Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada - Part I

We left Victoria on Sunday morning by bus which took us to the Swartz Bay Ferry. After all the ferrying we did, it's really easy when you're a backpacking to buy a ticket from a kiosk and hop on, it looks like if you've got a car, you'll need to do a little more planning.



Making the crossing to Tsawwassen (the ferry terminal for Vancouver) takes about 1.5 hours via BC Ferries. At Tsawwassen, in order to pay your fare when boarding the bus (#620) that takes you to the SkyTrain into Vancouver, you'll need coins. Luckily the woman behind us was prepared and was able to help us out! Canadians are nice like that. From the bus, we transferred to the Canada Line SkyTrain (Bridgeport station) into Vancouver City Centre.

As we walked to our AirBnB condo, we came across JapaDog.

This was not a chance encounter, in fact, it was very much planned. Ever since we had seen the Vancouver episode of Anthony Bourdain's No Reservations, we have been dying to try out JapaDog, and we couldn't wait a minute more. With backpacks still on, Andy and I each got a dog and devoured them before walking one more block to where we were staying. They have several veggie dog options, and I got the Veggie Terimayo.





Our AirBnB condo was just like it was described. Lili (the owner) welcomed us, and we settled into our digs for the next four days. This was our first experience with AirBnb, and it's a great alternative to staying in a hotel.





We figured we would take it easy on the sightseeing in Vancouver and focus on food. We walked down Robson Street for window shopping, and took Denman toward English Bay Beach. We stopped at a brand new store specializing in nuts called Ayoub's Dried Fruits and Nuts.



Then we continued on our way to English Bay Beach and encountered Beijing-based artist Yue Minjun's sculptures of laughing men called “A-Maze-in Laughter."





We decided to call it an early evening and walked up Davie Street and stopped in at a grocery store to stock up on breakfast items and Bob's Red Mill Vegi Soup Mix for dinner.