 15189.

(If you find yourself travelling from Canada to HK – and this looks increasingly unlikely now in these Omicron days – LifeLabs is the one you need and you can print out an ISO 15189 certificate from their website. The story of why, having initially booked them, I didn’t use them is TL;dr.)

Apparently, half of Vancouver’s population is ethnically Chinese, as evidenced by earnest trilingual explanations of everything in English, French and Chinese and it feels a truly international city.

I fully appreciated the care taken by the Saturday girl on my visit to Nordstrom, who spent at least an hour trying in vain, in the town of Lululemon, to find me a sports bra that fitted. I was so taken by her earnest attentiveness that I bought more unnecessary sportswear too cream into my luggage.

This trip was also a bit of a quest to photograph wildlife, and I was largely unsuccessful in that but I did see a raccoon approach my table from the other side of the hotel restaurant’s plate glass window and stare at me for a few incredulous moments. Sadly I wasn’t quick enough to capture it with my phone camera but they do look like you imagine them.

I tried huge cinnamon buns and mulled cider – which was delicious – and lots of BC wine. It was, overall, a relaxing end to my circumnavigating Gitiad. I’d love to go back but next time not alone: I think you really need to share the conviviality here with someone.