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| Bob, Meg, Koa with us |
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| Our morning coffee view from their house |
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| unidentified location as they all look so pretty |
As we have to transit via Vancouver to get to their place, we decide to do a day trip in Vancouver and took a food tour and visit the city. Vancouver is really pretty but the hotels are really pricy before October. I got Auberge hotel for a reasonable price and the room is quite nice
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Auberge Hotel
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We explored the city slightly when we got in at 10pm and got a late snack pizza.
The next morning we got up and went to Breka and got a coffee
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| Breka Bakery |
We took a stroll along the Seawall till we got to the Lost Lake in Stanley Park.
The weather is nice and the city is quite pretty.
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| The lost lake in Stanley Park |
Gastown is quite pretty in Vancouver even though the beginnings are not quite savoury.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gastown#:~:text=Named%20after%20John%20Deighton%2C%20Gastown,open%20the%20area's%20first%20saloon.
The Gastown clock is quite entertaining and we managed to film the entire song. They add 1/4 to the song every 15 mins. And apparently the clock is not powered by the steam engine, only the sound pipes. and the clock is highly inaccurate =)
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| The steam clock |
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| Steam clock innards |
At 11am, we made our way to Dominion building and met up with the food tour to go around Gastown
First stop is Meat and Bread. We tried their Porchetta sandwich. Overnight Slow cooked pork, home made bread, crackling on the top, salsa verde in the sandwich with homemade mustard on the side. Easily one of the best sandwich I had in my life. I saw their roast beef and thinking the Reuben should be good too..next time!
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| Meat and Bread |
2nd stop is Pure Bread bakery. We got their Ooey Gooey cake to go for dessert after the tour. Everything look so good that we came back and got 4 other pastries with us to visit Meg and Bob and enjoyed them for our breakfast over the next 2 days. This place easily beats hands down any bakery place in San Diego.
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| Pure bread Bakery |
3rd stop is a all-vegetarian place call Meet. We had soy chicken poutine and tempura cauliflower with chilli sauce. Both items are really good and they have a miso-gravy butter sauce that is really yummy.
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| Meet |
4th stop we visited the shoe maker John Fluevog. Apparently their design house is right there at Gastown. Not quite my style but i can see why it would be popular.
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| John Fluvog Shoes |
Next stop is PourHouse (famous for cocktail)where we had a scotch egg and tried the gimlet. It's a good cocktail with gin that I need to recreate. The scotch egg is very well executed with jammy yolk
The last stop for the tour is at Miku. The owner first introduced the torchedstyle sushi and it's quite tasty. We tried their special which has fresh salmon, special sauce and it's easily the best dish in the tour, even though it's so simple. https://mikurestaurant.com/
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| Miku |
After the food tour, we gathered up our stuff and head to the sea plane terminal SeaAir to Montague Harbour. It's the first time I took a plane that's smaller than a shed =p
It's funny that the safely instructions is how to use your personal flotation device and you are given some ear plugs before you fly as it's so loud.
It's also highly entertaining/unnerving when the pilot jump out of the plane to tie the plane up at Montague as shown in the video (er, we lost the pilot while the plane is still moving????)
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| Seaplane with Seair |
The views are magical in this part of Canada
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| View from the plane |
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| View of Galiano Island with a lone house |
Arriving at Montague Harbour, this part of Canada is truly just beautiful.
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| Did someone order boats and water? |
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| Montague Harbour |
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| we made it! |
Galiano has 1500 year round residents and 3000 total people during tourist visits. So it's not a small place but not huge either.
We went for a hike at the campground on the first day morning.
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| Galiano Provincial Marine Park |
Followed by a short sail using the new spinnaker on Max their small dinghy
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| Bob and Meg's boat |
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Leisurely sail on Max (didn't go very far)
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After all the exertion, we did a tapas style dinner with local shrimp and stuffed mushroom that's quite yummy.
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| Tapas style dinner |
The next day we took their boat to Wallace Island and did a picnic lunch followed by a short hike.
Again, postcard views everywhere..
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Tiny Marina at Wallace Island
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| Wallace Island |
It turns out that Wallace Island was abandoned after initially being used as a holiday home by David Conoverhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wallace_Island_Marine_Provincial_Park
What's interesting is the little shed where everyone left a plaque for their boat name.
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Cabins in Wallace Island
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| I'm here! and the water is cold even by just dipping my feet! |
After getting back to Galiano, we had margarita at Crane and Robin which is the small deli on the harbour. The place is fairly pricy for what we got, but that's to be expected for any Marina restaurant
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| Crane and Robin |
Dinner we went to Woodstone Manor that has a great restaurant. They serve top notch quality ingredient where we split family style for a Cioppino, Ribeye from Aberta and a thick pork chop, followed by dessert. Again, Yum!
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| Woodstone manor |
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| Cioppino, Ribeye, Porkchop, Italian Montepulciano wine, cheese cake and choc cup |
The next morning we went to a artist farmers market in Galiano before heading to the Hummingbird Pub for lunch. Got some really cool handmade stuff at the market and got my retail therapy =)
And the fish and chip reminds me of good England fish and chips with fresh cod and light batter.
Meg showed me a video of the school bus that they use to ferry folks from the harbour to the pub and it's hilarious. He plays percussion in the bus, everyone joins in.. quite the entertainment
https://globalnews.ca/video/4346478/your-canada-galiano-island-bus-driver-gives-vacationers-more-than-just-a-drive-to-the-pub
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| Hummingbird pub |
After lunch, we gathered our stuff and start our journey home, with a ferry ride across the channel. The BC ferry is quite efficient. Living in Singapore, the whole concept of driving your car on a boat is foreign and it's really quite interesting to get off the ferry in front of 20 cars parked behind us. We did had a scare where the ferry had to restart everything due to a technical problem and almost doubled our ferry time from almost 1 hour to 1 hour 30 mins. The captain coming on the intercom going "folks, we had a slight issue and had to drift around the channel at a safe spot" was not very reassuring. Was getting worried we might lose our flight and thankfully we didn't as the delay was not too bad.
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| BC Ferry |
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| Dinner at an airport lounge |
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| Funny things seen in Canada |
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