AC/BC Blog

Sophie and I decided that friends awaiting us in BC was good enough reason to forego the extended Waikiki stopover this time. Truth is, after seeing Waikiki 5 times in the last 9 months, the novelty has worn off and the place ends up feeling more like a Disney theme park than a place to relax. In the future we've vowed to get off of Oahu, or at least away from Waikiki and the fat American tourists yapping on their cell phones.

We were anxious to crash out at the hotel following the marathon Sydney flight into Honolulu. Our cabbie must have sensed this, and subsequently got nailed by the state police as he sped us along the highway into Waikiki. Interestingly, his near fluent English suddenly dissapeared as the officer asked him for his license and registration. He continued to play dumb for most of the next 5 minutes, until the officer finally asked us how we were doing. "Ahhh..alright, I guess. Been a long day." The officer looks back at the cab driver and tears up the ticket, saying "I'm going to let you off with a warning...but only because you stopped your meter for your customers while I had you pulled over." Sounds good to me.

There was some added excitement upon leaving the island. Oahu had been experiencing very heavy rains for the 4 weeks prior to our visit ( 3 people died during a flash flood caused by a dam break on Kauai two days earlier). While we waited for our cab to the airport, a major lightning storm encroached in on the beach. Minutes later the skies opened up and must have dropped inches of rain within minutes. The overwhelmed sewer system started choking water high up onto the street, and parked cars became flooded up against the curbs. We were feeling lucky to hail a cab, and to make our escape onto the freeway back to the airport. Moments later, a huge bolt of lightning took out a power grid, leaving our freeway and half a mountain suburb in complete darkness.

Arrived in Vancouver early am, with no sleep and feeling seriously jet lagged. After what felt like hours waiting for the shuttle to the off-site car rental, we finally picked up our car, I learned to drive on the right side again, and we hauled off to Crescent Beach. Sophie's good friend Meghan put us up for 3 nights in her ultra cool detached apartment (used to be a garage). The quiet little beach side community allowed us to easily catch up on some much needed sleep.

In the evening we checked out Marine drive in White Rock, going for supper at a hip seafood restaurant called the Boathouse. Afterwards, we just had to stroll up Elm street to see if Sophie could find the old house she used to live in back in the late 70's.

The photo above is shortly after Sophie saved a crab from a rather futile situation. We saw this poor thing on it's back, trying to fight off a seagull with it's claws, meanwhile getting fully snacked on. The gull backed off as we approached, letting us flip the damaged crab onto his front and watching it hobble back to the ocean. Soph figures the legs will grow back.

Saturday morning we gave Meghan a lift to her job downtown, and then drove over to Main Street to hook up with Heather. Had some fantastic bagels and beet borscht at a trendy little Jewish bakery up the street. It felt so good to have the sun out as we ate at a table in front of the bakery, that we decided we couldn't forfeit the afternoon by being indoors. Headed over to Kitsilano beach for a long walk along the shoreline towards Spanish point. Kits beach provides a good vantage point of North Vancouver, and you can also get a good feel for just how rampant the condo construction has become on the downtown island.

When in Vancouver, you've got to take advantage of the cheap sushi, so we made our way up to Robson Street and had Meghan meet us after work. Downtown can be an excellent experience if you can ditch the car without too much hassle. I'm still used to the Winnipeg mentality, where you can drive around and eventually find a meter to park at. Not here...the best bet is to simply accept the cost of parking at the parkade into any venture downtown, and don't even bother navigating the one-ways.

Sunday had us exploring downtown again, although on a very wet day. We stayed mostly dry though by checking out the shops of Yaletown, and slowly making our way up Davie street, and into English bay. It was only a matter of time before soaked socks won over, and we found ourselves escaping the rain by checking out "V for Vendetta" at the megaplex.

The sun made it's way out again for Monday morning as we said goodbye to Meghan on Granville Island, and headed over to Joe and Esther's place on East 1st. Meghan's forgotten cell phone in the car gave us an excuse to head back over to Granville island and actually check the place out in the afternoon. Unique little urban community underneath the bridge, with a bustling market, a full-on micro brewery, the Emily Carr Institute, and some out-of-place industrial shop. Excluding the service vehicles, I could see Granville island going car-less in the near future and not missing a beat.

In the evening, Joe and Esther took us over to bustling Commercial drive, and we found ourselves in Yogi's Vegetarian Indian cuisine. The food had a flavor that told you it was super fresh, and that alot of work was put into the preparation. We full-on gourged ourselves, and ended up needing at least an hour of strolling the neighbourhood streets to kick start digestion. The problem with Indian food is that it's often based on a rice dish, which makes it deceiving for how ridiculously full you can get. This is because you can wolf it down so fast, that you almost forget to breathe. The photo above is taken up the street from Commercial drive, looking down at the downtown core. I like the depth that the cars on the sloping street give against the distant city lights. We broke into the 12 pack "Mingler" that I picked up from the Granville brewery that afternoon, which likely didn't help my explanation to Esther of why I do exactly what I do in my job.