Posted by With only a few hours left before our 14 days of adventures come to an end and Su and I go back to life, we tried to rush out in the morning to check some more things off our list, including the 19th hike of the challenge.
First stop was the Pacific Spirit Regional Park, in the west part of Vancouver. It is a huge park right by the city (2160 acres) and surrounds University of British Columbia (UBC), on the shores of Georgia Strait, Pacific Ocean. The park contains 73 km of hiking/walking trail, most of which can also be used for biking. Can you imagine going to school by a park like this?
A short hike through the park (almost wilderness), got us to the university. I had heard about how amazing the campus is, but there is no way I could have imagined the massiveness of it. I thought UofT was big, but with almost 1000 acres of land, UBC is over 5 times bigger!
It is quite secluded from the main city, unlike UofT that is located right in the middle of downtown. UBC is also surrounded by the park and lies on the shores of the ocean. Boy, had I visited this campus before joining UofT, I might have chosen UBC – however, I am not sure how well I would deal with the gloomy weather of Vancouver.
On campus, there is a rose garden, that overlooks the ocean and mountains. The blue water and the blue sky, separated by the grey-ish mountains, amalgamate to form a beautiful blue mesh in the near horizon.
The university campus is never-ending. In the few hours we spent there, we probably did not even scratch the surface. A friend the night before said “oh UBC has so much space, they don’t even know what to do with it; it’s just massive”. Now I know what he meant. Or may be I still don’t.
We passed through a bunch of buildings and departments, but I have no memory of those. The “land” was way too mesmerizing to notice the mundane buildings. I do remember seeing some Medical students, all carrying the same bag, hanging out in a group. Su and I decided to avoid that area 😛
From UBC we took an express bus downtown to pick up some token gifts to bring back. Now that we had eaten all the food we were carrying, we shed a lot of weight and emptied up quite a bit of space to fill up with non-perishable items.
Renee, the friend we were staying with, cooked us an elaborate meal, and came all the way to the airport to say good-bye. We are so grateful to her for letting us stay with her. I hope she still loves us, even after the amount of wreckage we created in her apartment and Su constantly singing to annoy all of us. We definitely love her more than ever before.
In 7 hours, we reach Toronto.
The Never-ending Quest for a Passion 