Yesterday, I woke up, moped around for a bit, then decided to go to Canada. Despite insistence that he didn’t want to face the rain or leave the apartment, Martin came, too.
Around 1pm when the decision was made, I threw some essentials in my backpack and we headed out.
As usual, traffic out of the Seattle metro area tried to slow us down, but we made it pass the inevitable jams and traffic accident. Made it to the border.
I didn’t know what to expect at the border with this being my first time crossing an international boundary by vehicle (other than once when too young to remember). We passed the American side of the border and waited in-between queued up for our turn while looking at the Peace Arch and other scenery. After about a half hour wait, we made it to the border guard, showed our passports, had our backgrounds checked, and proceeded into Canada.
We took a “creative” route to Vancouver and initially found ourselves in New Westminster — a suburban town where the mall closes at 5pm on Sundays. Purchased a map from a local gas station, got back in the car, and headed to Vancouver proper.
The first part of town we visited was China Town. I was shocked out how run down parts of this area were. There were many homeless people in the area and I expect from observing the alleys that it’s also a prime area from drug trafficking and prostitution.
We serendipitously encountered a Chinese Market where vendors were hocking food, clothes, bras, panties, DVDs, trinkets, jewelry, and more. I found a table where the vendor was selling Blu-Ray discs for $6.00 (Canadian). They had a Chinese movie I’d seen at Pacific Place in Seattle called “CJ7″ and decided to purchase it. CJ7 ended up costing me $5 (USD) and 27 pennies (CAD).
Through later investigation I discovered this “Blu-Ray” disc is actually a region-free DVD (meaning it can be played in any DVD player — most DVDs are restricted to playing in the region of the world you bought it i.e. North America, Asia, etc.) I didn’t get what was advertised, but I also expected it considering the price at the location of purchase.
We continued our journey in Canada by trying to find food. We encountered difficulties in the pursuit when trying to cross town we kept being halted by a race. It ended up being Vancouver’s The Nike+ Human Race 10k. Eventually I gave up trying to drive around them, stopped outside of Science World (from the 86 Expo), watched the runners, and took photos.
Afterwards, we wandered towards nicer parts of down and ended up in the English Bay area. Finally found parking after searching for 15 minutes, walked around a bit to decide on a restaurant, and ended up at Ciao Bella Restaurant (reviews on Yelp).
I was tired from all the driving earlier (and recovering from the stress and frustration of being trapped behind thousands of runners not able to move through the city) so Martin drove home. I slept most of the way, and ended up back in Kirkland just as Monday began.