Definitely go for a walk around the sea wall. Yaletown False Creek to Stanley Park or/and Coal Harbour. Check out Granville Island too.

Maybe cross over to North Vancouver and go up Grouse Mountain, or up to the UBC Campus to check out the Anthropology Museum and Wreck Beach. Take the trail behind the Antrhopology Museum to reach a more secluded area of the beach. Or if you want lots of nudists and Pot cookies take the main trail down.

Nice hotels to stay at: Try the Opus Hotel in Yaletown.
Food: Cardero's on the seawall along Coal Harbour is nice, or lots of places in Yaletown.

Maybe others will have more creative suggestions.

Good Restaurants:

Anyone else? Would you recommend renting a car, or are public transport/cabs sufficient?

go to Amsterdam Cafe on Hastings at Victory Square, buy yourself a nice joint at the door, grab some lunch inside, and enjoy fine B.C. bud.

or, go to the ever so dingy Cambie Hostel bar just around the corner from Amsterdam Cafe, and stand by the juke box until someone comes to you with a joint. sit down, order a beer, and enjoy the fine B.C. bud.

go to Wreck Beach, although not too much nudist activity right now, the hike there is fantastic, with a great view of the bay, Howe Sound, and Vancouver Island.

for the most authentic Japanese experience in Vancouver, have dinner at Hapa Izakaya on Robson, although the place is so hip, you'll need a reservation for anytime, any day of the week.

must check out Inform Interiors on Water Street in Gastown, as well as Richard Kidd - fantastic apparell/culture gear in a beautifully designed space in between two heritage buildings.

great Karaoke in the upstairs of Konbinya on Robson. A must-do for a rainy evening. combined with a video store, convenience store, comic books, and a hair salon.

strolling the docks of Yaletown is a good killer of an afternoon. great shops and restaurants. if you're going to eat there, go to Shiru Bay.

don't miss Main St. at Broadway and then further up around 20th or so. great hippster shopping and coffee shops. check out Dadabase at Main and Broadway. if you eat there, go to Monsoon at Broadway.

also a stroll along Commercial Drive is fun. Lesbian/Italian street. great shopping and restaurants. if you eat there, go to Havana Cafe near Venebles.

I could go on and on, but that should give you enough options.

p.s. please don't spend more than 1 hour on Granville Island. check out Emily Carr and the market and then leave.

if you wanna hit up some brews and meet some kids who know how to party go to the Pits pub on the UBC campus. There are other great campus pubs around, I'm sure you'll get hockey on TV pretty much everywhere you go.

Rudolph,

I would rent a car. It's possible to take public transit and cabs around Vancouver but the system is nothing like those offered in Chicago, Boston, NYC, etc. Public Transit = Bus in Vancouver as the rail system is limited to two lines and you will not want to go anywhere serviced by them as a tourist.

A lot of what's great in Vancouver is far flung so a car will be a great luxury. Maybe driveup Cypress Mountain Road for amazing views over the city, out to University of British Columbia for the Belkin Gallery and others, etc.

For an architecture discussion board it's strange how noone's recommended any good arch. sites. Says something about the quality of work in the city.

Here's a short list:

1. Vancouver Courts Building, downtown. By Arthur Erickson.
2. Museum of Anthropology, at University of British Columbia, By Erickson
3. Simon Fraser University, in Burnaby by Erickson.
4. Marine Building. Burrard and Hastings. Amazing Art Deco. Check out the Lobby.

Make sure to eat sushi. Nikko at Robson and Burrard is good.

A new restaurant in architecturally strong setting is Watermark at Kitsilano Beach. Good waterffron dining in Modern digs.

Good luck.

Thanks everyone! Looks like we might have to make it a 2 day week-end, and unfortunately I won't be drinking much or eating sushi (7 months pregnant)...

I would get a good list of homes completed by Patkaus, Erickson, Ron Thom, et al and check them out. Probably the most significant impact the west coast of canada has had on modern architecture has been through a history of small residential scale buildings in the native west coast landscape.

hey Whistler ...

do you know of some specific homes one can see from public space ... I'd like to know.

All I ever check out when in the city is the Patkau house just past Kits. I think it's amazing!!

Also ... this is thread jumping and an embarrasingly naive question: do you all draw in metric in BC?? I'm all feet and inches down here south of the 49th.