BC Adventuring: Part III - I'll Miss the Mountains

Today was boring. The highlight: I retrieved my rebuilt Birkenstocks from the shoemaker. They look spiffy!

But my BC trip was much more exciting.

Day 5: We woke up early to avoid the heat of the day and hit the road to the bike rental shop and spent the morning biking the sea wall in Stanley Park. I took about a million pictures, but I did it while biking, so half of them are crooked. It was probably a poor and dangerous decision, but it was so pretty, I just wanted to take pictures all the time. Every time we went around a corner I wanted to take more pictures.

When we got to Third Beach we locked up our bikes and spent an hour lying in the sun and cooling down in the water. Water from the Pacific Ocean! My first time.

By the end of the ride we were sun-scorched and pooped -- we managed to get separated and a little lost, but finally returned the bikes and found a Noodle Spot for late lunch. It was called Legendary Noodle, on Denman. Very delicious.

After lunch we hiked back to the hotel for a rest and a shower. Once Ange finished work, she joined us there and we went on our adventure to Richmond. Some Ange quotes on Richmond:

"It's the real Chinatown! Where the real Chinese people live."

"Welcome to Richmond. There are no street signs, so when you come here you're like "where the fuck am I?"

So we took the bus. The most exciting part about the bus was that it was free, all four times with the tranfering -- for some reason the bus driver never took my money. Oh, and some skater boy in a purple t-shirt eye flirted with me on the way there. I was wearing a new dress I was unsure about, and took that as a vote in favour of the dress.

The reason we went to Richmond was for the outdoor Asian Night Market. When we got off the bus Ange explained that she didn't know where we were going, but we decided that following all the asian people was a good plan. We trekked through a Home Depot big box parking lot that had signs that said "Absolutely NO night market parking". We were on the right track. We continued to trek through a parking lot and behind a warehouse to a little village of tents.

There were a few different types of stalls which repeated over and over: knockoff tech accessories, pirated DVDs, jewelery, and bras and socks. The one exception was a unique stall that sold holographic pictures of puppies and busty women. We briefly considered buying one for the 3rd floor common room, but moved on.

The food was the real reason we went. Ange made me eat everything, basically:

1. Octopus and dough balls. Thumbs down from me.
2. Pork Dumpings
3. Fried Squid and Tofu
4. Shrimp dumplings
5. "Hurricane fries" : a spiral cut potato on a stick
6. Rice noodles with peanut sauce
7. Bubble Waffles (bubbles of waffles, bascially)

and we washed it all down with bubble tea. I woke up the next morning with a rumbly tummy asking me what the hell I'd done to it.

Day 6: We hit Gastown, which was less exciting that I was expecting, but I did enjoy all the cobblestones and stone buildings. Gastown is the original Vancouver, so it's all historical, like I'm used to. We had a delicious Mexican fiesta of a lunch and my mom and I shared a Margarita.

For some reason, that hike home felt sooooo loooong. I was dead tired, and sweaty.

Day 6 was a low-key day. The highlight was a relaxing cup of chai in a coffeeshop in Gastown. The window was thrown open and the air smelled great.

Day 7 we left town. The plane ride was awesome this time because there were no clouds. We watched the Rockies, then the prairies slip by. Soon we were back in Ontario (we could tell by the lakes).

I love the moutains. Love love them. I really want to go back as soon as I can.