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.
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.
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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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.
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!
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