Sunday we walked over to Gastown and Chinatown. Both are older sections of town, similar to Pioneer Square and the Chinatown/International District in Seattle. The Vancouver neighborhoods are rapidly becoming gentrified. For example, we saw a “Vegan Supply Store” in the midst of Chinatown. It was down the street from the infamous “lizard on a stick” purveyors. Lunch was at a vegetarian restaurant called Meet. The barbecue veggie burgers we had weren’t bad. The burgers came with salad and fries, so we left feeling almost virtuous. Curiously, Meet is around the corner from a restaurant called L’Abbatoir (French for slaughterhouse). As one might predict, this establishment’s menu is heavy on animal protein. Is the landlord trying to have it both ways?
Our main shopping spree of the trip was at the Ming Wo kitchenware store. We always find bargains there, particularly with the current exchange rate between the US and Canadian dollars. Julian found espresso cups with saucers for 49 cents for EACH set. We also got a large stoneware salad bowl and a teapot to replace the one he broke last month. I got a couple of small saucers for cat food bowls. It’s easier for them to eat from than regular bowls.
We got back downtown in time to watch the Canada Day parade. Along with marching bands and Mounties, the diversity of Canada was on full display. Large contingents of Asian cultural associations marched, played, and danced their way down the route. A Filipino percussion group (drums and glockenspiels) played the traditional Philippine favorites “O Sole Mio” and “Tequila.” Julian took these two pictures of tykes on both sides of the parade.
Mini-Mountie.
This little one kept trying to join the parade.
Dinner was at Forage, a restaurant we’d visited on our last trip. The holiday décor was gone, but the locavore cuisine remained. We got duck, a charcuterie and cheese plate, and gnocchi. We left this time without dessert.
Monday brought the sad news that Barbara-Jo’s Books to Cooks had closed earlier in the year. According to this Vancouver Sun article, she couldn’t deal with the aforementioned exchange rate and the Seattle-based online bookstore that rhymes with mama-san. Dejected, I walked around the 4th Avenue Kitsilano shopping district with Julian. We bought a couple of neck pillows at a travel shop and had lunch at a Vietnamese restaurant called Chi. The noodle bowls and the homemade ginger beer were good. The service was a bit flaky. We had to remind the waitstaff to bring our drink orders. Then they couldn’t find the stash of extra paper for the credit card readers and had to run to a nearby office supply store for refills. If nothing else, the delay kept us out of the usual Everett and I-405 traffic jams on the way home. A quick dive into Costco in Bellingham didn’t hurt, either.
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