July 5-6th, 2018

In the middle of our trip to Seattle, Steven, Evan and I took a little road trip to Vancouver! We've started a tradition of spending the first week of July in Canada (see our epic Canada Day adventure from last year) so we had to keep it up :)

The line to cross the border resembled Black Friday outside of Best Buy. As you can see, cars lined up as far as the eye can see. They even have rest stops at the side of the road you can walk to given the line moves so slowly! Evan and I ended up leaving the car and taking pictures at their pretty landmarks while Steven waited patiently in the car. 

Pro tip: on your way back into the United States, you can actually use your physical Global Entry car to go in an expedited line! We didn't have it with us, but had much regret as we watched those cars zoom past us.

The main reason we decided to visit Vancouver is because it's known for being a foodie destination. Steven loves Taiwanese food, so we started off our eating tour at Uncle Lu in Richmond, which is basically more Asian than not. The street signs all have Chinese translations and almost every store has an Asian flavor.

Their pork hock definitely took the prize their most well known dish. It's so delicious! We also ordered the Taiwanese popcorn chicken because you can't go wrong with that! It's true...we had no vegetables, but the day was young!

We splurged with Steven's Marriott points from his consulting days and stayed at the beautiful JW Marriott Vancouver. Their concierge lounge is the best one we have ever been to! They have fresh pressed juices and delicious afternoon snacks.

It's a huge full service hotel where Evan wowed us with his casino skills (while Steven and I lost money). Perhaps we aren't cut out for the gambling world...haha! Probably a good thing to be honest. The hotel also had a lovely outdoor green space with fun sculptures.

To walk off our stomaches before the next meal, we strolled through the lovely Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Classical Garden, getting more in touch with our Taiwanese roots.

In the afternoon, we stopped by a rap cafe called Nemesis Coffee. Album art of rappers lined the shelves on the wall and the hard hitting music kept us awake alongside the caffeine. Steven tried kombucha for the first time and Evan got some cold brew. The cafe offered both still and sparkling water on tap, so I had a little bit of both!

For early dinner, we ate at Fat Mao Noodles. Absolutely mouth-watering and definitely my favorite stop of the day! All of their noodle dishes had rich flavors, fresh QQ noodles, and delicious meats like duck or beef. In love and would definitely come back again!

As a snack, we snacked on a Japanese hot dog from Japadog! Many of their yummiest options were already sold out by the early evening. I didn't have high expectations for this place as I'm not usually a big hot dog fan, but boy was it delicious! The bun is super soft and their flavors are very umami.

Don't worry, we weren't stuffing our faces the *entire day*! We opted to walk around the entire city, sometimes walking up to 45 minutes between locations :) Gotta get that exercise in if we want to eat!

For dessert, we went to a Korean dessert cafe called Snowy Village where we indulged in the honeydew melon bingsoo topped with almonds, condensed milk, ice cream, and snowflake shaved ice. Quite heavenly! Seriously the best way to end our day in Vancouver. 

Believe it or not, we ran out of time to visit some of the most amazing sights in Vancouver like Stanley Park the next day because Steven and I got haircuts that lasted hours (it was a teaching school) for cheap rather than sightseeing. Our bad, but I suppose it gives us good reason to come back and visit again!!

We ended our July 4th week returning to Seattle. Loved this week away and our brief food tour in Vancouver!