Louie and I have been slowly ramping up our travel budgets and our travel days. We’ve always taken vacations in the summer, but as we’ve gotten older, we have wanted to travel more. I’ve gained confidence in my travel planning, and I’ve found myself wanting to go more places and see more things than I ever did before. There’s also a sense of, who knows what the future will bring, that came after COVID and so, we didn’t JUST go to Japan last summer.

This trip started with a conference. Louie had to decide which summer conference he wanted to attend, and he ended up deciding on one in Vancouver. Now, you may recall we visited Vancouver last summer–

• Vancouver: Days 1 and 2: Sneaking out in the Middle of the Night
• Vancouver: Days 3 and 4: Eating our way through Vancouver
• Day 1 of our Cruise: The Zaandam!
• Zaandam Continued: Calling on the Ports
• Zaandam, Continued: To Glacier Bay National Park!
• Zaandam: Ketchikan Whether You Can or Can’t

And we absolutely loved Vancouver. We also loved taking a cruise to Alaska. When we first started talking about Vancouver, Louie said, oh maybe we should go on the Zaandam again. And we laughed, and he kept saying it, probably because he thought he was funny. (He is.) And I kept saying, no, no, no. And then one day I thought, what if we don’t go on the Zaandam, but we go on a one way trip instead, to make it different while doing Alaska again? And then I had to convince Louie…but usually once I get something in my head and really want to do it, he can be convinced. He did feel guilty about the amount of time we were traveling, but I didn’t.

Anyway, so after Japan, we did a lot of stuff: teaching for me, hosting visitors, visiting family over the 4th of July weekend (which was a reach trip because we already were gone so much, but not for family), and I played some gigs and stuff too. Louie worked, researched, and got a poster ready for his conference. I made plans for myself during the conference: I’ve learned that it’s easy to just relax and meet him for meals, but really I need to do more sightseeing in order to make myself get out of the hotel room.

The other thing that happened last year, the day before the trip, was the tornado. Thankfully the weather the day before our trip was just fine.

Day 1: July 11

Our flight left very early, at 6:37 am. Louie and I got to the airport too early, and had breakfast and coffee there. We saw his boss there, who was also going to the conference and was on our flight.

The flight was fairly uneventful, until the end, when we landed on time, but then waited. And waited. And we realized, we are probably not going to make our connection. We were supposed to connect in LAX and had about an hour to make the connection, and suddenly we had way less time than that. The flight attendant told us not to worry…but we did. And finally we were at the gate, and the flight attendant got on the intercom, and asked for those of us with tight connections to raise our hands, and for everybody to look around, and to let us go first. And…unbelievably this worked, and we got off the plane first! Then we had to get on a shuttle to the terminal, which involved waiting for the driver…we had said, we are about to miss our flight, and they seemed completely uninterested. And then we basically ran to the gate, because it was almost “doors closing” time, and then discovered, boarding had just begun and that flight was late. WHEW.

Anyway, we landed in Vancouver, collected our bags (I had checked one), cleared customs, and hopped on the Sky Train to get to downtown Vancouver. The plan was to either check into the hotel or drop bags, and then get a late lunch.

Our home for the first few days was the Sutton Place Hotel, a nicer hotel than I would ever choose, but it was well placed for the conference and was one of the cheaper conference hotels. We dropped off our bags and got lunch at a place called Miso Taco: Japanese/Mexican fusion, the best of both worlds. They were playing a World Cup game, so we watched that while chatting and eating.

Ooh yummy fresh food. I leaned into the Japanese side of things rather than the Mexican side. After lunch Louie and his boss headed to the conference, and I was on my own for a few hours. I wandered around, tried to go to a museum but got stuck finding the entrance because there was a private event, and eventually just went to a grocery store near our hotel to sightsee and then got a coffee. After that I went to actually check in, and got the bags into the room and such.

Our home for the next 4 nights!

Nooch pop!

I had some work to do on my computer so I did that for awhile, waiting for Louie to return from the conference. He had already eaten at a reception, but walked with me to a nearby pub where I had a mushroom burger and we watched another World Cup game, before crashing.

Day 2: July 12

Today was Louie’s Poster Presentation! But I wasn’t planning to attend: I was there to sightsee not crash the conference. I had plans anyway: I had purchased a ticket to see “Come From Away” in the afternoon.

Louie and I had a nice breakfast in the hotel restaurant. They had a lovely looking buffet, but it was pricey and more than we needed, so we got a la carte.

After breakfast, Louie headed to his conference and I decided to walk to the Museum of Vancouver and go there first, then walk to the Stanley Theater where the musical would be. I enjoyed the Museum and my walk across the Burrard Bridge. It was a lovely day!

I was having a really good hair day too.

The Museum was quite interesting: basically it told the story of Vancouver, from the indigenous people to the modern day. I learned quite a lot, though I moved quickly (I love traveling alone sometimes for this reason.)

After the museum, I headed towards where the show would be. I was craving sushi, but the place I found that was open..actually wasn’t. So I ended up getting a poke bowl at a place that was fine, but not great.

I popped into some shops and shopped until it was time for the musical.

I had never seen Come From Away and thought it would be fun to see it in Canada. I was correct. It was a fabulous show and I had a great seat in the front row!

After the show I walked back to the hotel over a different bridge that I didn’t like as well, it seemed a little scarier and had a more narrow sidewalk.

And then I headed back to the hotel to relax before dinner.

Louie got home a little later, and then we went out for our dinner reservation. There were some izakayas in Vancouver, so we couldn’t resist trying one out, which was very near the hotel. We went to Guu Original Thurlow for dinner.

We ordered quite a few dishes to share, and enjoyed them. It wasn’t like Japan, but it didn’t feel like Canada either!

We were both exhausted after dinner, still getting used to the time change, plus it was a long day, so we just went home to bed.

I’ll stop there for today!