28th Dec - 30th Dec 2010
We left Jasper early to head to Edmonton, the capital of Alberta, again about 300km away. We finally reached truly freezing as it was in the -20's! So far it hadn't really got lower than -10 or -12 during the day. We went straight to West Edmonton Mall, a massive shopping centre that was beyond anything you have seen before. It has over 800 shops, an indoor theme park, and indoor water park, indoor ice-skating, putt putt gold, bowling and glow in the dark putt putt as well as an aquarium, 4 or 5 different themed shopping areas (chinatown, europa boulevard, bourbon st etc) and a massive pirate ship where you can ride little boats around on the water right in the centre of the shopping centre. There was also a sea lion show twice daily in the centre of the mall. This place was amazing, and one of the main reasons we wanted to go to Edmonton!
We searched around the mall for a few hours and then headed to our hotel, the Crowne Plaza and checked in. We then went over to the other side of the city for some Japanese for dinner.
The next morning we headed back to the mall, and when we stepped outside to get the bus OMG it was absolutely freezing! You couldn't take a full breath in because it would hurt and would make you cough. Getting onto the bus was the best thing ever! It was unbelievable! By taking the bus we got to see some of the main city part of Edmonton, it was one of the only actual 'cities' with skyscrapers that we had seen since Vancouver. When we arrived at the mall we played a round of glow in the dark putt putt golf which was really cool (shaun won, grrr!) Then we headed to the theme park and went on some cool rides. There was a really crazy rollercoaster where you span around the whole time as well as going up and down, then there was a massive loop-the-loop rollercoaster (indoors!) that was crazy! we felt like we'd been through a tornado afterwards!
After the theme park, we went to the water park. It was pretty cool, you could see it was dark outside thru the roof and it would have been -20 out there but we were swimming inside! There was a massive wave pool and about 10 or so different slides. Most of the slides were pretty cool and different, except one that left me feeling like I'd just died. It took me about 10 mins to get my heart rate back to a normal speed and to adjust my swimmers back into place. I'd also inhaled about 500 gallons of water including up my nose! Phew. But it was a really cool water park and lots of fun!
On the way home we ended up getting on a bus that decided to change routes mid way without telling anyone so then we were going way into suburbia and had to get off and get the right bus so that was interesting and took an extra hour back to our hotel! We ordered some chinese food and went to bed as it was pretty late.
The next morning we had to check out so we packed up the car again and headed out in the arctic weather. We read in the lonely planet book about 'old strathcona town' on the other side of the river that was kind of an 'alternative' area with lots of shops and restaurants with a vintage feel to it, so we thought we would check it out on our way out of Edmonton. However, when we got there it seemed to be only one really long street, and it looked just like everywhere else, didn't really seem that appealing but we did find a nice place to have lunch.
After lunch we headed out of Edmonton to move onto Calgary. We liked Edmonton but because of the cold, it made it a bit hard to see more than what we did, but I think its main attraction is the mall and we definitely made use of that!
Heading on to Calgary to bring in the New Year!
Hayley and Shaun xx
Indoor Pirate Ship and water area
Indoor water park
Indoor water park
Sea Lion show
Sea Lion
Some of the city
City
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