Our Vancouver Visit: Lilac Is Worth the Wait

Dianne was supposed to have her surgery today, but it was postponed at the VERY last minute, with no new date set as of yet, and it looks like nothing will happen before we leave Vancouver--not the most ideal situation for us, but we're glad that Dianne continues to do well and is remaining her usual upbeat self. After a day of dealing with these last-minute changes, Bob and I went for a short walk around the neighbourhood--the same neighbourhood that Bob grew up in and whose landscape is filled with typically tangential memories of childhood, like this "landmark," which Bob reminded me (I've been given this tour before) is the bush he used to hide in when he was a kid. It doesn't quite do the trick these days (and Bob also claims that it used to be bigger, while he is, of course, substantially larger):

Other tidbits of Bob's decidedly non-London-Walks tour were essentials like: "That's where I lit the newspaper on fire by the church and nearly burned the church down," "That's where I went to Cubs," and "That's where Jacques fought Landon to establish neighbourhood supremacy." Ah, the gems of youth. During the "tour," we spotted this edited sign:

Tough neighbourhood! (Okay, not really.) I had some returns to drop off at the local library, and contributed to the mountain that patrons were building at the mouth of the after-hours drop:

On our way back home, we walked through the rear garden and admired the developing lilac tree:
Dianne's cut lilac stems are always a welcome marker of spring--I hope we get to experience their wonderful scent perfuming the living room very soon!

Our Vancouver Visit: Lessons at the Beach

Bob's favourite plant at his parents' house is a clematis that winds its way up beside the front door. It wasn't in bloom when we arrived eight days ago, but when we left the house today, we noticed that flowers were everywhere, with more to come.

We went for a drive and a walk, gravitating once again to Spanish Banks. The view from the road leading down to the beach was lovely
and it was a perfect day to be beside the ocean.

We saw plenty of dogs out enjoying themselves




and even noticed a few taking part in a mighty scenic obedience class.

Our Vancouver Visit: Natural Grandeur

There are a lot of different birds around Bruce and Dianne's house; today Dianne spotted one she hadn't seen before, but by the time I ran downstairs to get the camera and ran back upstairs to the back door, it had flown away. I did get a pic of another wee bird sitting on the clothesline though:

After a lunch of wonderful vegetarian dim sum at Bo Kong, Miko and I were going to hang around her place, catching up, but since today was the first sunny, warm day in a while, we headed down to Stanley Park for a bit of a wander instead. While there were fewer ducks than usual in Lost Lagoon, there were more swans than ever, including this pair of young swans that were in the process of cuddling. The male arrived,
showed off his plumage,
and then they both seemed to pause in order to gauge the impressiveness of his show
before settling into a nuzzle,
all the while making the most jarring honking noises--quite startling, actually! The turtles were out in huge numbers again
and we noticed this heron, apparently sitting on a nest in the lagoon, even though the colony of herons' nests is across the lagoon, high up in several trees near the Stanley Park tennis courts. Although Bob and I used to see herons all the time on our walks in the park, I don't think I've ever seen a heron sitting at ground level (they're always standing) and I've never heard of a heron making a nest on the ground either! Later in the day, I met my friend Angus and we went for dinner at Sushiyama. Although he didn't have sushi, you probably won't be surprised to hear that I did:
After dinner, we drove around for a while, waiting to see if we had room for dessert. Along the way, we visited one of the most scenic places in Vancouver: Spanish Banks. The views from the beautiful series of beaches along Spanish Banks never cease to amaze even the most blasé Vancouverite.
That's downtown Vancouver at the far right
and Angus pointed out the driftwood frame of this shot, so even though I took this photo, I can't really take credit for it!
We arrived just in time to see the sunset
and the usual array of herons out in low tide.
While Bob and I continue to miss London, some aspects of Vancouver are pretty tough to beat.

Our Vancouver Visit: Kingyo

Since today was another dark and rainy day,

these two duck spectators were left without a tennis match to keep them entertained. The cold outside meant that it was a perfect evening to spend inside, at Kingyo--a restaurant that opened a few weeks before we left Vancouver (we tried not to take it personally that such an amazing place opened only a five-minute walk from our apartment just as we were moving out). The latest in a welcome series of Vancouver izakayas (Japanese "pubs" that serve a wide range of inventive dishes for sharing in usually energetic surroundings), Kingyo never fails to bring out the ooooohs and aaaaahs when the beautiful food arrives. I met my friend Jennifer there tonight and we started with a tangy daikon-radish, shiso-leaf, and bonito-flake saladand shared several other dishes which we were too busy eating to pause for photos! Our last shared dish was shabu shabu: veggies and thinly sliced pork ("barley-fed pork," according to the menu) in two different degrees of fattiness,
which we cooked at the table in a fragrant broth seasoned with seaweed and plum.
We plucked each piece of meat out of the boiling broth and dipped it into our choice of sauce (ponzu, shiso, or garlic) and sipped bowls of rich broth at the end of our meal. Actually, it wasn't quite the end, since we also shared a tiramisu made of matcha green tea and sweet red beans for dessert.
The beauty of our meal continued right through to our bill, which arrived with a tiny vase that held flowers and two skewers of frozen peach--much tastier and classier than mints!

Our Vancouver Visit: The UK in Vancouver

Today's photo is from an upper corner of Bruce and Dianne's dining room:

Perhaps Nessie is going to use the phone to dial 9-9-9 and complain about all the recent rain?

Our Vancouver Visit: A Very Vancouver Day (25 April)

Strangely enough, one of the places I've been looking forward to going to in Vancouver shares London's name:London Drugs is THE place to go for all your household needs--they have a great selection and fantastic prices that put Boots and Superdrug to shame--and since we're now pretty used to London prices for things, the prices at London Drugs seem gloriously low. Needless to say, we're stocking up on essentials before we head back to the UK! Anyway, all that shopping took us into lunchtime and by now you're probably getting bored of hearing what that means, but I assure you that Bob and I are not bored at all. Today's treat was Hiroshi's Sushi Creations, a teeny-tiny place at Oak and 21st that is very easy to miss, and which I only found through my friend Miko, who has a keen eye for great places like this. The name of the place says it all, as sushi here is creative (including rolls made with organic brown rice) and delicious. It's not a place for sushi purists like my dad, but I love it and now Bob loves it too (today was his first time). I had a piece of tuna, a tropical roll (salmon, avocado, mango sauce), and a brown-rice avo cheese roll (avocado, cream cheese, lemon sauce):Bob had a spicy tuna roll in addition to today's special, which was four half-rolls: energy (tuna, pumpkin, garlic-lime sauce), goma salmon (salmon, miso-mayo sauce), spicy ebi (shrimp, spicy mayo), and brown-rice California (your standard pollack and avocado):Spectacular. Well worth repeat visits--to avoid disappointment, just make sure you remember that they're very strangely closed Saturdays and Sundays, and close very early (8:00 P.M.) even on the days that they are open. I didn't really think about it until I sat down to write this post, but today was a very Vancouver day: a visit to London Drugs, sushi, and a whole lot of rain.Apparently, gas went up to $1.23 per litre in parts of Vancouver today,which we later learned is a record high. This probably sounds laughable to those of you back in the UK, since $1.23 is currently about 55 pence and if I recall correctly, petrol was going for about 93 pence (CAD$2.07) when we left London! Anyway, if Vancouverites were complaining about the weather and the price of gas today, these birds (spotted behind Bob's parents' house) were sitting pretty carefree,as were these spring blooms and their friend the frog, keeping guard on the back porch.

Our Vancouver Visit: An Enigmatic Face

Today Bob's parents took us out to Richmond (Vancouver's Richmond, not London's Richmond!) for lunch--the restaurant turned out to be a sushi place, but not just any sushi place: an all-you-can-eat (or as we've seen them called, a bit more tastefully, in London: "eat-all-you-wish") restaurant! Well, rest assured that Bob ate his weight in sushi and even had room for the chocolate ice-cream that was included with the meal. After our generous lunch ("Is it naptime?" Bob asked as we left), we spent the rest of the day at home, doing exciting things like our taxes (which are due on April 30th) and scanning through Bob's parents' enormous array of TV channels for good things to tape on their digital recorder (I don't know how Bob will survive back in London with our five channels after this). All in all, it was a relaxing day that ended with a pretty evening sky

and the cute face of this figurine, one of many knick-knacks on a shelf in "our" bedroom:

Just look at that expression! Doesn't he look like he could be thinking a million different things?

Our Vancouver Visit: Familiar Ground

My cold is a bit better today, so we headed down to our old neighbourhood for a few hours. Our first stop was (predictably) for sushi on Davie Street. Samurai Sushi isn't quite as good as Shiro, but it's cheaper and still pretty great. I stuck with sushi

while Bob had a bento box which included the largest California rolls we've ever seen.

After sushi, we stopped for a bit of gelato on Denman Street at Mondo Gelato. While their dark chocolate was Bob's favourite when we lived in Vancouver, his love of Mondo was sullied a bit today after realizing that their chocolate absolutely pales in comparison with Berthillon's. "Just what does Berthillon do to make theirs so great?" Bob wondered aloud. Oh well, I guess we'll just have to go to Paris again to try to figure that out! From Denman Street, it was just a few blocks to our old street

and only a block more to our beloved Stanley Park. We decided to drive around the park first, to take in the beautiful views

as well as to see some of the windstorm damage the park sustained back in December.

While this tree was one of the largest uprooted trees we saw, even more striking were the areas that only had a few standing trees where there was previously such dense forestation that it would have been impossible to count individual trees. Prospect Point was especially sad, completely destroyed by wind. "The park will never be the same in our lifetimes," Bob said, and that comment set the mood for the rest of the drive around the park. After our drive, we decided to raise our moods and get out of the car to do a walk we've done many, many times: around Lost Lagoon and then out to the Pacific Ocean at Second Beach, then around the seawall to English Bay. It's a beautiful walk, and only two minutes from our old apartment. The lagoon was in lovely form today,

with nesting swans

and turtles crowding every rock in the water.

The view from the seawall is always beautiful

and English Bay was peaceful on this very warm day.

Although three days into our visit, we already miss aspects of London, our neighbourhood, and our flat, with a neighbourhood like our old one, it's difficult not to get sentimental about Vancouver, our old neighbourhood, and our old apartment too!