Vancouver again!

Whoops, has it really been two weeks since I posted? Well, I guess I was away for a week, and work has been a bit nuts since then. Actually, I'm supposed to leave tomorrow for a work trip, so I guess things will continue to be hectic for a bit. I think I can muster up enough time to write a quick post though! It was surprisingly sunny during my last trip (nice contrast to my previous trip where it rained every day) although also freaking cold! But we had a nice walk the day I arrived, through Coal Harbor and eventually to Stanley Park. That's the Olympic Cauldron above (it was the one year anniversary of the Vancouver Olympics just before I arrived).


If I lived here, I'd get a boat too.


In Stanley Park, we saw lots of crows, but no raccoons this time. Oh, also a Douglas Fir squirrel, which we initially thought was either a baby squirrel or a chipmunk (fortunately, a knowledgeable passerby corrected us).


We stumbled across Beaver Lake, which according to the display, is slowly disappearing. I haven't been to this part of the park before, but it was beautiful. And, as you can tell, extremely sunny.


But then the sun started to set, and a duck flew into my shot. Can you see it? He was VERY FAST.


We ate a lot of excellent food, but I took very few pictures. However, here is my Caesar (what they call a bloody mary) from our anniversary lunch at Provence (and Py in the background). Yum! We visited our old favorite Plus Alpha and also had an indulgent afternoon tea at the Fairmont Hotel.


The lighting in there is terrible, and it only just occurred to me that I could probably have used the flashlight on my phone for some additional lighting, but then I would have REALLY looked like a weirdo. Oh well! Anyway, it was yummy, and I really liked the space, although of course, it can't touch the tea at the Peninsula in Hong Kong.


I got to try a currywurst from Eli's Serious Sausage, which was delicious! A few days later, we saw Eli being interviewed on the news on a segment on coping with the cold snap--his strategy? "A sweater...and then another sweater....and then another sweater...and another sweater..."


And I made some banana bread that was pretty good considering I totally winged it!


In a first for me, I tried 5 pin bowling, and I think I'm slightly better at that than regular bowling. Also, I've never been to a bowling alley where you're not allowed to drink beer on the lane--you have to keep your beer on a ledge behind the lane!


Lanterns at the Sun Yat Sen garden. I should've paid and gone into the classical Chinese garden on the other side too, but I was cold and lazy.


And too soon, it was time to go home--this is the terrifying thing that greeted me in the fridge. Yes, it's a carrot. I've never seen a carrot dry out to this degree before in a refrigerator!v