Vancouver - Final Thoughts

So final thoughts on the trip -- Vancouver has a lot to offer, world class eats, beautiful weather for the summer (harder and harder to find these days with all the global warming...), short nonstop flights from the Bay Area, and a weaker Canadian dollar that allows everything to be discounted just a little. Will we come back? For a standalone trip probably not. But if we do another Alaska cruise someday I will definitely consider leaving from Vancouver so we can add a few days pre trip touring. We would also come back for skiing to check out Whistler. 

1. Length - I think for a general first time visitor, probably minimum of 3 days. Most people wouldn't need the two extra days in Richmond for all the food and you could skip the shows and suspension bridge outings. I would do one day sea to sky drive, second day checking out Chinatown/Gastown and then Granville Island, third day downtown, Stanley bike ride, and then stake out a sunset spot on one of the beaches. 

2. Weather - like Alaska, ideal for summers. Based on the reactions I got from locals when I said that we weren't expecting so much rain, it seems rain showers are not uncommon throughout the summer so should be something to plan around (had I realized this sooner, we would have had more rainy day friendly activities on deck to swap around when needed). 

3. Location - Staying in a hotel that is walkable to sights was way more appreciated than I had been expecting, so highly recommend staying in that Robson/Burrard/downtown area. Lots of other options besides Sutton Place too. When the itinerary is full of food stops, being forced to get in a good number of steps at least helps us clear up the necessary stomach space. We probably averaged over 12K steps each day. Our single under 11K day was the biking day. 

4. Traveling with Teenagers - it was hard to avoid some amount of complaining in terms of long walks. But my kids luckily are very food motivated. Though if Tokyo was when the twins moved into preteen stage from child stage, Vancouver is when they firmly established themselves as teenagers. The amount of interest in shopping (for honestly almost anything) and browsing makeup aisles (even when they aren't allowed to wear anything except a light lip gloss) was concerningly high. They also became more attached to their phones (which still have no SIM cards, so they're more like mini tablets) but we are trying our best to hold firm to the time limits. They are way more visually creative than me; some of the shorts they create are actually pretty impressive. I'm looking forward to seeing R's vlog of the trip!

5. Cost - Vancouver was cheaper than the Bay Area but certainly still more expensive than Asia. Ubers felt very cheap because distances were fairly short (thus why we often ended up walking anyhow). But the lower cost meant we often justified splurge meals - so our overall cost of the trip still ended up fairly high (but still cheaper than Asia due to flights - Vancouver was probably $400 round trip, and that was high season). 

6. Money - we used phone tap to pay almost everywhere. The only times we needed something else were the bike rental (needed a physical card for the deposit), shopping in Richmond (some stalls were cash or Canadian debit only) and fruit vendors at Granville (wanted a quarter for a sample). Always remember to pick local Canadian currency if asked! I saw the numbers they were offering as exchange rates and they were a LOT worse than if you just let your own credit card company do the exchange. 

7. Pacing  - I thought our pacing for each day was pretty good, with essentially a later morning wakeup for the crew (so I could blog and research things before everyone else woke up), a lunch plan, an afternoon plan, and a dinner plan for each day -- the only day that felt a little empty was the Chinatown walk but had the Chinese garden been open (biggest regret of the trip! Can't believe I didn't realize it would be closed on Tuesdays) would have been fine. If we had an extra day, probably would have checked out Whistler. If we had one day less, probably would have dropped Antigone and maybe phnom pehn. 

8. Things that ended up being not as impressive (but glad we still did them so would know): Capilano suspension bridge (nice, but not worth the high cost), live crab dinner (delicious, but not worth the high cost), first izakaya in Richmond (note: stick to Chinese food in Richmond 😆), Granville Island (picturesque, but our family just isn't that into the Ferry Building/Chelsea Market/Faneuil Hall type thing). 

9. Favorite things for the trip? For Vancouver we had to make a new rule and separate out food from experiences (otherwise all of our top 3s would just be food 😆). 

Food Top 3:

Baba: 1) Duck at Chang An, 2) Dinesty wontons, 3) crab fried rice at Dynasty

Mama: 1) Peking Duck at Chang An, 2) salty egg yolk soft shell crab at Chef Tony's, 3) fatty tuna sashimi and nigiri at Miku. 

L: 1) 皮蛋瘦肉粥 (preserved duck egg congee) at Chef Tony's in Richmond, 2) XLB at Dinesty, 3) crab fried rice at Dynasty.

R: 1) Dinesty pork soup dumplings, 2) the congee at Chef Tony, 3) Chocolate XLB at DTF

Experience Top 3:

R: 1) Play that Goes Wrong, 2) waterfall hikes, 3) Chinatown/Gastown walking tour (slight cheat because it was mostly food 😆)

L: 1) Play that Goes Wrong, 2) Capilano suspension bridge, 3) biking Stanley (even with her fall!)

Mama: 1) Sea to Sky Highway, 2) biking the seawall, 3) Sunset Beach sunset

Baba: 1) Train wreck hike, 2) sunset at Sunset Beach, and 3) Brandywine Falls. 

Alright, with that, Vancouver trip complete. See you all in a few months for NYC/Boston!