Day 3: May 19:

We decided to eat at the Hotel restaurant. We were staying at the Sylvia Hotel , and the hotel restaurant was highly rated, and I will tell you, for good reason. The food was terrific for breakfast.

It looks like Louie had oatmeal and I had avocado toast with a poached egg on it? Or maybe it was a benedict of a sort. Anyway, the view overlooked English Bay, and we enjoyed drinking coffee and trying to wake up. It was a bit rainy, which we weren’t as excited about, because we were going to be picked up to go for a hike.

I wanted to make sure we got out of Vancouver into the woods and such as well, so we made plans to go hiking in Lynn Canyon with a guide. The guide was necessary for transportation, because it just made everything much easier. Adrian picked us up and there was another couple in the van already, and it turned out they were ALSO from the St Louis area, which was hilarious and very coincidental.

Anyway, he drove us about 40 minute outside of Vancouver and we parked and got started hiking at Lynn Canyon Park. It was a nice day except that it was raining lightly. Ha. Well, as they say in Norway, no bad weather, only bad clothes.

The hike was gorgeous. The woods were lush and green, and the rain made the water run faster and all the waterfalls we saw were better because of it.

We walked over Lynn Canyon Suspension Bridge, a very cool bridge.

Then we walked down to the River we had been over.

It ended up being a pretty brisk hike, lots of stairs and elevation changes, raining the whole time, about 6 miles? We loved the hike.

After we got back, we decided it was a good day to get ramen. Louie had seen a ramen place that always had a long line, so we wanted to try it, but then we decided not to wait in line and instead go to a nearby place with almost as good of a rating online, and it was amazingly delicious. I recommend Horin Ramen! and if you go, also get the dumplings. We saw them on the table next to us and ordered them because the people next to us had them and they looked amazing. They were.

After that, we were exhausted. We walked back to the hotel and relaxed and cleaned up. We didn’t do much that was exciting until close to dinner again, when we went out walking again to meet up for dinner. We met our friends Ben and Roz for a cocktail at their hotel before dinner at Fanny Bay Oyster Bar and had some great seafood, including oysters (of course). It was fun to catch up and chat about our respective days and share good food and drinks. We were exhausted by the end of the day and took an uber home.

Day 4: May 20

This was the last full day in Vancouver before the cruise. Louie was started to get nervous about cruising and wishing we were just staying in Vancouver, I think–he loved Vancouver and was worried he would hate cruising and regret having left Vancouver. I was also loving Vancouver but knew I would also love the cruise, so it was a win-win.

We ate at the Sylvia’s restaurant again, because I wanted to try something more, and it was convenient.

Plus look at that. Eggs benedict with smoked salmon. Yum. I regret nothing.

Louie went all out to try to recoup all the calories we had been burning walking all over the city. He probably didn’t manage to eat all of that though.

After breakfast we took an uber out to the University of British Columbia. My main goal for the day was to visit the Museum of Anthropology, but we decided to first see the Botanical Gardens at the University, since it wasn’t raining yet. Spoiler: it kept not raining all day until the evening, which was very nice.

First we visited the Treetop Walk in the UBC (University Botanical Gardens).

I recommend doing the Treetop Walk. It’s an extra fee, but super fun. And I do have a fear of heights, but really more of a fear of falling, and I was fine.

And then we just wandered around looking at flowers and such. This was one of the first times (and rare times) I had some mosquito issues on this trip, thankfully!

The rhododendrons were out of control in Vancouver.

After the UBC, we walked to the Japanese Garden, which was near the Museum we wanted to get to. We had wanted to buy tickets to both at once, but the woman at UBC suggested we could buy just for UBC and then add on at the Japanese Garden and get the same price, but that ended up not being true, so if you are definitely doing both, buy them together.

It was a lovely garden, but we didn’t spend much time there.

We went to the Museum of Anthropology (MOA) next. We wanted some coffee and a snack first, but luckily they had a small cafe. We got a bannock and a pastry and split those. A bannock is a Native American food that is much like a scone, and we had it with butter and jam.

This museum was really wonderful. The main room has giant totem poles as well as many other examples of indigenous peoples’ artifacts and art.

The other main exhibition is artifacts from around the world and it is really amazing how much they have. In addition to the items on display there are drawers and drawers of artifacts that you can pull out to look at. I think you could spend months there looking at things.

We didn’t, however. We spend a few hours, maybe? And then headed out the back. There were some things out back too, that looked as if they were still under construction. The museum recently reopened after being closed for a few years, so I assume the back is still being worked on.

Louie found a path down to the beach though, so we thought that would fun to traverse. It looked like you could go down to the beach and then walk along it for awhile and then rejoin the city again.

There were 490 stairs down to the beach, which was actually a nude beach called Wreck Beach. It was a bit cold for that though, I think, and we didn’t see anyone. Not that we were looking. We opted to stay clothed.

If you headed back up the stairs, which I didn’t want to do, you had to put your clothes back on. Not optional.

Anyway, we got to the bottom, and followed a little trail, which…abruptly ended and there was no trail, just a rocky beach. Not small pebbles, and not large rocks, but the worst kind, medium rocks that are super annoying and hard to walk on. So we had a choice, walk up 490 steps, or forge ahead. I may have regretted this choice later, but I chose forge ahead, so we did.

Anyway, so we finally made it. Hiked about a mile on the most annoying rocky beach ever, and finally made it to the next beach access area, where we called an uber and got a ride to the city. We were near where we wanted to be for dinner and decided it didn’t make sense to go back to the hotel and then come back for dinner, so we went for coffee and a snack instead, and that’s when it started raining. Boo!

But we had a really good pastry, and sat and enjoyed some coffee for awhile. Then we went to a thrift store because Louie was only wearing a t-shirt and he wanted to buy a button down for dinner, ha! He found something fun, and after we walked about a little bit more, it was pretty much time for our last dinner.

We met our friends at a Thai place, Maenam, that does a fixed price dinner for the table. You choose from a few options, and everything is served family style. We enjoyed the food quite a lot, but the one complaint we had was that at first everything was coursed out very nicely, but then at one point salad and all the mains came out at the same time and it was hard to figure out what you had tried or not. Anyway, the food was tasty. At the end of dinner, we went our separate ways again, since our hotels were not nearby. We decided to have a drink at our hotel bar before bed since we hadn’t managed to do that yet, so we stayed up just a little bit longer!

Day 5: May 21: Last Morning in Vancouver

Louie woke up around 5:30 am, I believe, and ended up going out to walk around early. I slept until 7:30 or 8. Then we went down for breakfast again, and I had another eggs benedict.

After breakfast, we went to walk about Stanley Park before we had to check out of our hotel.

It was a beautiful day! English Bay was gorgeous.

We found the Lost Lagoon!

It was a really lovely morning, just wandering around looking at stuff, watching ducks and geese. There was a small class of kids on a field trip, all wearing yellow safety vests, rolling around on the ground on occasion, and we were getting a kick out of them. Canada is pretty cool. We had nothing but great interactions with people in Canada, and loved the food, the scenery, and everything!

And then it was time to check out of the hotel. We had a noon checkout, so we got everything packed up, checked out and took an uber to the port. And that’s where I’ll leave you today! Next post: the Zaandam!!