Although we have a kitchen in our hotel suite, we don’t cook when we’re in Vancouver. Sometimes we’ll have bagels in the room for breakfast, but we normally head around the corner to De Dutch. Its specialty is Dutch pannekoeken (pancakes), which are thin, dinner-plate sized, and topped with assorted things. It also serves omelets, French toast, and other breakfast/lunch items. We generally have a late breakfast courtesy of Julian’s lack of biological clock.
Today’s foray was a walk to Granville Island. It’s a public market similar to Pike Place in Seattle, but the vendors at Granville seem to be more permanent. Pike Place has day stalls on a first-come-first-serve basis for crafts and other vendors. Often these folks disappear when cruise ship season is over. Granville Island was nowhere near as busy today as it is in the summer, but there was still plenty of action.
Granville Island from the Granville Bridge. The body of water is False Creek. The Burrard Street Bridge is in the background.
After lunch and a dessert (caramel apple focaccia–mmmmm), we debated how to get back to the hotel. Rather than walking all the way or taking a bus, we hopped an Aquabus across False Creek. These are little pontoon boats that zip between Granville and the north side of False Creek, where downtown is. A five-minute ride saved us an hour of walking or waiting for a bus. Given that Julian is of a tender age, he got 50% off his fare. Bottom line: We made the trip for less than bus fare for the two of us.
False Creek, with downtown Vancouver in the background. You can see two Aquabuses in the photo. One looks like a little tugboat, and the one with the green awning is similar to the one we took.
Last night we had dinner with my postdoc cronies at a Japanese restaurant called Kingyo. It specializes in izakaya, which roughly translates as bar food. We went to another izakaya restaurant several years ago that had lots of grilled meats on skewers. Kingyo does more tempura, sushi, and fried stuff. We were there for nearly three hours, eating, drinking (a little–you need something to cut through the fried food), and catching up on our lives since Dallas. Props to the restaurant staff for not kicking us out. With luck, it won’t be 21 years before we meet up again.
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