Mini Vacation 2012

I'm back from a mini-vacation - 3 days in downtown Vancouver - it's been a while since we've had the time to leisurely stroll through the various areas so we started on West 4th and Broadway and over then next two days walked  Robson Street, Pacific Centre, Harbour Centre, Sinclair Centre, Gastown, Davie Street. It was interesting to see how much has changed over the years and semi-shocking to see so many vacant retail units there were, especially in the malls.

Harbour Centre from our balcony

Looking down from our balcony

We also took the SeaBus to North Vancouver and toured around the Lonsdale Quay where we  found some yummy places for dinner. We actually had other plans for dinner but it looked and smelled so good we couldn't resist! We started with a very fresh prawn cocktail at Screaming Mimi's and then had some brisket with mashed potatoes and gravy at Sharky's Chop House. Mmm MMmmm. I finished with a bubble tea and bought some fresh chocolate chip cookies for a late night hotel snack.

Fresh Fish and Seafood at the Quay

At breakfast there was some yummy dark coloured cheese in my omelet, intrigued we asked the server about it and she sent the chef over with a sample - it was Guinness Cheddar and boy was it delicious, especially melted in an omelet! Have you had it?

Then later while sitting in the Mexician restaurant, La Casita in Gastown, I accidentally made eye contact with a woman walking by - well she started yelling about "why couldn't you just leave it alone? You know his face was burnt! Why couldn't you leave it alone?" and on and on. She yelled at me through the window of the restaurant and then went around to the front and opened the door and yelled at me some more, then spied a bottle of hot sauce on a nearby table and squirted it in my direction. As soon as I realized my mistake of being caught looking at her, I didn't look at her or in her direction again.  It's one of those things that you can't undo once it's been started. I had my back to the door when she came in the restaurant but I just sat there and did not turn around as I didn't want to agitate her any more. I just kept an eye on the restaurant staff to see if I needed to duck or anything. Since no one else did anything about it(I guess they managed not to make eye contact), she soon moved on as quickly as she came - like a big ol' hot sauce spraying gust of wind!

We lucked out by having sun for the first two days, but then we were hit with snow/rain which made for a very chilly walk back to our hotel. It's a good thing we had a late checkout  - I had time to take a warm bath and change into dry/warm clothes before heading home.

The gas fireplace is the main heat source in our house so we turned it off while we were away, but because of this and because we don't have a furnace our house was down to 13 degrees C when we came home. Brr. That takes a while to heat back up again. Thank goodness for our  mattress heater.

Eco had a great time at the neighbours and now we're back to life as it always is - doing laundry and cooking and cleaning and working.... (sigh) it's good to be home.