Fortunately, I picked up the habit of writing down everything we do and eat on vacation in a little notebook from my mother-in-law, so you still get to hear about it in more detail than you ever hoped for. Sorry for all the pictures, but that is one photogenic city, bitches.
Tuesday
We arrived after flying many hours and eating much airport food. As one does. Before dinner, we stopped into a market to pick up some crackers and cheese to sacrifice to my acid reflux before bedtime, as was my wont. (It seems that I've cured the acid reflux by squeezing half a lemon into every glass of water I drink. Who knew?) Now, if you've ever been in a New York supermarket, you're familiar with the sense of despair that one can get in such an establishment. They don't have a lot of room, so the aisles are too narrow for the carts, the food selection ain't so great and the store will randomly stop carrying your favorite whatever.
Not so in this glorious market whose name I didn't write down, but is in the trendy Yaletown area. Fresh produce as far as the eye can see and so many kinds of cheese! I wanted to live there forever. IN the market.
We grabbed dinner at lebanese cafe called Nuba. I had the fried cauliflower plate and who cares what His Awesomeness had? It wasn't fried cauliflower. His loss.
Wednesday
We awoke to discover that this was the view from our hotel room window:
Romantic, no? Fortunately, we weren't there to enjoy the sumptuous room, so we were away from the racket most of the time.
On our way out that morning, we realized that it was the first city we'd been to together that neither one of us had ever been to before. We declared this to be both freaky and deaky. We decided to just go with it and keep opening the guidebook like big dorks.
We took part of the walking tour through Gastown from the Frommer's guidebook. Where we started was all touristy, with gift shops and generic restaurants and a steam powered clock.
That's it, up there. We then deviated from the walking tour by one (1) block and saw many junkies and someone collecting used needles. We even saw an obvious drug deal going on in the middle of the street in broad daylight. Now, New York junkies lurk and shit, so I don't know WHAT the deal is with Canadian junkies and their complete lack of subtlety.
So, stick to the guidebook walking tour, people.
Oh, Jesus Christmas, I just realized that in the picture of the clock up there, you can see me in the bright red fleece pullover I brought along for the trip. It was weather appropriate, and I kept reading about how sporty Vancouverites are, but I walked past a lot of people in nice jackets while I was walking around looking like Frankenberry.
OK, so we made it to Chinatown, where, like the big dorks we are, we took a picture of Eduardo because that's how we roll.
In Chinatown, we went to the Sun Yat Sen Park and Dr. Sun Yat Sen Classical Chinese Garden. We took a guided tour through the garden, which was so worth it.
And here is where I flog you with pictures instead of boring you with all the cool little details I learned on the tour.
After the tour, we went in search of a specific dim sum place mentioned in the guidebook. We couldn't find it, but did see more drug dealers and a methadone clinic. So that was nice, too.
We headed back towards the gardens and found a dim sum place and ate dumplings and stuff.
We had dinner at an Silk Road fusion place called Sanafir (music warning). They do this whole small plates thing where you order, say, the chicken and you get 3 chicken dishes from different places along the silk road. Each dish was so complex and delicious and wow. If we go back to Vancouver, we'll be eating there again.
OK, this is long enough with all the pictures, so I'll save the rest of the trip for the next post.
