The pigeons of Granville Island had little qualms hopping onto the arms of the children and feeding directly from their hands. Two girls chased the rock-colored aviators around the deck, temporarily sending about thirty birds into the air and effectively disrupting the courtship dances the males were demonstrating for their unimpressed mates. Two women, seated in the far corner, sipped their morning mochas and picked at a large loaf of bread. Sunglasses on and unshaven, men leisurely flipped through the newspaper, their cups of coffee untouched on the tables. The yachts remained at the docks; the only vessels on the water were a few geese and ducks.

Large tomatoes, pyramids of strawberries, glittering fish heads, stacks of freshly-baked bread, greasy pizzas, colorful smears of gelato, gardens of lilies, tulips, and orchids, dusty bins brimming with dried humus, coriander, and cloves, and juicy slabs of meat greeted us within the public market.

The black and white cookies at Stuart’s are pretty good, though, as stated elsewhere, the chocolate chip cookies were too cakey for my tastes.

Paper-Ya satisfies stationery lust; it’s like a pornography shop for office supplies.

I also encountered the Banana Guard on the Island; there was a reader of intueri who told me that her brother (an emergency medicine physician?) invented this contraption. I didn’t realize that the Banana Guard had ventilation holes.

I must agree: Vancouver’s Granville Island is much more entertaining and enticing than Seattle’s Pike Place Market.