Vancouver - Day 2: Dim sum & Shopping

Today is our big shopping day, which meant a work day for Baba. We had several malls to hit, with several meals to break up the shops. Starting off with a 10:30 visit to Deluxe for "fancy" dim sum. 

L is READY for dim sum. 

Baba...less so. Needs more coffee?

Here we go! Shrimp dumplings. These were very very good. We decided we will get shrimp dumplings at every dim sum stop to compare. These tastes a lot fresher and more complex than any shrimp dumpling I've had in recent memory. Honestly the others taste like they're reheated compared to these. I give it 4.25 stars.

Mochi red bean...I wasn't a big fan though the twins liked them. They tasted as you would expect, through the green leaf did provide a hint of green tea freshness that elevated it a bit. I'll average us out to 3.5.

Mushroom, truffle, and some type of greens dumplings. This was my attempt to go non traditional dim sum to see how it went. Consensus: not well. Wouldn't recommend unless you are a huge truffle fan. 2 stars. 

Squash red bean pancakes. I think we all thought these were good...crispy outer shell, not too greasy, filling plentiful but not too sweet -- we were just too full by the end so it was hard to eat these (they are DENSE!). Trying to give it a fair shake and pretending we got them when we were freshly hungry, I think it deserved a 4. 

I think I missed the siu mai - again, like the shrimp dumplings, just tasted a lot more freshly prepared compared to standard dim sum we are used to. I am not a big siu mai person but I think I'd have to give it at least a 3.75. 

Here's the snow buns - cha siu bao filling. The filling was much lighter and less cloyingly sweet like what I'm used to finding. I'd give these a 3.75 as well. But I should say a connoisseur of siu mais and cha siu baos would probably give both of these a 4. 

After this first dim sum breakfast we went off to Aberdeen, the "Asian mall" in the area. Literally every store inside seemed to be an Asian brand. Such that we didn't really recognize any of them. 😆 But still bought various items at a Daiso-like place (including an avocado storer, I was intrigued!) and some blind boxes and notebooks at Art Box. We proceeded to walk over to Parker Place for some classic stall/shop type browsing (you have to assume the vendors all get their stuff from Shein and Temu?) and some boba tea. It took me awhile to pay for the boba tea...cash only...or wechat pay/alipay. I spent probably 10 min trying to get my alipay to work...never succeeded so ended up giving them some USD. Apparently cash needed in various places in Richmond! R was somewhat unnervingly excited about her blind boxes. I do not really get this trend...but her happiness was truly unparalleled so I guess I'll just go with it?

By now it was mid afternoon, so obviously time for another dim sum break. This time we went more low brow/classic, to Chef Tony. The cha siu bao was more similar to home in terms of flavors...but I must admit still tasted more fresh. 3.5 or even 4. This preserved duck egg and pork congee though, man, it was DELICIOUS. The flavor of the congee was SO good. The duck egg was actually flavorful. I might have to give this our first 5 star rating. The twins were close to licking bowls at the end. 

We also got a vinegar cucumber. Nothing to write home about but I felt like we needed some vegetables. 😆 3 stars probably. 

This was my other highlight -- salty egg yolk soft shell crabs. I love salty egg yolk. The rest of the family...not so much. So I'd give this 4.5 but they'd only give like a 3...I can't bring myself to average and draw down the score of what was (to me) absolutely scrumptious, so I'll leave the two scores separate. 

I think I missed the xiao long bao here...I didn't even eat one (everyone else took 2 each of the order of 6) so wont score it. Our big XLB day is tomorrow! Instead I'll close out with their liu sha bao (runny egg bun), painted with gold! 😆 Reminded me of the abu dhabi butter flecked with gold. The filling was not as sugary sweet as variations we've had in the past and the filling was runny even after we let it sit there for a good 30 min or so. I would say a strong 4.25 here. I thought we wouldn't be able to finish them but even Baba went back for a second half. 

Baba went back to the hotel after this (btw, the hotel was really amazingly centrally located for all of this eating and shopping -- I thought we would take Ubers at some point but everything was max 25 min walk and they were often shady straight line walks so not unpleasant at all) while we headed towards Richmond Centre, a more "classic" mall with a Sephora, Uniqlo, Muji, Claire's, Pop Mart etc. We bought some clothes, some chocolate (Dubai flavored at Laderach, the free samples man, they get you), and some more blind boxes. Again, I cannot quite understand or capture the level of excitement and happiness that resulted from these purchases. Suffice it to say they were extremely pleased with their birthday present/money purchases. 

L also picked up the pink wallet style phone case in the photo below. It's like so Boomer that it's Gen Alpha again perhaps? Because I was proud of them carrying all their stuff for what was now edging on 6 hours of walking about, I agreed to spend the money we saved on Uber rides for a starbucks drink. We ordered a deconstructed pink drink (ice, foam on the side and extra cups) so that they could split it. Twins liked this so much we may start doing this for all our starbucks orders. 

The original plan for the evening was actually to go hit up the Richmond night market. This was originally the only thing I was going to see in Richmond (back when we were only going to be staying in downtown Vancouver). But after so much walking and shopping and eating (I also told the twins it cost $7 to enter the market before we even eat anything there), the twins actually both decided it wasn't worth the effort. The only thing they really wanted from the market was a tang hulu. I think we can make that happen elsewhere. So we went back to hotel. Everyone rested a bit and recharged some phones...I wasn't actually sure if people still had enough stomach space for dinner. I should not have doubted us! L had been making comments about hot pot since we touched down in Vancouver, luckily, we had like 3 different hot pot places all within a 3-5 min walk. Cue the soup bases and meat and veggies!

We all tried the spicy (I even ordered it "mild") and immediately decided it was way too much for all of us. I liked having one shacha for the meat and one bone broth for the veggies. I ended up eating mostly veggies and bone broth for the meal. But the rest of them still made it though 4-5 orders of meat. Capped off with some free green tea ice cream!

Very success-FULL day of eating and shopping in Richmond. Tomorrow we check out of the hotel and move over to downtown Vancouver for the rest of the trip -- there is some rain coming in the forecast which doesn't thrill me...but hoping for the best!

Vancouver - Day 1: Arrival

I can't believe that when I was closing out the posts from our Glacier trip that I entirely forgot about Vancouver! So. A little bit about this trip. We had originally been planning to go to China this summer - whole family affair with Laoye, Jiujiu and Jiuma...it was going to be SWELTERING in late July and early August but we were going to tack on a short visit to Japan and another visit to Seoul and the food and shopping were going to be glorious. So, when that trip got scrapped (will go to China next summer instead now), we were not sad at all about missing the heat but a little disappointed to be missing all the good food and shopping. Enter a Google search re: has Quanjude (most famous Beijing duck restaurant in China) opened any overseas locations? Answer: NYC and Vancouver. Well I had heard so much about how lovely Vancouver is in the summers and it is a two hour flight from SFO... new vacation destination confirmed! As I started researching the trip I got more and more excited. Apparently when going long went back to Chinese control, most of the top chefs decided to immigrate to Canada and created a new mecca for cutting edge culinary offerings in Vancouver. People claim the dim sum restaurants in Richmond are actually superior to Hong Kong! 

I also happened to have a large store of vacation days (since I had been storing them up for the the week trip to Asia) so we are doing a full 8 days in Vancouver...mostly focused on eating. 😆 The won't be a ton of normal vacation attractions and such... This is essentially turning into a food pictures blog for this trip! 

So we started off with a slight hiccup--our flight that would have gotten us in to Vancouver for dinner was delayed over an hour, so it became a very late dinner... we all were tired and wanted to shower so dinner was less ambitious and we stayed close to the hotel (there had originally been aspirations of heading to Stevenson for fish and chips on the shore). On the plus side, being this far west meant the sunset was even later than what we are used to: didn't feel that late even though it was already past 8pm when we got into the hotel airport shuttle. 

We were originally going to stay in downtown Vancouver for the entire trip but I kept hearing about Richmond's Asian malls and restaurants, so we decided to start off with two nights in Richmond, at the Grand Park Hotel. This was a points booking -- my Wells Fargo Autograph Journey had great earnings (5x on hotels, 3x on ALL travel) but limited redemption transfer partners so when I saw this hotel eligible through Choice Hotels for redemptions, I pounced. It's a little run down/showing its age, but serviceable. Biggest complaint is that the double rooms should have queen beds! 

We decided to walk to Alexandra Road for dinner. I knew this road was famous for is restaurants...I didn't realize how suburban it would be. I was expecting the Chinese tourist street type setup with pedestrian road and banners or something but it's just a normal road with lots of plazas filled with restaurants. We ended up at Koto Izakaya because R wanted sushi. Alas... The sushi closed right as we entered. So....skewers it is. I wasn't complaining! 

I forgot to take a photo of the sashimi appetizer but Baba thought it was very very good. Probably his favorite item of the night. Would give it 4 stars. 

Here are the wagyu enoki and roe sauce yakitori skewers. The enoki was very bland, the wagyu was nice. The roe mayonnaise sauce no one else in the family cared for, even though I thought it was very good. Averaging it to: 3 stars. 

Here's the assorted tempura at L's request. Shrimp batter very well done (super light not heavy/doughy). Sauce was a little light for me, L and I ended up dipping the potatoes in the soy sauce 😆. I'd say 3 stars here but I have to say even in Japan I've never had AMAZING feelings from tempura. 

Here's the star item in my opinion: grilled unagi skewers. So flavorful. So flaky melt in your mouth. Also we were hungry. L and R wish they had ordered a side of rice I think. But we give this one a strong 4.5 stars. 

R was still really sad about missing her sushi so we hiked over to a second place for a quick California roll to go. They said it was good but I didn't try it so not giving it a rating here. 

With full stomachs, we all got showered up and into our small double sized beds. Tomorrow morning we have our first dim sum meal scheduled for 10:30am - gotta rest up to be ready for that!

Glacier - Day 5: Final Thoughts

I don't know if it was yesterday's Logan Pass shuttle wakeup time that primed all of our internal clocks but no one slept in that much today. Even though we had until 10:30 for check out, we were all packed up and out the door by 9:45 or so. Our plan today was to drive to Helena, stop for sushi lunch, boba, Costco for some groceries (and to refuel), and then...a quick stop for some shopping (the Ulta Beauty was literally across the street from the sushi restaurant, almost seemed sacrilegious NOT to take a quick browse).

I took the morning drive so BaBa promptly took a mid morning nap.  Needless to say, BaBa arrived at lunch in high spirits (haha!). 

The lunch was actually low key good (remember, that means surprisingly good in teen speak 😂). The gyoza and sesame balls in particular got rave reviews from our crew. Black Dragon roll was also a favorite. It was tasty enough we took a photo to make sure the name made it into the records: Nagoya Steakhouse and Sushi. 

So, thoughts on Glacier National Park!

1. Areas. Many Glacier and east side generally was much less crowded. I knew that coming in given how much more populated/built-up the west side is, but it was very noticeable in the drives, parking, and hiking (common to go long stretches without other people in your shot). The east side also seemed less green/blue to me, but that might be because our time there coincided with the weather being worse...but those perfect blue sky turquoise water shots didn't come around until we got to the west side. Comparing the one hike we did do, we saw a lot more wildlife over on the east side. And we really didn't even scratch the surface of other hikes in the area because of the flooding and trail closures. If I came back, I would probably try to focus more on the east side to explore more. 

2. Timing - we spent four full days in the park. It was probably enough to hit "highlights" if your time is limited. But in an ideal world, we could have used 1-2 more days and I would have convinced my crew to embark on some slightly longer hikes. I would have liked to do one of those 8-10 mile hikes...maybe when the twins get a little older and start enjoying physical activity? 😆 Splitting half/half east/west is generally a good call I think. 

3. Lodging - the camping experience that I skipped further convinces me that I will never be a big camper! But the twins said it was a highlight even with all the flooding and rain. Ranking the places we stayed, Columbia Falls condo was certainly the most comfortable and accessible to groceries, restaurants, stores, etc. Driving 30 min to get to the park entrance wasn't great...but also wasn't as much of a hassle as I had worried. You could tell that it was a direct trade off between newer, more comfortable lodging vs. older, more dated lodging based on how far away you drove from a park entrance. Many Glacier would have been the best for hiking accessibility and sunset views, that's probably the largest regret of the trip, that the flooding evacuations and weather forced them to cancel that reservation...maybe we will try that again next trip! St. Mary was just as good as staying in the park from a logistical perspective, though probably wouldn't do the tiny home again because I like having a toilet I don't need to leave the room to get to. I might try to do Airbnb type stays for a larger group, one on east side and then one on west side. 

4. Wildlife - much of the wildlife seems to have acclimated to the human presence. Unfortunately I think tourists don't help the situation as we saw some blatant feeding of wildlife or intentional crowding of the animals to get photos. I would say Glacier didn't feel too different from Big Sky in terms of wildlife encounters...except the wildlife in Big Sky might actually be more "wild" so in that sense close encounters happen more in Glacier.

5. Pricing - lodging was definitely more expensive than the room would seem to be worth. But beyond that, gas actually was reasonable (except for the one station right at St. Mary) and food didn't seem outrageous for our California perspectives. The park entrance and shuttle fees seemed very very reasonable ($35 for 7 days of entry and $1 per person for the shuttle). I can see why visiting National Parks is still a more affordable vacation compared to things like Disneyworld. 

6. Worth it? So going back to my original trepidation about whether the views would be sufficiently impressive, I think the answer is yes. I found the vistas on Going to the Sun Road and up the Continental Divide at Logan Pass to be at the level of Grand Canyon (or higher depending on which type of scenery you are more partial to). It was to me more impressive than the coastal views I got of Alaska, though I admittedly never made it to Denali. And in terms of vistas I liked it more than Yellowstone, though Yellowstone has the prismatic lakes and mud pots and geysers to compensate so again, it's more what your particular bias is. 

7. Timing - I was sad that Grinnell Glacier and Highline weren't open...but I was getting too hot by the end of the hike many days. So I think if I came again, I'd try to catch the tail end of the season, maybe in late August. The wildflowers might be gone and the waterfalls might not be flowing as much, but the weather would be still cooler than heat of late July I think and the trails should all have opened. 

Top 3 from the family:

MaMa - snowfield views off the side of the Hidden Lake Overlook trail, ice slides, and shuttle views off of Going to the Sun road.

BaBa - Moose encounter,  the ice hike, and dinner at Belton Chalet. 

R - ice sliding, seeing so many "Jeffs" all around the park (the twins and B named all of the Columbian ground squirrels Jeff, they were admittedly very very cute), and the sushi outing

L - Shooting her vlog of the trip, seeing the moose on the Grinnell hike, sushi restaurant

That's a wrap for Glacier! I think our next family blog trip won't be until Xmas, when we are hitting up NYC and then Boston. Until then!

Glacier - Day 4: Logan Pass & Hidden Lake Overlook (Again!)

So this was originally meant to be our Highline trail day...YeYe managed to snag shuttle passes (which, due to the new 3 hour parking restriction, is basically the only way to hike Highline this year), but sadly, the trail remains closed for snow conditions. Sadness!

Well, we are still taking the shuttle ride! Opportunity to get some animal sightings!

No animals were seen...but there were some very majestic vistas. 

The shuttle took about an hour - dropping us off at Logan Pass, star attraction of the park. What is the continental divide, you ask? Per National Geographic, it is a naturally occurring ridge of high terrain that separates a continent's river systems. So where the water droplet falls (on which side of the ridge) determines which ocean a raindrop eventually reaches (Pacific or Atlantic). 

So...we decided to hike the Hidden Lake Overlook again, why? Because when we went last time, we apparently never actually made it to the overlook. 😆 This is what happens when we try hiking without YeYe and NaiNai... With our return experience, we were equipped this time with yak tracks, hiking poles, and trash bags to slide on. 

Because of the yak tracks (or maybe also the two more days of snow melt), I thought we went up much more easily. The trash bags were used multiple times. 

Here's a shot of what we thought was the lake on our first trip out and basically where we turned back. 

This area was also very often frequented by the mountain goats. We had to scamper to get out of their way!

In hindsight, we should have realized we hadn't reached the end of the trail. Kind of sad because we had gotten 90% there...but hey, that's why we came back...because THIS is view we were actually supposed to reach:

 So glad we came back!

Postcard shot! (Can you tell I had to magic eraser away some people? 😆)

Official group photo of the Glacier trip:

The snow actually had melted quite a bit from our visit two days ago. (What used to be a thin line exposed on the crest was now a several feet wide exposed rock). Maybe a coincidence, but I think the two extra days of snowmelt also made the field of wildflowers more impressive. 

After the hike, we waited around a bit for the return shuttle down the mountain -- during which I did a quick hop into the Visitor Center. There wasn't much to see there besides the gift shop. Snapped this shot of a taxidermy marmot because I didn't think they were this big!

Eventually, a shuttle showed up. I think probably around a 20 min wait? We chatted with the driver on the way down and learned the National Park Service has 40 buses running every day each with multiple rides, meaning hundreds of trips per day.

I got a view of the other side of the park this time. Equally impressive! This actually includes a shot of part of the Garden Walk, the beginning section of the Highline trail. We would have had to walk on a 3 foot wide trail holding onto chains for safety (because you'd fall into this valley if you slipped!). People actually have died from tripping and falling off the trail. So...in hindsight...perhaps not a horrible thing the trail was not open actually. We saw what the view would have been!

Turns out the recent rain/wind actually caused an avalanche a couple days ago. Here's photo proof of the avalanche covering up the public bathroom facilities that the rangers were still working on digging out. 

Not many shots from the shuttle this time...because I was so tired I fell asleep and didn't wake up again until we got to Lake McDonald. 😬 

Back at Apgar, we had one last educational talk with the park rangers, this time checking out some grizzly, black bear and mountain lion skins. 

I had meant to do a group photo with the Glacier National Park sign but it was already 3PM and members of the crew were starting to get hangry...oh well, maybe next time! 

Tonight being the Fourth of July, YeYe and NaiNai put together a classic Independence Day feast: grilled burgers, corn on the cob, and watermelon. 

It was a great final Glacier day. Tomorrow morning, we check out and make the 6 hour drive back to Big Sky. Will leave final thoughts on the park for tomorrow!

Glacier - Day 3: Trail of the Cedars & Lake McDonald

Today is the planned "rest" day - shorter hike in the AM, lunch at Lake McDonald Lodge, and then a condo swim. Let's see how things go!

Well, first slight hiccup -- finding parking for our planned Trail of the Cedars hike. The hike itself was only 1 mile, but the parking situation was so bad we had to park over a half mile away! I guess we will start the day with the Going-to-the-Sun road hike. The kids were in pretty high spirits - lots of "let's pretend to be Avengers" action as we single file marched down the "highway."

Even this short intro walk had some pretty nice river spots!

The Trail of the Cedars is basically a series of wooden walkways through some ancient cedar trees. Baba posing with some mossy rocks.

NaiNai posing with her first spot of the day: Jack-o'-Lantern tree knot!

Because I sort of promised the kids it was an easier hike day, they protested mightily upon hearing that the Trail of the Cedars actually leads to the Avalanche Lake Trail hike...which is beautiful...but 4 miles long. So BaBa graciously volunteered to stay behind with the kids halfway through while I went ahead with YeYe and NaiNai for some more steps. This was actually a really nice hike -- I liked it better than Grinnell personally -- lots of varied scenery. Here's a vista:

Shaded forest with dappled lighting:

And rushing Creek along much of the way:

I actually turned around about 0.25 miles from the end (I know, why not just keep going!) - well, the twins has been complaining very heavily about how I kept going back on my word and how I said it was only a mile hike today...I knew I was close to the end (with a view of Avalanche Lake and all its waterfalls) but it would probably be another 30 min...mom guilt is strong!

Here's a photo of what I WOULD have seen (YeYe and NaiNai did go all the way). They did say it was pretty crowded but you wouldn't know it from this lovely photo of serenity!

Adding a particularly nice wildlife shot from NaiNai as well:

Meanwhile, the kids were very happy to see me return and start heading back to the cars for lunch.

They even obliged me with some photo posing!

They actually showed me some cool tips with the phone camera -- I didn't know you could do a vertical panorama! This might be one of my favorite shots of the trip so far:

So...next hiccup of the day, because we made it back to the car sooner, we headed down to Lake McDonald Lodge sooner and started on lunch. Well...lunch went by and no sight of YeYe and NaiNai. The lack of reception in the park meant that we had some ships passing in the night moments -- everyone eventually gave up trying to find each other and we took two separate cars back to the condo. I felt a little bad that we didn't really have a proper Lake McDonald outing though so we stopped at a pullout. I was honestly just hoping for a landscape photo...but turns out there was a walk down to a beachy area and a ton of perfect stones for skipping. 

Turns out I'm pretty bad at skipping stones. Everyone else was getting three or four regularly but I could only manage a two-skip (and even that only twice out of a dozen or so attempts). So instead I practiced my new vertical panorama-taking skills. 😆 

Reiya actually was brave enough to go in the actual lake. 

Yeah after that reaction no one else followed her. 

Another obligatory cousin group shot - big smiles all around.

At R's request, a shot of them triumphantly throwing handfuls of pebbles in the lake. 

That's it for today -- another beautiful day in Glacier!

After we made it back to the condo, it was pretty late already so we nixed the swim plan and instead utilized the condos full kitchen to scrounge together a hearty meal of camping supply leftovers. With full bellies, we watched as Argentina nearly got shown up by Cape Verde (crazy!) and then headed to bed. Tomorrow, we have our Logan Pass Shuttles...crossed fingers for Highline opening up!