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Five-minutes' walk north of downtown via a footbridge, Prince's Island is a popular but peaceful retreat offering plenty of trees, flowers, an outstanding restaurant, the River Cafe , kids' playground and enough space to escape the incessant stream of joggers pounding the walkways. Between the island and downtown, at the north end of 3rd Street SW (six blocks north of the free C-Train), the wonderful Eau Claire Market (food market daily 9am-6pm; shops and restaurants have varying hours; tel 264-6450 or 264-6460 for information, www.eauclaire.com ) is a bright and deliberately brash warehouse mix of food and craft market, cinemas (including a 300-seat IMAX large-screen complex), buskers, restaurants, walkways and panoramic terraces. All in all it brings some heart to the concrete and glass of downtown - the large communal eating area, in particular, is a good place to people-watch and pick up bargain takeaway Chinese, Japanese, wholefood and burger snacks. The food market is open from 9am to 6pm, but the complex and restaurants are open until late. Note that the tremendous YMCA (tel 269-6701) opposite the market at 101-3rd St SW has no rooms, though the superb swimming pool, jacuzzi, sauna, squash courts, running track and weights room are open to all (Mon-Fri 5.30am-10.30pm, Sat & Sun 7am-7.30pm; $8; increased admission Mon-Fri 11am-1.30pm and daily 4-6.30pm). Swimmers might be tempted by the broad, fast-flowing Bow River nearby, but it's for passive recreation only - the water is just two hours (were you travelling by car) from its icy source in the Rockies - its dangers underlined by lurid signs on the banks. The river is the focus for Calgary's civilized and excellent 210-kilometre system of recreational walkways , asphalt paths (also available to cyclists) that generally parallel the main waterways: maps are available from the visitor centre. Just east of the market and five blocks north of the C-Train at 197-1st St SW lies the Calgary Chinese Cultural Centre (daily: centre 9am-9pm, museum 11am-5pm; $2; tel 262-5071), its big central dome modelled on the Temple of Heaven in Beijing and it claims to be one of the largest Chinese centres in Canada. It forms the focus for Calgary's modest Chinatown and large Chinese-Canadian population, most of whom are descendants of immigrants who came to work on the railways in the 1880s. It contains a small museum and gallery, and a gift shop and restaurant. A twenty-minute jaunt along the walkway system from Prince's Island in the other direction from the market, Kensington is a gentrified cafe district on 10th St NW and Kensington Road. Shops here sell healing crystals and advertise yoga and personal-growth seminars, though the older cafes, bookshops and wholefood stores are beginning to give way to trinket shops. As an eating area, though, Kensington has been superseded by the increasingly trendy section of 4th Street SW, beyond 17th Avenue.
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