Vancouver & Kelowna: Vancouver Aquarium & Lynn Canyon Park

We’re finally here! The recap of the final day of vacation over on the Canadian West Coast. For this one, we took up our courage and headed to the Vancouver city central towards Stanley Park to go to Vancouver Aquarium and get an indoor activity before heading out to Lynn Canyon Park & Suspension Bridge. We talked with some of the locals there (my mom’s friends) and they told us that Lynn Canyon Suspension Bridge is almost as pretty as Capilano Suspension Bridge which charges more and is higher. This is a great choice for it being free and having just a lower canyon but still really  nice to walk through.

Vancouver Aquarium

As you can see, Vancouver Aquarium has all sorts of stuff, its not just fishes and rays and giant turtles and sharks. It also has monkeys and birds, etc. It is a pretty cool experience. Something else I like is that they don’t do a lot of shows with the animals. Only the dolphins are in these shows. The porpoises and belugas up top are actually in a training session which is like the trainer talks about these animals and how they came here and their story while giving them a little workout explaining why certain moves helps them to make sure they are healthy. In other cases, they also talk about the wildlife preservation centre that people can call if they ever believe that a marine animal is in danger and needs their assistance so that they can get them healthy and send them back to the wild. While I haven’t seen the documentary on Blackfish, I like the fact that it may be because of things like that documentary which make aquariums more aware about their transparency on how they are treating the animals with them.

Regardless of that, I like going to aquariums quite a bit and Vancouver Aquarium isn’t exceptionally different but they have their forte and is a rather educational process. They have a few different species of animals. My favorite is always the jellyfish tank and also seeing the porpoises and also going to the touch tank and getting to touch rays.

Lynn Canyon Park

As I mentioned above, we indeed skipped the really well known Capilano suspension bridge. I have been there before when I was around eight years old. However, in my mind, Lynn Canyon Park was really beautiful. It was a rainy day but everything was absolutely lovely just with the rainforest and the tall trees towering over us. It was a great place to go. And a nice way to round up our vacation with a nice light hike around. It didn’t  take too long but was good enough to give us time and energy to head back to the hotel and pack up for our trip home the next day.

Overall, the Vancouver and Kelowna trip was a lot of fun. We had some fantastic scenery and we had an enjoyable time seeing all the relatives. We got to hike and eat some great food and even fangirl over Storybrooke. There are still a ton of activities we didn’t get to do because of time and hopefully we will return again eventually.

This vacation’s post is done now but as we speak I just got back to work this week after a week off for a lovely staycation where did also went out to do some hiking so that will follow for what seems like Vacation Tuesdays here. 😉 We do have some day trips planned before winter hits so hopefully this segment will go on for at least another few weeks.

Vancouver & Kelowna: Hiking in Whistler & Squamish!

How fast does vacation go by, right? We’re looking back at Day 6 of vacation over at Kelowna and Vancouver this year. It is funny because I am on a staycation as this post goes up and just taking it easy. Still, looking back  at this vacation still makes my heart flutter with joy. We went to some amazing places especially Kelowna having some incredible scenery. Day 6 of vacation that we are recapping today is also one of our most emotional and awesome days of the trip. We headed out to Whistler and Squamish but not before forgetting my coat at the breakfast place we went to and realizing an hour or so into the trip. Luckily, we were heading to Whistler village so at least there would be a possibly of finding something to wear if it got chilly and man, did it get chilly!

Whistler Village

After the shopping priority and picking up a North Face Sweater and Eddie Bauer cap to fight the rain and cold, we walked a little more around Whistler Village.

Whistler Village reminded us heavily of Mont Tremblant village near Montreal.

Lost Lake Park

With that done, we headed off for a hike. Actually Lost Lake Park was more of a walking trail with a little bit of hills here and there. A part of the path was blocked off to preserve wildlife, aka toad migration. So we took a detour, got a little turned around, the rain got heavier and then we finally figured it all out and went back to our car for the next spot.

Sea to Sky Gondola, Squamish

Next stop is heading back towards Vancouver where we pass through Squamish and took the Sea to Sky Gondola. Note to all of you is that my husband is REALLY not comfortable with heights. I am also and gondolas make a little nervous especially at the steepness of this one at the beginning portion so we both picked up all our courage to do this and let us just say that it was extremely worth it even with some heavy rain and fog. Plus, we somewhat got stranded there as they investigated a potential issue which turned out all good thankfully. I like these companies being safe so it didn’t bother me too much when they told us they had to stop it for a while.

Sea to Sky Gondola is so worth it. I didn’t really put a lot of the trail but it is really fun to walk through it and the plants and trees are cool. Plus, there are a few lookout points. We encountered a lot of fog as you saw that came in really thick and dispersed later on but it was still fantastic scenery. I totally recommend it. Its a little pricey but really worth it.

That’s it for Day 6 of vacation!
Check back next week for the last day of vacation in Vancouver! 🙂 

Vancouver & Kelowna: Vancouver & Visiting Storybrooke!

It is time to leave the beautiful Kelowna and the wonderful Okanagan Valley. With an early start to hit the road, we got Vancouver at a decent time. There was a lot of dropping off everyone at different locations. My mom stayed with her high school friend to chat and have fun and ended having lunch with them. My aunt and cousin went to their friends’ place before heading back home. We all said our goodbyes and it was officially the start of our belated honeymoon (since we didn’t have one last year when we got married)

The first stop was the lunch mentioned before which was at this wonton joint in a sketchy-looking place that drove my husband crazy with our parking story when a lady would not budge after he signaled to park. The joys of a big city, my friends. That is pretty much what we got from the entire trip which was not great especially driving a giant car like a  Ford Explorer, tight parking spots, unknown places and lots of traffic. It is one of the reasons why we usually don’t vacation in mega cities much just because we already live in one. So you’ll notice in the next few days that we actually don’t stay in Vancouver a lot but head out into the outskirts. That’s for the next few posts.

Lunch

Steveston (aka Storybrooke)

Dinner at Moxie’s

That’s it for Day 4 of the trip! Not a lot really happened. The meals were decent. Steveston was really nice and gorgeous. It was relaxing and comfortable to walk around the town and by the waterfront. The highlight was definitely Steveston! I totally fangirled in Storybrooke. I will be getting back on track with Once Upon a Time soon!

Vinyard Terrace Restaurant (Kelowna, Canada)

We talked about lunch in the last vacation post. It was a classy lunch at the Cedar Creek Winery Estate. The restaurant is called Vineyard Terrace Restaurant (or some spots say Terrace Restaurant).

Cedar Creek Winery Estate is absolutely gorgeous. You can see the pictures on the day recap HERE. To sit on their outdoor terrace to look out at the vineyard with a little bit of breeze and eat a delicious meal was really a fantastic experience. Especially with great company.

Let’s check out the food! 🙂

Wines

We only had 3oz-6oz glasses, not the entire three bottles.

Appetizers

Wise Earth Carrot Salad

Can’t find this one’s name but I think something to do with heirloom tomatoes or something….

I’m not sure if you’ve ever had those nantes carrots variety but we love it at our place. We recently started eating the multicolor ones and they are so good. This one with a little bit of spices to aid the taste but not overpower the actual carrots’ natural deliciousness was awesome!

Main Dish

Wild Moon Organic Pork

Seared B.C. Albacore Tuna

Dessert

Maple Apple Tart

Callebaut Chocolate Mousse

Okanagan Fruit

Okay, I’m guessing you all can figure out that I got the Okanagan Fruit. I always complain about how the alternative for lactose-intolerance is either sorbet or fruits. I’ve never honestly enjoyed a fruit cup more than this one. Okanagan fruits are so good. The peaches and berries. This fruit cup was with sabayon which they described as a sweet hollandaise sauce. I only learned then that hollandaise sauce is just egg whites, same as sabayon, which is why I could have it and it is a really good balance.

Overall, this was a great restaurant experience. We all enjoyed the mains as well. The dessert was delicious as well as the appetizers. The wine was quite good as well. I had the 2014 Riesling. My cousin has the 2015 Senator’s White. My husband, my mom and my aunt shared a bottle of 2014 Gewurztraminer. I guess I should have mentioned it up with the wines.

Have you ever eaten at a winery restaurant? If so, where?

The Curious Café (Kelowna, Canada)

Nothing like a fantastic breakfast restaurant talk for a beautiful Saturday, right? I think so too!

Today’s is a breakfast place I visited with my cousins called The Curious Café in Kelowna. It was a cozy little spot with a lot of rustic decor. The menu was simple. So simple that I almost couldn’t find something to eat but rest assured, I did, of course!

The Curious Café

Menu 

Tea

The tea here is supposedly local. I can’t remember what brand it is anymore but it was amazing. On top of that, I was introduced to this cute contraption where its like a little bobble. You put the tea leaves in there and then you drop it in there to steep and it starts bubbling the first moment you put it in. It just stole my heart. So much that I ended up getting on at Teavana.

Our Meals (some of them)

This one was mine and it is called a Corn Beef Bowl. It has only a limited amount per day and guess what our table took the two available that morning. Sorry? But not really..but it was so delicious!

This one was my husband’s and it was the special meal of the day which is a quiche of some sort. I can’t remember exactly.

One of my cousin’s took this one. She sat across from me so I could take the picture easily. It was Avocado on Toast. I don’t remember the exact name of any of them. Her and her family are the locals from Kelowna so I’m guessing this is a pretty good pick.

I actually think the only meal that isn’t here is my nephews’ plate and they shared pancakes and bacon or something like that.

Overall, The Curious Café is really impressive. I enjoyed my meal quite a bit, plus it was great to sit together with my cousins and family and catch up! Great company almost always makes food better. Plus, I learned that Kelowna has some awesome free parking schedule. Coming from Montreal where parking is never free, not even on holidays or weekends, it really isn’t saying much. However, it did make us appreciate it a lot. The service was nice and the meals were presented lovely. It was all around a fun time and a perfect way to start our busy day ahead with tons of events for my cousin’s wedding! 🙂

Vancouver & Kelowna: The Drive to Kelowna!

Its the start of the vacation posts! This year’s vacation was Vancouver and Kelowna. It marks a few firsts and some pretty awesome experiences.

The first day of vacation was an early flight out of Montreal to Vancouver. This is memorable because its the first time I’ve taken a trip on a plane with my husband and the second flight he has ever taken. Thanks to our fantastic captain that flew the Air Canada flight to Vancouver, it was a smooth take off and landing. We landed in the morning at the airport, waited for quite some time for our luggage and then met up with my mom who left for Vancouver earlier than we did to spend some time with friends at the airport.

We arrived!!!

The next thing was picking up the car.

We originally had reserved a full-size car but after we talked to the guy at Avis, he suggested that we upgrade to an SUV to fit us, my mom and my aunt and cousin that we picked up shortly afterwards and accommodate everyone’s luggage and still feel comfortable. We ended up with the Ford Explorer. Its been a while that my husband drove such a huge vehicle and just look at all these buttons and controls. We had to take a moment to sit there and figure it all out.

After the car pick-up, it was time to meet up for lunch at Fortune Terrace Restaurant for dim sum. The restaurant review post will be up a little later this week! Chinese food in Vancouver is spectacular so its one to look out for!

With our bellies filled up and all the luggage packed in and everyone aboard, its time to drive out to Kelowna! For this part, I’m going to let my trusty Samsung Galaxy S6 camera do the trip justice (and it doesn’t because its just breathtaking) and look at all that amazing scenery!

With that, we’ve entered Kelowna! Crossing the Okanagan Lake on this bridge was just amazing! We checked into our first ever Airbnb experience and it was smooth and awesome!

That night we headed out to a restaurant called Basil and Mint which I’ll also do a short restaurant review about! The funny story is that without even expecting we ended up meeting up with our other family that also chose that restaurant and had a huge reunion before my cousin’s wedding the next day.

In the night we headed out with some of my cousins to this new(ish) bar/brewery in downtown Kelowna. I was a tad tired so only had a local apple cider drink. We called it a night pretty early after some good laughs and caught up a little.

That’s it for Day One! Nothing super eventful but it was full of great scenery! 🙂
Drop by soon to check out some restaurant reviews/recaps for the two restaurants mentioned and the next day(s) of the vacation!

Vacation Haul!!

Let’s get back into the blogging pace slowly! I’m starting with a little Vacation Haul!

If you missed the back from vacation post, I went out with my husband to Kelowna and Vancouver in British Columbia or the west coast of Canada. Kelowna was primarily to attend my cousin’s wedding and see a ton of relatives that had went there for the wedding as well. My mom’s side of the family is huge so its rare to get such a huge group of people together. Second of all, it was pretty much like a mini honeymoon for us when we got back to Vancouver. We got married in October last year but we decided to postpone the honeymoon. For us, its vacation/honeymoon but then we recently decided that we might head out to another mini getaway in October for the one year anniversary which is in planning to see if its feasible.

Regardless, we didn’t intend on buying a lot of stuff on vacation but the weather on the west coast was pretty rainy and we had phases of forgetfulness that caused some more spending.

These haul posts are pretty easy to put together as I get over jetlag so here we are!

It happens that the first full day we had in Vancouver was super rainy. In the later days, we eventually decided to head out but we took a break in between and headed to Mall Metropolis in Metrotown.

If you know me, you know I LOVE tea! Like, I love it to absolute bits! In a later post, you’ll see my restaurant review on why I wanted to get this “tea bomb” thing. Anyways, a stop at Teavana looking for this little cute thing for making tea ended up with getting two pouches of tea. The S’mores one is for my husband and mine is the fruity Dragonfruit Devotion herbal tea!

The night before, we actually saw an ad for Victoria’s Secret for its workout stuff on sale. I’m not sure if any of you have shopped for anything at VS but its super expensive. I got there primarily for sports bras and its pretty  hefty in price but awesome quality. When they had this deal for $55 for both sports bra and workout pants, I was all in! I ended up seeking out the deal. Luckily it was also at this mall.

The story behind getting instant noodles was kind of an impulsive thing. One of my cousins mentioned to us that she knew this site for instant noodles ratings and this bad boy was the top rated in 2015. My husband went with me to T&T Supermarket to grab some refreshments for the evening and ended up seeing this one. We also bought the curry one but he ate it already.

These are the unexpected buys. Why? Because one rainy day heading up to Whistler and Squamish, I forgot my brain during breakfast. I blame not having drank any tea for this. And I forgot my raincoat at A&W where we were eating breakfast and didn’t realize until we were almost at Whistler. There wasn’t really a sale but I needed it to not catch a cold and keep warm and slightly dry. They are great quality gear though so I’m pretty happy about it! It proved to be useful for the rest of the trip. By the way, another happy thing was that we went back to A&W in the evening and it was in the lost and found. 🙂

I guess to wrap up the haul is that in Mall Metropolis we also came across the Disney Store.  In case you don’t know, I’m a Disney plush collector. We had limited space so I opted to get the little plushes of Jiminy Cricket and Pluto. At least that makes for getting a Disney plush in every Disney store I encounter. 🙂 They are currently my companions sitting on the printer as I type up this post!

We got some other souvenirs. Shot glasses for one of my good friends and wine and mugs for my in-laws, but they are given away now so I won’t be posting those up. The airfare and the hotel and care rental was pretty pricey for this trip so we tried to keep expenses to the minimum. Not a big haul but they were all quite satisfying finds!

What do you like from this haul?

Alaska Cruise on Norwegian Jewel [Day 8&9]: At Sea and Victoria, Canada

We’re nearing the end of the cruise here.  Victoria is the last stop before we board back in Seattle and have a half day before our flight to wander around.

Day 8 At Sea

Day 8 was back on the boat.  The night before all the way to mid day of Day 8 at sea, the tides were ridiculous.  The ship rocked like crazy. I didn’t end up eating a lot for breakfast or lunch but still more than the previous days since not eating is not really something that lasts too long.  Especially since I was working out a whole lot along with a lot of walking during the shore excursions and around the boat to fill up time. Day 8 at sea was the final bit.  It was the goodbyes because some people departed in Victoria (mostly Canadians living on the West coast) and there was a ton of farewells at dinner and for the last show.  During the day, I enjoyed some of the nice weather and did one more time of the hot tubs and went to workout two times.  I remember those days since I rarely do that back at home 😉 Oh and to not focus on the rocking ship in the morning, we played a bit of mahjong. I was literally tracked down at the gym at the beginning of my workout and asked to join in their mahjong game. It was kind of funny.

We had our last dinner on the cruise over at the Tsar’s Palace.

My mom and I also dressed up a little so that we could take some pictures with the professional photographers to keep some memories. Unfortunately, I think there’s like some copyright thing that I can’t post that up or whatever so just to be safe, I’ll keep it for my own decoration. We did take some nice pictures around the ship.

Day 9 Victoria, British Columbia, Canada

This trip seems a whole lot going in and out of Canada and then finally landing back home in Canada of course. It was one of the things that had us baffled with all the going in and out of borders of what to put on our customs papers when we were leaving.  Either way, I’ve been to Victoria before on a bus tour with my mom back in 2009 (or so). This time, I really wanted to meet up with one of my friends who moved out here.  Crazy thing is that my phone’s battery decided to die on that same day.  When we landed, I frantically went searching for a Fido store but I own a Samsung Galaxy S3 so of course, no replacement batteries anymore since everyone’s using the S4 or S5.  I did manage to write down her number before the phone died completely and borrowed the phone there. Stressful and crazy, yes. At least, the phone worked when it was on charge so I was able to contact the fiance when I got to the airport the next day give him the landing info again. But, we’re not there yet.

I did meet up with my friend and her and her husband took us to Butchart Gardens for a nice walk to see the different flowers of ending of Spring heading  almost into summer flowers.  If you haven’t been to Butchart Gardens, that place is gorgeous.  We were in between seasons and the flowers were great but still, its designed so well.

We had dinner afterwards at the Victoria harbor area at this cute little restaurant called The Flying Otter Grill. That place had great service and some really good food. It also felt good to not be eating on the ship and be with friends.

Fish ‘n Chips

After that we took a walk around the area and took some pics along the harbor and the legislative building before having them drive us back to where the port for where cruise ships are.

And with that, we’re back on the ship and packing up and prepping for disembarkment tomorrow in Seattle the next morning! 🙂

A beautiful cruise comes to an end!

**I’ll be doing a little recap and feelings about the first cruise experience with the next week’s post along with the half day at Seattle.**

Have you been to Victoria, BC? How about Butchart Gardens?