Taking the SkyTrain to Vancouver

Vancouver's oh-so-hip SkyTrain. Photo by David Lansing.

When I ask Laura if I should grab a cab at the Vancouver airport I am, of course, hoping she’ll offer to come pick me up. No such luck. Laura has other things to do. Things with her husband, the Tug Boat Captain (or TBC as I call him) and her 14-month old baby boy, Nathaniel.

“Call the hotel. They’ll send a shuttle,” she says. “Or take the SkyTrain.”

SkyTrain. I like the sound of that—Sky…Train. Like CarBoat or BikeJet.

I’m a big fan of subways and metros and trolleys and buses and pedicabs. When I know how they work. What I hate is dragging a bunch of luggage behind you and getting all sweaty as you clomp up endless stairs and then standing in front of a ticket kiosk (usually with 10 impatient people right behind you) trying to figure out where you’re going and how much it’s going to cost and all that crap.

But the SkyTrain is easy. Credit card in the ol’ automated kiosk, a little ticket gets spit out, I’m on a clean, well-lit, automated SkyTrain (mind the gap!) and 18 minutes later I’m at my hotel just off No. 3 Road in downtown Richmond.

Not Vancouver, mind you. Not for this trip. But Richmond, BC. North America’s most effortlessly Asian city. To eat prawns wrapped in rice paper and pineapple buns and sobu noodles and seafood pancakes and Cantonese-style hot pot and, of course, dragon beard candy. Lots and lots of dragon beard candy.

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