Vancouver - Day 5: Sea-to-Sky Drive

So...more plan changes due to rain forecasts. We were supposed to do our self guided food tour this morning but the forecast for tomorrow is showing a lot of rain...so we pulled a switch and decided to take our rental car today and move the Chinatown/Gastown walking tour to tomorrow. Due to all the rain, we also scrapped our planned Squamish Chief hike which would have been both slippery and cloudy. Instead, I spent an hour or two at midnight planning a new driving and lookout-heavy road trip itinerary of the Sea-to-Sky Highway. This meant I was up and standing in line for our Avis rental before 8am to get a full days drive in (thought I was the early bird? There were a good 5 parties ahead of me already! 😆). But things were fairly quick so we were actually out and on the road by 8:40 or so. Very impressive for us! As you can see, lots of rain driving out of Vancouver...the forecast claimed it would lighten up as the day went on though...crossed fingers that bears out...

We drove to the farthest point first, all the way up in Whistler, stopping for brunch at the Vancouver-famous Purebread Bakery - there are lots of locations now but we visited their original location in Function Junction. We ordered a variety of bars and sandwiches. Honestly ALL were very good. Two thumbs up all around.  

Banana chocolate chip brownie. R reluctantly shared a couple bites before claiming the rest. 4.5 stars. 

L with her ooey gooey chocolate bar. Also very good. Sweeter than the banana. Still 4.5 stars.

Our favorite sandwich, the zesto pesto. 4 stars. I am not a bread person but I could tell this bread was GOOD. 

The ham sandwich...forget the name. Good too, but not as good as the pesto. Let's say 3.25 stars. 

We also got a raspberry cheesecake brownie bar which I neglected to photograph. Wasn't anyone's favorite but the competition was fierce. On its own, would still have gotten at least a 3.75 if not a 4. 

It was getting closer to noon so we wrapped up the leftovers for hike snacks and started on our 6-stop scenic tour. First off: Whistler Train Wreck hike. 

Disclaimer, I knew it would be a drizzly day, so none of the hikes were longer than 2 kilometers. And all of them had clear "destinations" at the ends. This train wreck hike wound through some forested paths. Bear warning signs abounded, so the twins got to show us their seasoned bear warning calls. Clearly no bears were going to be surprised by our presence. 

The trail also involved a small suspension bridge (always a hit). 

 

There was also this natural eddy that was spinning some errant logs round and round.

Soon we arrived at the main event--the seven abandoned railway cars from 1956. 

So...why are they in the middle of a forest with no railway visible? How could they have fallen/travelled so far? Well...turns out they just jumped a rail, but were stuck in this narrow part where it would have been very hard to lug them away to repair the rail (plus they were significantly damaged and declared not able to be used further). So the local lumber company who was hired to help with the clean up intentionally dragged them to this part of the forest to get them out of the way. There, the boxcars were stripped of anything useful and then the empty containers were left to rot. 

Because they are just out in the open and known as a tolerated canvas for tagging and public art, the graffiti that covers them is constantly changing. Sometimes established artists will actually come and paint actual murals and images too...but then within a few weeks those will get covered up again with graffiti and tags from other people. We should have brought some spray cans and left our own mark! 😆 Instead, L and R climbed up and got some stretching in. 

Baba noted that if this were a US state park, they definitely would not have left the railings on there for people to climb up. Such a safety hazard! I did actually see some kids barely walking who were coaxed up by their families. Maybe Canadians are less litigious.

I thought I had been wise to put the train wreck with the longest hike at the beginning when energy was fresh...but it was met with a lot of grumbling and complaining because everyone was worried all 6 stops would be like that. I had to throw a mini Mama tantrum of my own reminding folks that I was only accepting POSITIVE energy. It seemed to work -- they went back to posing dutifully for photos. 😆 Next up, the Brandywine Falls trail. 

A very short walk later (I think about half a kilometer), we saw a very picturesque scene:

Even L admitted the payoff was pretty good for such a short hike. 

If only there were blue skies! But the views were quite nice regardless. 

The hike to the falls included these very interesting moss covered boulder fields too -- 

Next stop: Tantalus lookout, which offered clear views of snow capped mountains across wide chasms...or so we imagine, because all we could see was mist and clouds today. Good thing it's just a quick pullover on the side of the highway!

Our next stop was Shannon Falls Provincial Park, which is right under the Stawamus Chief (cool granite monolith you see here). I actually snapped this photo as we were leaving to show how far back the line of cars waiting for the parking lot had gotten (peaking out under the sign to the right there). When we got there, it was about 4-5 cars long and we waited about 10-15 minutes for a spot. By the time we finished, time stamps say we spent about 30-40 minutes there in all, the line was a good two dozen cars long all the way back to the entrance. Glad we beat that rush!

But anyway back to our hike. Our original plan, had there been no rain, was actually to hike that monolith - it is not a long hike but allegedly involves a system of chains and ropes and such to get up (so cool!). Well...apparently the granite can get kind of slippery in the rain. My Google feed gives me too many stories about freak climbing accidents so no Chief peak hike for us. 😢 

This was another very short hike. But ended with a great spot for a family photo! The Shannon Falls are over 300 meters high, making it the third tallest waterfall in Canada. 

The area under the falls offered some very tempting river rock scrambling opportunities. Mama leading the way! (I am not sure if I should be proud of this, but after we did this, dozens of other families started going in the river too 😆).

Ah the looking away contemplation shot.

R hesitated to join us at first but couldn't resist the photo opportunity. 

But she then took a little too far...and lets just say eventually she had very very cold feet. (Alas I didn't capture the actual missteps that resulted in wet sneakers...but they went considerably farther than I did).

But that was the last "hike" of the itinerary today. We had a couple more scenic stops. Here's the view of Howe Sound and Garibaldi Provincial Park from the highway pullout. It was actually very cool watching the mist seemingly rise up and evaporate as the clouds cleared up. It actually looked like there was a giant vacuum in the sky just sucking up the mist clouds!

Led to what I think is our most picturesque stop of the day: Porteau Cove.

We all look so nice! (How was it done so well you ask? Because I set up the shot myself and then used the Pixel Add Me feature! 😁 Okay fine, so my eyes do seem to be looking off at a slightly different location than everyone else. I blame Baba for failing to stand in the exact same spot as me). 

Highly recommend the stop here on any Sea to Sky drive - crowds were very reasonable and parking was ample compared to Shannon Falls. 

With the clouds clearing, we decided to add back one last stop to try and get the whole Vancouver skyline view. We would have gone up the Sea to Sky Gondola at Squamish on a clear day, but the live webcams there had been showing a lot of rain and mist. But given our great views at Porteau, we decided to try our luck at Cypress Mountain (apparently Vancouver has a ski resort a mere 8 kilometers away from downtown? I imagine the ski runs aren't amazing but still, that is proximity you cannot beat!). We only went halfway up the mountain because the top was likely mist covered again but the view of Vancouver from Cypress Lookout was pretty good!

One last girls photo -- R is holding our final bite of Purebread brownie there. We made it stretch until the last stop!

We packed ourselves back in the car and headed back to the Avis return lot. Well. Apparently 8 kilometers can take you 45 minutes during rush hour. And we didn't even hit the worst of it we were told! So...maybe Vancouver as a vacation home candidate requires one to be fully retired so you are never in rush hour traffic going over the bridges. 

It was now almost 5 and I was worried if we went back to the hotel we would not come back out...so we decided to walk out towards our original dinner destination for today, Phnom Pehn. It's a restaurant with a Cambodian name offering Vietnamese food in Chinatown. 😆 I was a little apprehensive of going because it's gotten very very touristy. We saw the walk in wait time grow to two hours while we were waiting for our table.

First up, the famous butter beef appetizer. I will confess. I totally thought butter beef was going to be an Indian curry style dish. This was definitely more of a Cilantro-heavy beef carpaccio. Nice flavors, refreshing, beef quality was good...but I wouldn't call it AMAZING...maybe 3.5?

The fried rice on the other hand was a solid 3.75. Though admittedly we are a family that heartily enjoys yang chow fried rice. This wasn't the best yang chow fried rice ever, but it was solid. 

The noodles? I would give it just a 3.5 at most. It was a little dry. The noodle soup version probably would have been better but Baba was not feeling soups. Pork was tasty though. I bet the bun vermicelli noodle would have been really tasty. 

The fried chicken wings were very very good. We would go up to a 4.25 for these. Very nice lemon and pepper seasoning.

Garlic Chinese broccoli. Maybe 3.25? Flavor was fine and I devoured them because I was eager for greens. But this wasn't anything extraordinary. 

Mango and strawberry smoothies. I'd go up to a 4 for these. Paired well with the food and the fruit flavors were strong. 

All in all, I would say the food was good...but for our family, we probably would pick more classic Chinese flavors. 

We headed back to Sutton Place and changed into pajamas for Nezha 2...only to discover we couldn't find a version with English subtitles but original audio. I refused to watch it with dubbed voices. Twins and Baba worried they wouldn't catch enough without subtitles (to be fair, some of the characters had some pretty strong regional accents). So we ended up watching Chang An San Wan Li instead (animation about the lives of the famous Tang dynasty ports). I actually hadn't heard of Gao Shi before amongst his more famous Li Bai, Du Fu, etc so I personally enjoyed the history lesson in movie form. It was a bit long/slow though. But all good because tomorrow we have no morning plans! Sleeping in!

Vancouver - Day 4: Antigone & Peking Duck

So, today we woke up to a LOT of rain. Like...rain jackets NOT sufficient, glad the hotel offers solid umbrellas rainy. We decided to pivot the morning plans from Stanley Park over to the Museum of Vancouver. But first! Walk in the rain (kind of zen maybe?) over to Japadog. What is Japadog you ask? Exactly as the name suggests, Japanese style hot dogs. Check out the menu of options! Yakisoba, okonomi, yakiniku, etc etc. 

We ended up with three varietals - R requested a wagyu version, I wanted one with more vegetables, and we got the classic to ensure we gave it a fair shake. Excited!

Here's the wagyu terimayo. 3 stars. Not bad...but the beef was a little dry in hot dog form. Not as juicy as the pork standard. 

Here's the oroshi, which has green onions, a soy sauce, and grated daikon radishes. It was very fresh tasting so not bad for summer, but today was a rainy day. Probably also 3, would be a 2.5 except the pork sausage was yummy. Baba ate the last couple bites with ketchup and mustard. 

This one was the winner. The classic terimayo. Very delicious. We all gave it 4 stars. 

We played a few rounds of cards (I thought I packed poker cards...turns out the swag from the travel show I attended was a knockoff uno) while we waited for the Uber to the Museum of Vancouver. This was definitely a "what is indoors and convenient to our plans for the rest of the day" stop. Expectations were naturally tempered. You start off with a few rooms focused on the ancestral native history of the area where the museum is built -- it was not a great look for archaeology and Western museums... seems the treatment of native peoples in Canada was just as poor as in America. We found the exhibits about the native languages particularly interesting -- as Baba noted, you don't usually see languages that incorporate numbers in the middle of words. I wondered if that was short hand for a tonal marking, but Google confirmed in the Squamish language, it actually stands for something more like a glottal stop. 

The exhibits were based on time periods, so there were Chinese immigration history, lumber history, depression era, pre war and post war eras, civil rights, hippie, and more modern day.  There were a number interactive exhibits (lots of old video footage) -- like this real cross section of a several hundred year old tree. It was cool to see the different sized rings based on rainfall in each year and to see radial growth decline over time as the trees had to expend more nutrients just to staying alive and supporting such a large leaf/branch/etc system. 

I think the twins got bored pretty quickly but I thought it was a decent way to kill a couple hours. For example, I hadn't realized Canada had a Chinese Exclusion Act as well or that there was a huge emptying of entire Japanese neighborhoods and business centers with WWII.  

It eventually got to be close to 1:30 so we ducked outside (rain had lightened up considerably) for the 5 min walk to the Bard on the Beach tents. It would have been a more picturesque location had it not been gray and raining I'm sure. It's right on the banks of False Creek. L had chosen Antigone over MacBeth and Merry Wives of Windsor. I was surprised because I thought Antigone was the most introspective (relying on feelings and emotions instead of plot events) of the bunch but JiuJiu actually played Creon in our high school production so I was interested in seeing a professional rendition!

It ended up being a more modern production that we had been expecting so no difficulties following at all...I have to say I dislike all the characters in Antigone. Antigone is too stubborn and single minded, Creon is too proud, Ismene is too frivolous and Jocasta is too selfish. I thought the staging was done very well -- the actors were decent, a lot of shouting of dialogue which made expression harder but I appreciated it because it was a quasi-round stage format and we would have missed 1/3 of the dialogue otherwise. 

The show was over around 3:30 and we had 90 min to kill before our dinner reservation so we decided to walk over the bridge and see more of Vancouver. Some interesting buildings:

Nice view of False Creek as we crossed the bridge:

I was impressed that the complaining about walking was generally at a minimum! 

As fate would have it...our walk took us right past a micro distillery. Baba doesn't need much convincing to stop for a pre dinner drink. 

He really liked this drink (on the left) which the mixologist had created literally the night before. It had aperol, bitters, disaronno, pineapple juice, and maybe gin? Twist on a paper plane the creator said. 

The twins also got a refreshing mocktail. They were not big fans of the flavors...we agreed to it mostly because we felt grateful they let minors stop and rest here. 

But soon enough it was time for the main star for today's culinary itinerary: Peking Duck at Chang An!

Started with their version of bread and olive oil - it was a chili bean paste dipping sauce which I really really liked. 3.5 stars (mainly because of my enjoyment), though everyone else liked the bread more than the sauce. 

Cucumber and cold noodle salad. The peanut sauce got a 4 star but the chili sauce side only a 2.5.

Lamb with bamboo - the bamboo was too sour for me but the lamb was extremely tender and not at all gamey. 3.5 stars. 

Ahhh the duck was so good!! It really did live up to Beijing standards which has NOT been the case at any Peking Duck restaurant I've been to in the US. I had about 5 pancakes I think. It was so so good. 5 stars. Best thing I've had all trip so far.

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The duck soup on the other hand...was very much a letdown. Maybe just 2 stars. Would definitely skip this and get the cumin stir fry instead. 

We also got the eggplant and green beans. Not great. Probably a 2.5 stars. Not flavorful enough. I had to dip the eggplant in the duck sauce! And it was almost tempura style. Not what I was hoping for. 

But highly highly recommend the Peking Duck at Chang An if you come to Vancouver!!

We went home after that and streamed Nezha on the TV before turning in on the earlier side. A little too action packed for me but animation and story were all very impressive. Tomorrow we have a day of driving the Sea to Sky highway!