the year of the ox

fun time in vanny this weekend with Jacki, John, Eric, Dawn, Soyon and Florian for Year of the Ox celebrations.  It was cold and rainy on Sunday for the parade, but the fireworks, cool dragon floats and music/dancers made it worthwhile while the unfailingly sweet-natured Canadians made it bearable and even fun to jostle for space along the parade route.

  

Vancouver is a lovely, lovely city.  The beauty of it always takes my breath away on the final approach from the south on Hwy 99, when you crest the final hill in Richmond and see the green glass towers rising against the mountain backdrop.  And at street level it’s even better:  pedestrian friendly, loads of great shops and restaurants and international flare that really makes Seattle feel very, well, provincial.  Jealous, that’s what I am.

We stayed at the Pacific Palisades Hotel on Robson St. which was very nice and kid-friendly (pool!) and smack in the center of things on Robson.  Saturday day, Dawn turned us on to Japadog for lunch:  A Japanese-style street hot dog vendor w/their own address.  I’ve never had a hot dog with bonito flakes before.  It was interesting :).  Malcolm, Jacki and I got a good swim in the hotel pool where he got some snorkeling lessons from Jacki in full dive regalia.

For Saturday night, we arranged a sitter through the hotel and had the best Indian meal I’ve ever had at Vij’s (and took home the cookbook from their next-door cafe) and dim sum at Garden Villa Seafood Restaurant after freezing in the rain during the parade… just the ticket, really.  All-in-all, a whistle-stop weekend that was great fun.

Sorry about the crap snaps, I was too cold, wet and lazy to pull out my camera and used the iPhone for a few snaps.  The little artsy borders are the fault of the toy camera app on the iPhone, not me.

Comments

[Jacki]

That was great fun, thanks for organizing. Malcolm is a brave little swimmer. He's going to be a fish by the time you get back from Hawaii.

[susan]

What a fun weekend! I gotta get back to Vancouver one of these days.
The last time I went there was with you for the Area One weekend. Turns out I was unknowingly pregnant with Charlie on that scotch-soaked weekend.
Are you still treating Canadian money like Monopoly money? I remember so clearly you always saying, "but it's Canadian!" whenever anyone indicated that something was expensive.

[misha]

Exchange rate is 1.24 - 1.00 but our day will come. I never was very good at Monopoly.

Oddly enough, whiskey was involved this trip too: Eric's single malt that smelled like old socks versus my nice smooth Jameson's. Guess which one won?

[Josette]

So, you do know that Jameson's is the Protestant whisky and Tullemore Dew is the Catholic one? ;<)

Great shots, even with the phone camera, nephew -- how on earth did you download them?? I have hundreds on my phone and not a clue of how to get 'em off....

[misha]

if there was an atheist whiskey I'd drink that one ;).

Thx for compliment on snaps Josie. The iPhone tethers to my computer and I can just grab and edit them that way...