It was on a Saturday after our dimsum at Tin Tin Seafood Harbour that we ventured out to Vancouver. DH and I went to a hippie local store called The Soap Dispensary and Kitchen Staples on Main Street. Considering that it was a weekend, we were lucky that we only had to go around the block 3 times to find street parking. :D
The Soap Dispensary and Kitchen Staples have a wide variety of re-usable, natural, and waste free items. My main purpose there was to buy stainless steel straws. Theirs were more expensive than the ones Walmart has, but to my untrained eye they seem like they're better quality. They have straight ones, bent ones, longer and shorter ones, as well as the ones made from glass. I opted for stainless steel as I am not a careful person. Otherwise I would think that glass is better.
From there, we walked to the famous 49th Parallel Coffee just shy of 1 km north. We were meeting my sister, her husband, and the kids there. I kept saying my sister and the kids in this series because Miss Kiki has been stuck to her cousin since we arrived. Thus, most of the time she is with my sister and not with DH and I. That, you guys, is called situational honeymoon with free babysitting! :D
The coffeeshop is a joint place with Lucky's Doughnuts, was very busy and had a snake-like queue. After waiting for a while we finally got seats right by the front window. I of course ordered a latte. It was good, but later on during my stay in BC I found a better one.
After coffee, DH and I walked back to the car. Miss Kiki went with my sister et al to Burnaby. My brother-in-law went to help his friend move in Burnaby.
Upon getting to our car, we decided to head over to Burnaby as well, and met up with my sister and the kids at Metropolis @ Metrotown. It was a big shopping centre with Chapters and Superstore. First stop in the mall was Purdy's!
Purdy's Chocolatier originated in Vancouver more than a century ago, and it continued as one of Canada's favourites even now. In Burnaby, they have a factory that's open to public but now the factory doesn't give tours anymore. They just have another store at the factory that you can visit.
After we finished our ice cream, we spent a good chunk of our time inside Chapters. They had a sale going on so we (read: I) bought a few things to take home.
DH went to a knife store in the mall and found a good deal on this Shun Santoku Knife. He puts it on hold and in the end couldn't resist and bought... :D
If you're not familiar with Shun knives, here's what Alton Brown says about them...
We shopped around the mall until dinner time, and we went to Cattle Cafe. It was a casual Chinese style cafe, and the food was pretty good!
Tiny maple leaf |
That was the end of our Saturday, please stay tuned for the next post: the exciting Canada Day in Vancouver!
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