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.