The ferry over from Victoria was a bit long - we had to take a 45-minute bus, a 1.5-hour ferry, another bus, and then light rail. The ferry part would have been better if there weren't seven school groups on it; the kids were really running wild and I thought Dave was going to lose it.
Our first visits (besides to drop everything off at the hotel) were book-related - can you tell this is a theme? We stopped at the downtown library, which had a beautiful rooftop deck, and then walked over to MacLeod's, which reminded me of a North American version of Shakespeare & Co. in Paris.
I picked up a fun German short story collection (in English) and Dave got some kind of noir cowboy fiction. Because of course he did.
Victoria had a Chinatown - our hotel was sort of in it - but Vancouver's is much more expansive and much more "gutsy," as Julia Child would say. There were definitely discarded needles on the ground and lots and lots and lots of homeless people around a few streets in particular, mostly on the edges of Chinatown.
We perused shops, bought post cards, and visited the Dr. Sun Yat Sen Garden, a nice little oasis where there were (mostly) no homeless people lying around shooting up drugs.
We wrote our post cards in the park and headed to dinner at Kissa Tanto, a Japanese Italian fusion restaurant in a fabulous art deco setting. This was probably Dave's favorite dinner of the whole trip. My favorite dish was the burrata appetizer special and the yuzu cream dessert. Definitely make a reservation.
After dinner, we walked nearby to Alibi Room, one of the premier craft beer bars in Vancouver. We weren't sure how many breweries we would get to in person, so we wanted a place we could sample a lot of them. We were not disappointed!
Some of our favorites were Brassneck, Beere, Back Country, and Superflux. Victoria might have been the cradle of craft beer in Canada, but Vancouver is where it has grown up.
The next day we spent mostly walking and biking the waterfront. We stopped for breakfast at Forage, a fabulous farm to table restaurant with the best sourdough toast and jam I've ever had. From there, we walked up to Spoke and rented some bikes to tool around Stanley Park, sort of Vancouver's brand of Central Park except with a sea wall around the perimeter so that you can really see the water and expanse of the city.
There were beautiful views and even a collection of totem poles. This was one of my favorite things we did on the whole trip. We had cruiser bikes to take our time with the view and pictures, and Dave has decided he never wants to ride another bike again, even though a one-speed cruiser isn't exactly the way to see the world.We went around the sea wall in Stanley Park, then down English Bay Beach a bit to look at some sculptures. We had thought we might go to University of British Columbia on the sea wall, but it was really too far on these bikes. We headed back up again to return the bikes and hit some shops on Denman St.
We stopped at Delany's for a coffee and a date bar, then to the glory that is Ayoub's Dried Fruit & Nuts. Anyone who wants to make me happy on holidays or birthdays can buy me a gift card here. There are bins full of luscious dates, chunky pumpkin seeds, and the biggest cashews I've ever seen. We bought a few logs of Turkish delight and I tried to leave with my dignity intact.
We walked down the sea wall all around the center of Vancouver over to the Main Street craft beer area, visiting R & B, 33 Acres (both their flagship and experimental sites), and Brassneck. We drank a lot of beer, but we had also gotten a lot of steps in, as you can probably tell.
We also stopped at a Purebread location to get some treats for the next day's breakfast, since our local Purebread location wouldn't be open before we had to leave for our flight out of town. Purebread was awesome, I definitely recommend a stop. We got a peach raspberry slab pie slice and a piece of hummingbird cake, both to split.
We had a reservation back downtown at Ancora Waterfront Dining & Patio, where we enjoyed Japanese Peruvian cuisine on the waterfront. Their pisco sour was predictably good, and the whole meal was probably my favorite of the trip. Dave got some sushi, I had the halibut, and we split the picarones (Peruvian fried dough balls). We hadn't had those when we visited Peru, but they were truly spectacular.
I got in a run on the riverfront the next day (we had also lifted weights in the hotel! what a trip for physical fitness) and then we were off.
I liked Vancouver, but it was kind of hard to get around. I didn't stay long enough to really get the public transit or ferry system, but it seems like it would kind of be hard to see your friend on the other side of town for dinner. Still, great food, definitely a grittier city than I expected (for Canada, anyway), and friendly locals, as always.
I was inspired by the way we often heard Canadian people expressing concern for the environment and politics. I'm not sure how or why America became so culturally different and more prone to fear and hatred, but I identify with Canadian culture much more so than American. Especially after our wonderful trip to Montreal last year, Dave and I are considering how we might be able to move up there if I can get a job as a fundraiser there eventually. I want to visit Toronto and some other cities, and maybe eventually we could start a process.
At any rate, that's all to say that we heartily enjoyed our trip to both Victoria and Vancouver, and that it sparked some wonderful conversations about food, culture, and voting with our feet. Thanks for showing us a great time, BC!
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