After dropping Pauline off on Saturday, I had about an hour to kill so I drove around randomly and ended up at Queen Elizabeth Park, home to the Bloedel Conservatory and a bunch of Chinese people practicing Tai Chi early in the morning. It’s situated on the top of a hill so I expect it to be a nice view at night (if ever it stops raining). I made it back in time and joined the conference’s Walk for Education in Stanley Park. I thought the walk would be more substantial, like along the Stanley Park sea wall or something, but it ended up being a walk to the Totem Poles. There was a break for lunch so we went to Prospect Point and the hollow tree. For lunch we went for handmade Ramen on Denmen Street.

There were a couple of places, but we ended up at Motomachi Shokudo based on the rain and closeness to the car. This was basically a hole in the wall for 2 bars, a couple of 2-person tables and a single 4-person table. The menu only had two things! Shoyu or Shio Ramen. We got one of each and I got a Itcho iced green tea for fun. Pauline had more sessions in the afternoon and I had pretty much run out of things to do (plus it was still raining). I headed over to the space museum and observatory to take a couple of pictures but then headed back to the hotel.

Once Pauline’s conference was over, we picked up Mana and then headed over to Richmond again. First stop was to find the building where a small plane crashed into the day before. We didn’t really know the location, but after driving around a bit, found it due to the yellow police tape. Unfortunately, everything was blocked off, and the impact site wasn’t facing the road, so we couldn’t get a good view. We then headed to Aberdeen Centre again now that it was actually open. There were a couple of neat things there. First, there was a huge 2 hour+ line of Chinese people waiting for Beard Papa’s Cream Puffs. At $19 for a dozen, it doesn’t seem worth it. I saw 2 different consignment stores, one that sells your stuff on eBay for you at a 30%+ commission, and another store where you could rent a cube to display your wares. We also went to Daiso because it is so cool!

Dinner was at a Korean restaurant Jang Mo Jib. I think I’m kind of spoiled being so near to Korean Town because I was disappointed we only got 4 dishes for appetizers! We ordered some generic Korean food but also marinated raw crab. That was interesting, fortunately I haven’t had any stomach aches yet. Afterwards we went to a BBT place called Well Tea (or it could be Tea Well, who knows). Pretty generic. I got a “house special” and they ended up giving me my tapioca on the side which was a bit odd.

On Sunday, we checked out of the hotel and went to White Spot for breakfast. It’s a franchise all-day breakfast place that has a ton of locations. I suspect that it was founded in Vancouver because the name on the menus (Nat Bailey) also has a stadium named after him in Queen Elizabeth Park. I had an Original Sunny Start which was a good filling breakfast, and Pauline had a Big Bowl Breakfast (too big). We then picked up Mana and went over to Granville Island, which is like Harbourfront+St Lawrence Market. It was still raining, but at least there was some indoor stuff to visit. Pauline still wasn’t able to find the souvenirs she wanted so we left the island and went over to Purdy’s to buy some Vancouver chocolates. After dropping Mana off, we went back to Richmond for a quick lunch/dinner at Michigan Noodle House before going to the airport and flying back to Toronto.

Posted by Kevin in Blogs Tags: diary, travelling, vancouver