My Vancouver Trip! [image heavy]

Finally have time to sort through all my Vancouver photos! Fred planned to take me to his hometown, Vancouver, and I myself had planned to visit Vancouver some day and this year was the year to go! This post is very image heavy and they may not be in the right order... and really this should be called "How to become a food snob - visit Vancouver!" because I was very lucky to hang around people who know where the good eats were. (Thank you Clara and Rob!!)


But first... the story starts in Toronto where our flight was cancelled and we were placed on another flight seven hours later (thanks, WestJet... I expected better from you). We went back to Isabella's (mentioned in previous post) because I wanted to try their Mochi Mochi Pancakes. Fred got their Philly Steak Sandwich. I ordered the matcha pancakes and it was the most dense pancakes I've ever had, smothered with a thick, rich matcha sauce. It was delicious but it's a meal on its own for sure.

Five hours later, we arrived in Vancouver! We went to Cafe de l'orangerie, a busy yoshoku place serving big portions of hamburg steak and curry dishes.

For dessert, we went to La Casa Gelato (or the Ice Cream Factory) for some unique flavours of gelato. Over 200 flavours to be exact! It was so hard to choose... Kimchi gelato anyone?!

We went to a cute diner called Yolk's for brunch/breakfast on Sunday morning. It was amazing...

We explored the VanDusen Botanical Gardens. It was lovely... one thing I notice is that there are a lot of hydrangeas, even in people's flower beds but I rarely see them in Toronto... they're so pretty. There was also a rose garden and a maze that gave me Alice in Wonderland vibes. I kept thinking how nice it'd be if I could come here dressed in lolita fashion!!

We went to Granville Island... the views are beautiful here. We ate dinner at another Japanese place that did set meals. I love ebifry! The miso soup was also nice and had a lot of ingredients in it.

We went to Steveston... couldn't see any sea lions though. Had some fish & chips - cod, haddock and sockeye salmon (which was my fav out of the three)

Had lunch/brunch at Marulilu cafe, another yoshoku place. The risotto and fried fish was so tasty...

Went back to Aberdeen Centre again at some point because I wasn't done looking at stuff... sigh, Daiso. I'm kinda glad we don't have one here otherwise I'd be broke!! We tried out some food court foods. Even though we have Pacific Mall here, Aberdeen is like a fancier mall version. Pacific Mall doesn't even feel like a mall compared to this lol.

Met up with one of Fred's friends for dinner at Yuu's. The ramen was so-so and I only ordered this drink cause it's melon flavoured and comes with a syringe, but it was way too sweet...

Fred's cousin took us to Horshoe Bay and Lynn Valley for some nice views. That suspension bridge was kinda scary but less scary than I thought...

Had a nice breakfast at Fable, a trendy diner with hipster vibes and farm to table values... before visiting the Vancouver Aquarium!

I was pretty hyped for this since I absolutely love aquariums. It had a nice jellyfish exhibit (too many pics so I'll upload them to my IG later) and a sting ray petting tank like the Ripley's Aquarium at home. I also never knew sea turtles were so huge?? (I really wanted to take home a big sea turtle plush but there's no way it'd fit into my luggage, I was sad...). The Ripley's Aquarium definitely has more sharks and a cooler looking underwater tunnel but it doesn't have an outdoor show area for sea lions/dolphins like the Vancouver Aquarium. I'd say they're both on par but it's been a while since I visited the Ripley's one!

At some point in this trip we went to Night Market in Richmond, but I don't have any photos. It's a lot cleaner than the night market type festival equivalent in Markham for sure and more stalls selling cute stuff. And games with cuter prizes!! Just everything is cuter ok...(except the traffic)

We went to visit Queen Elizabeth park and the Bloedel Conservatory because I really wanted to go there. It was smaller than I thought but it was nice inside and I wasn't expecting so many birds! Great place for pictures.

On our last day, we had breakfast at White Spot (apparently there is nothing like it in Toronto... it's a West Coast thing). Followed by visiting the outlets near the air port and trying Japadog! It was actually really good but the girl messed up our order and it left us kinda salty so I didn't get any photos. In a nutshell this was our trip! I managed to cross off a few places off my food list but there are still many left. I had a great time here and if it weren't for the crazy real estate and roads, I'd consider moving there, maybe! Haha. Definitely the air is cleaner and there's more high quality (and also cheaper) food options that you can't find in uptown Toronto. I miss it already!

Thank you for reading, until next time~~!!