Vancouver, BC: Christmas Trip !!
It’s finally the day we head up to Vancouver for a one-week Christmas trip! We’ve been planning for a couple of weeks, and while I’ve been nervous about traveling outside of work, I was really looking forward to visiting Vancouver again.
I woke up around 8:30AM, all packing finished the night before, and made a simple breakfast (bacon and eggs with hot dogs). Our usual bacon lately has been too salty, so we tried a new brand that was low sodium and I’m liking it so much more. Didn’t feel up to drinking coffee, so I just drank water instead. I think I own too many caffeinated teas, so once I finish up most of them I’ll start filling the cabinet back up with non-caffeinated replacements. My mom had a work call so I fell asleep on the couch for about an hour. We checked our mail, dropped off books at the library, filled up our gas, then realized we forgot our walking sticks!! Finally hit the road 2 hours over schedule but there was no traffic and no line at the border. What great luck!
Even though it’s December, the autumn leaves are still such a crisp dark yellow and orange.
There were lots of people walking around, though the wind was pretty chilly — I regretted leaving my coat immediately. For me, it’s impossible to visit Vancouver without stopping by Pepper Lunch, so that was our first destination this afternoon!
We passed by some cute cafes and patisseries on our way over.
It was surreal being back here again after several years! The lights were decorated with Christmas paper crafts.
Had a large beef with egg, and tried their meal set for the first time! The green tea and miso were perfect after a chilly walk.
Yum yum yum!! I missed this soooo much!
On our walk back to the car we got cakes and mochi at the patisserie! We got the cloud cake, strawberry shortcake, a strawberry mochi and a mango mochi, but I forgot to take pics before we ate them all lol.
Unfortunately, we ended up getting a parking ticket because we parked in a spot/street that required a permit q_q Always double-check in a new city!!!
Headed to our hotel at the Hyatt Regency! Wow, it was huge! And the Financial District is SO fancy. I actually recognized the area from a previous trip thanks to the church across the street. The lobby was full of Christmas spirit, and there was a gingerbread contest that lined up the walls you could vote in. After checking into our room and eating the cakes, I ended up taking a nap for a few hours.
The view at night was lovely.
Even after waking up at 8PM, there were so many restaurants open late! It’s so different from what I’m used to. We picked Kosoo for dinner and headed over. There was a line, but the wait wasn’t bad at all, and we got seated fairly quickly.
Ordered the kimchi fried rice, half size honey butter and gangjeong fried chicken. The kimchi banchan had a sweetness to it that I don’t think I’ve had before – it was really good!!
There was a looooot of food. We had to have our water refilled pretty shortly after receiving our food because it was spicy. LOL!
I saw a place called Dank Mart and later learned from a friend that it has a lot of unique and exotic snacks and drinks. Hopefully we can check it out before we leave. Walked back to the hotel and planned for the next day.