I finally went through all my photos from our Canada trip so here’s the first part of our trip where we travelled from Auckland, Aotearoa/NZ to Vancouver.
Our flight was at night time and it was exciting even before we boarded that plane because we got to pick up my engagement ring!. We did view it the weekend before and I was speechless seeing it for the first time in all its sparkly glory. We got to start this trip by having my ring and I wore it instantly as I felt safer doing so rather than having it in the box inside our bag.
Our flight wasn’t full so Max and I got a row to ourselves. Unfortunately, we both can’t sleep on planes so he spent the flight bingeing The Pitt and I tossed between watching Just Like That and trying to sleep but couldn’t. My parents got a whole row to themselves too which was nice.
This Canada trip was with my parents. The main reason we went was for my cousin’s wedding. It was a good reason to go as Vancouver wasn’t on our immediate list to travel to. With NZ being so far away, we had to make a holiday out of it to make the travel worthwhile.
Vancouver was our first stop.
We arrived in Vancouver mid-afternoon. My parents were staying at my uncle and auntie’s place (my dad’s brother) while Max and I went to our first hotel, The Burrard. We dropped our bags off as our room wasn’t ready yet and went for a little walk. I got an e-sim before we left but Max didn’t so we went searching for a place for him to buy a sim card.
We walked towards the main shops and ended up at Pacific Centre. He sorted out a sim, I got us matchas and we walked back to our hotel to rest. Since Max and I didn’t sleep on our flight, we were exhausted and have been awake for 30ish hours. We were delirious but we got ready and met my parents and other family at the restaurant, Burgoo by our hotel for dinner.
We basically passed out after dinner and finally slept.
The next morning, I woke up and went in search for coffee and pastries. I’ve heard not so good things about the coffee in Canada or elsewhere outside of Australia and NZ. I was still hopeful though and I found Caffe Mira nearby. The cafe itself was cute but sadly the coffee was less than average.
We didn’t have anything planned on our first full day in Vancouver as we knew we’d be fighting jetlag. Max had to stay back in our hotel as he had an online interview back in NZ and while he did that, I checked out the shops.
I ended up back at Pacific Centre and loved Holt Renfrew. I also checked out a few secondhand designer consignment stores. We were close to a few of them on Howe Street.
Once Max was done, he met up with me. We had lunch at this small sushi place, Sushi Today then got some bubble tea from the place next door Bubble Tea King. Then we ended up walking towards the Coal Harbour area.
We saw sea planes take off and land and we walked towards the marina. We turned back before we reached Stanley Park though as we had dinner with my family.
We haven’t seen this side of dad’s family for many years. We had Japanese for dinner. One of my cousins literally landed back from Japan a few hours before we met up for dinner. Dinner at Matsuyama was good then we headed back to the hotel.
The next morning, we popped into Yolks, a place I saw during one of my morning walks. It looked like a cute breakfast place.
It was another rainy day. We’ve learned after that Vancouver is also known as ‘Raincouver’.
Due to the weather, we decided to go to the Vancouver Art Gallery.
They had a few exhibits featuring pottery / ceramics so this was so up Max’s alley. He does pottery and loves it. I also enjoyed the photography exhibits.
There were also artists working on the floor of the stairwell in the Art Gallery. It looked super cool and they were using tape.
For dinner that night, we found this cute little Italian restaurant off Davie Street called The Italians. It was small and intimate and we had a lovely dinner there.
The next day was another rainy day. We ended up at the Vancouver Public Library. We stopped by Pallet Coffee Roasters first which was a recommended cafe. Our coffees weren’t terrible but still not the best. Mine had better latte art though. We’re such coffee snobs as NZ coffee is amazing.
The library was around a 10min walk from the cafe and it was a part of the city we haven’t explored yet. The foyer of the library is beautiful.
We went inside too and it’s cool to see go through an actual working library for free. Max looked at the pottery books and the rooftop is also cool and free to enter.
The public library building is cool and I’m glad we checked it out. After this, we popped into Breka bakery to get some pastries then we had to get ready for my cousin’s wedding.
It was nice being a part of my cousin’s wedding even though I haven’t seen her or her family in probably 20+ years. They moved to Canada before my family moved to NZ and we haven’t seen each other since. She gave us a shoutout which was lovely. I’m grateful that we were able to go and have a good reason to travel to this side of the world.
The next morning, I was in search for another coffee. I ended up back in Davie St and got my coffee from Amoka. Another underwhelming coffee but I don’t expect greatness at that point. Sorry Canada.
I walked further and ended up at this little park behind the hospital and I saw my first squirrel! It was exciting because we don’t have squirrels in NZ. They’re so cute and move so fast!
We decided to venture out to Stanley Park on this day and walk along the seawall. Before we did that, I needed lunch. We ended up at Akihana Sushi on Davie St and it was so good! The sushi we got with all the crispy bits was the best I’ve had in a long time. We don’t quite get this type of sushi here back home. It was amazing. From the photo Max took, I was quite happy with our meal. Haha. It was very important to anyone near me that I don’t get hangry so a quick lunch stop was necessary.
We started off in Sunset Beach Park then headed to Stanley Park. One of the things I loved about Vancouver was the greenery. There are so many trees even in the city. They even had large trees on buildings which was impressive. I loved the greenery of Sylvia Hotel too. Probably one of my favourite buildings in the city.
It would’ve taken too long to walk the whole seawall. Max had an idea of checking out Stanley Park Brewing for a late lunch/snack. He tried their beers and we also got some fries and pretzel. We had a nice time there. It was near the tennis courts and it made us wish we could play tennis there and it has a nice view of the park. The service in Canada was also superb.
This was our last night staying in The Burrard in Vancouver. We would come back to the city 2 more times but we had an early start the next day for the next leg of our trip which was to Banff. Banff will be the next post. It was my favourite part of this trip. It was incredible and I’m still in awe we got to go there. I’m looking forward to drafting that post and reminisce on the wonderful memories we had there.
The photos above were from my digicam. Our first few days in Vancouver were pretty good despite the weather. We enjoyed exploring one part of the city and we did this deliberately as we chose 3 different hotels in the city to stay at. They’re in different areas so we focused on exploring the nearby streets of our hotel at the time. It all worked out well in the end.
So far, we had a great start to our Canada trip and it only got better from here.
I’ll end this post by some random thoughts I had during this first part of our trip:
- Weed is legal over there so the city basically smelled like weed. We were not used to that so seeing an old woman lighting up a blunt in the street was surprising to me.
- The gaps between toilet doors in this side of the world is too wide. Why can you basically see through them?! It is so bizarre and the doors are short too.
- All the coffees we had were subpar. Even the ones other people recommended. I basically had a series on my IG stories of my sister reacting to the coffees we had. She was back in NZ and I would send her a photo of our coffees and she would react. Mainly she was disgusted as she is a trained barista and the reason I’m a coffee snob.
- Tipping is expected here so that has to be taken into account when dining in. It did mean that the service was good though.
- The food come out so fast. We order and within 5mins our food would arrive. We’re used to around 15-20+ minute wait here in NZ.
That’s all for this first part of my travels! 🙂
A Style Collector 