franandaj
I'm so happy, I could BOUNCE!
- Joined
- Nov 15, 2009
When I left off, we were having wine with my parents in the suite and Fran was taking a nap.
Waking Fran was about the same trouble as usual, but eventually she did get up. The restaurant was only 10 minutes away according to Google, but we're not used to Downtown city driving. By the time we arrived we were already late for our reservation. Plus, we had no idea what to do with Canadian parking meters. We had no change, but there was a "pay by phone" option. We sent my parents ahead to check in while I paid for the parking. I had to "register" our rental car and credit card, but it turned out to be handy for the rest of the weekend. By the end of the night, we all agreed that none of us like "city living", we all prefer the burbs.
When we were finally seated we all perused the menu. Fran asked me, "Did I see this menu in advance?" I thought she did, otherwise I wouldn't have made a reservation. "The menu has changed then. I wouldn't have chosen to eat here with this menu." Oops again on my part!
Despite her complaints she was able to find enough to eat. Here is a link to the menu.
http://www.bluewatercafe.net/food/
Since they have it online, I didn't feel that I needed to take pictures. I started with my Belvedere Gibson Up.
They brought us bread service right off. The butter was a seaweed butter and the other spread was a carrot or sweet potato something spread.
They had a huge list of oysters but only about a half dozen of them were in stock. However, they did have my beloved Malpeques! I went with half a dozen.
My parents also got assortments of half a dozen oysters. The guys at the sushi bar were hard at work.
In the meantime Fran went with a Kani Salad, crab, cucumber and wakame seaweed in a broth.
Since we were mostly ordering Asian food, we had decided to go with sake. Normally if we were at a sushi bar, each of us would have ordered one of these bottles and poured them into our sake cups as we pleased. There is an interesting wine dynamic in my family. My father drinks faster than my mother and I, hence he starts pouring refills first. There have been times that he has finished off a coveted bottle before my mom and I get seconds (or maybe thirds). My mom has called him on it and his answer is, "You snooze you lose!"
We all thought having our own bottle of the sake would work out this problem and everyone could drink at their own pace. Our waiter wasn't on board with this. He brought the little bottle and three glasses and then poured the bottle between the three. My Dad got a little more than Mom did and she complained. When the second bottle came, my Dad said he would take care of pouring. I do have to say that on holidays and we have champagne, he is meticulous about making the glasses even in their pours. At least the first round.
I had a double order of Ahi Maguro, it was some of the freshest and best tuna that I've had in a long long time.
While I ate this my mom got one piece of Hamachi (yellowtail). No pictures of Mom and Dad's food. I didn't order anything else for me but just nibbled off of the rest of Fran's food. I had some of the Kani salad, and then she got this Dynamite Roll. Tempura Shrimp with tobiko, cucumber and spicy mayonnaise. I had two pieces of this one.
My parents split the Kani Salad while we had this. Fran and I finished with Bay Scallops baked in parmesan and bread crumbs over a bed of spinach. I could have used a few more Scallops in this one, but even the bites without them were really good. This had a lot of butter!
My Dad had an Ahi Carpaccio for his last plate. It was about this time that my Mom declared she didn't want any more Sake. The waiter asked if we wanted that third bottle. My Dad replied, "No, she doesn't want to play anymore."
Instead we ordered dessert. Fran and my Dad went for the Anjou Pear Bread Pudding.
I had the Chocolate Cake with Molten Center and had a Merlot Ice Wine to go with it. We traded plates halfway through. I thought this was by far the best. Fran liked her original choice.
As we waited for the check, Fran was falling asleep at the table sitting up. She was exhausted and I felt bad for making her go out to dinner. They gave us these little biscuits with the check. My family are heathens and don’t know to wait for the picture before digging in, so there are only three.
By this point I was absolutely stuffed! But we had one more stop to make. I didn't want to spend a huge amount of time eating breakfast (and paying for it). Our hotel did have a breakfast for pay, but we had plenty of time on the ship for sit down breakfasts and that didn't cost any extra either. So we stopped at the IGA down the street from our hotel. Again I used that pay by phone thing for parking, but since I was registered it took about one quarter the time.
We got some English Muffins, V8, fruit and my Dad got his Greek Yogurt. Then we headed back to the hotel and up to my room where they pilfered some utensils to eat their breakfast and split up the groceries. I went right to bed. It was before 11PM.
Day 2
I woke up around 2AM. Something I forgot to mention earlier was that the day before we left, I started to develop a cough. Immediately I started to load up on Vitamin C and started taking Zicam (zinc). It seemed to be working for the most part, but my sinuses were fairly plugged and I couldn't breathe. After about an hour and a sudafed, I fell back asleep for a few more hours. Finally at 6AM I couldn't sleep anymore. Fran was sawing logs, so I let her sleep. I got out my phone and wrote up the day before from when we got off the plane. Then I got dressed and went downstairs to the coffee place to get a cup of coffee.
We have these pills that we call “coughing pills”, they are little pearls that are supposed to suppress your cough. The night before we left, Fran asked if I had enough of them and I answered “yes”, another bad move on my part. When I checked my purse, I had 18 of them. I prayed that would be enough, knowing full well that I had screwed up royally. These are the elusive antitussives that are referenced in the title of the TR, but stay tuned, the plot thickens.
I made an English muffin, grabbed a can of V8 and decided to work on the computer for a while.
Fran showed no sign of waking up anytime soon. Around 8:30, I Said that she should start rising and shining if we were going to get going. She told me that she felt really awful and thought if she stayed in the room she would hopefully feel better by the cruise. I gave her the Zicam, Vitamin C and hoped it would kick in and make her feel better.
My parents were ready pretty soon after that and we were on our way to Stanley Park by 10AM. We made our first stop at the guest information center, there we picked up a map and paid for parking.
For all parking in this city, it seems that you pay at kiosks using apps or inserted credit cards. You need your license plate to do so and it appears that it is put in some database to record you have paid and when it expires. I explain this because if I can help someone out with my mistake here I hope you can benefit. If you plan to remain in Stanley Park for 4 hours or more, just pay for the whole day up front, it's $11 and it's good all day in the park. I didn't realize this and only paid $3.25 for the first hour thinking that each lot was separate. Once the 1st hour was up, I ended up shelling out $3.25 each hour for four more hours, because the $11 per day option was no longer available to me.
We walked out to the sea wall, took some pictures and looked at birds through the binoculars, then we got back in the car and headed to the next stop. If you’re following along on the Map, we were at Yellow Oval number 1. We drove along the edge of the water on the road closest to the ocean. It was a one way road that takes you all around the peninsula.
There was a steady stream of bicyclists, runners and walkers coming through on the path.
The Horse drawn trolley also looked like a nice way to see the park.
The next stop was the totem poles. In addition to the totems, they had a tourist trap here that we briefly browsed through but didn't purchase anything. If you’re still counting this is yellow oval number 2.
Our next stop was the Port of Vancouver lookout point and lighthouse. On the map this is white circle number 5 at the very right bottom tip of the peninsula.
See what I mean about all the people riding bikes here?
I couldn't believe all the lush greenery. I missed being a passenger so that I could take pictures, but then again I was driving slowly enough that I did anyways.
[Continued in Next Post]
Waking Fran was about the same trouble as usual, but eventually she did get up. The restaurant was only 10 minutes away according to Google, but we're not used to Downtown city driving. By the time we arrived we were already late for our reservation. Plus, we had no idea what to do with Canadian parking meters. We had no change, but there was a "pay by phone" option. We sent my parents ahead to check in while I paid for the parking. I had to "register" our rental car and credit card, but it turned out to be handy for the rest of the weekend. By the end of the night, we all agreed that none of us like "city living", we all prefer the burbs.
When we were finally seated we all perused the menu. Fran asked me, "Did I see this menu in advance?" I thought she did, otherwise I wouldn't have made a reservation. "The menu has changed then. I wouldn't have chosen to eat here with this menu." Oops again on my part!
Despite her complaints she was able to find enough to eat. Here is a link to the menu.
http://www.bluewatercafe.net/food/
Since they have it online, I didn't feel that I needed to take pictures. I started with my Belvedere Gibson Up.
They brought us bread service right off. The butter was a seaweed butter and the other spread was a carrot or sweet potato something spread.
They had a huge list of oysters but only about a half dozen of them were in stock. However, they did have my beloved Malpeques! I went with half a dozen.
My parents also got assortments of half a dozen oysters. The guys at the sushi bar were hard at work.
In the meantime Fran went with a Kani Salad, crab, cucumber and wakame seaweed in a broth.
Since we were mostly ordering Asian food, we had decided to go with sake. Normally if we were at a sushi bar, each of us would have ordered one of these bottles and poured them into our sake cups as we pleased. There is an interesting wine dynamic in my family. My father drinks faster than my mother and I, hence he starts pouring refills first. There have been times that he has finished off a coveted bottle before my mom and I get seconds (or maybe thirds). My mom has called him on it and his answer is, "You snooze you lose!"
We all thought having our own bottle of the sake would work out this problem and everyone could drink at their own pace. Our waiter wasn't on board with this. He brought the little bottle and three glasses and then poured the bottle between the three. My Dad got a little more than Mom did and she complained. When the second bottle came, my Dad said he would take care of pouring. I do have to say that on holidays and we have champagne, he is meticulous about making the glasses even in their pours. At least the first round.
I had a double order of Ahi Maguro, it was some of the freshest and best tuna that I've had in a long long time.
While I ate this my mom got one piece of Hamachi (yellowtail). No pictures of Mom and Dad's food. I didn't order anything else for me but just nibbled off of the rest of Fran's food. I had some of the Kani salad, and then she got this Dynamite Roll. Tempura Shrimp with tobiko, cucumber and spicy mayonnaise. I had two pieces of this one.
My parents split the Kani Salad while we had this. Fran and I finished with Bay Scallops baked in parmesan and bread crumbs over a bed of spinach. I could have used a few more Scallops in this one, but even the bites without them were really good. This had a lot of butter!
My Dad had an Ahi Carpaccio for his last plate. It was about this time that my Mom declared she didn't want any more Sake. The waiter asked if we wanted that third bottle. My Dad replied, "No, she doesn't want to play anymore."
Instead we ordered dessert. Fran and my Dad went for the Anjou Pear Bread Pudding.
I had the Chocolate Cake with Molten Center and had a Merlot Ice Wine to go with it. We traded plates halfway through. I thought this was by far the best. Fran liked her original choice.
As we waited for the check, Fran was falling asleep at the table sitting up. She was exhausted and I felt bad for making her go out to dinner. They gave us these little biscuits with the check. My family are heathens and don’t know to wait for the picture before digging in, so there are only three.
By this point I was absolutely stuffed! But we had one more stop to make. I didn't want to spend a huge amount of time eating breakfast (and paying for it). Our hotel did have a breakfast for pay, but we had plenty of time on the ship for sit down breakfasts and that didn't cost any extra either. So we stopped at the IGA down the street from our hotel. Again I used that pay by phone thing for parking, but since I was registered it took about one quarter the time.
We got some English Muffins, V8, fruit and my Dad got his Greek Yogurt. Then we headed back to the hotel and up to my room where they pilfered some utensils to eat their breakfast and split up the groceries. I went right to bed. It was before 11PM.
Day 2
I woke up around 2AM. Something I forgot to mention earlier was that the day before we left, I started to develop a cough. Immediately I started to load up on Vitamin C and started taking Zicam (zinc). It seemed to be working for the most part, but my sinuses were fairly plugged and I couldn't breathe. After about an hour and a sudafed, I fell back asleep for a few more hours. Finally at 6AM I couldn't sleep anymore. Fran was sawing logs, so I let her sleep. I got out my phone and wrote up the day before from when we got off the plane. Then I got dressed and went downstairs to the coffee place to get a cup of coffee.
We have these pills that we call “coughing pills”, they are little pearls that are supposed to suppress your cough. The night before we left, Fran asked if I had enough of them and I answered “yes”, another bad move on my part. When I checked my purse, I had 18 of them. I prayed that would be enough, knowing full well that I had screwed up royally. These are the elusive antitussives that are referenced in the title of the TR, but stay tuned, the plot thickens.
I made an English muffin, grabbed a can of V8 and decided to work on the computer for a while.
Fran showed no sign of waking up anytime soon. Around 8:30, I Said that she should start rising and shining if we were going to get going. She told me that she felt really awful and thought if she stayed in the room she would hopefully feel better by the cruise. I gave her the Zicam, Vitamin C and hoped it would kick in and make her feel better.
My parents were ready pretty soon after that and we were on our way to Stanley Park by 10AM. We made our first stop at the guest information center, there we picked up a map and paid for parking.
For all parking in this city, it seems that you pay at kiosks using apps or inserted credit cards. You need your license plate to do so and it appears that it is put in some database to record you have paid and when it expires. I explain this because if I can help someone out with my mistake here I hope you can benefit. If you plan to remain in Stanley Park for 4 hours or more, just pay for the whole day up front, it's $11 and it's good all day in the park. I didn't realize this and only paid $3.25 for the first hour thinking that each lot was separate. Once the 1st hour was up, I ended up shelling out $3.25 each hour for four more hours, because the $11 per day option was no longer available to me.
We walked out to the sea wall, took some pictures and looked at birds through the binoculars, then we got back in the car and headed to the next stop. If you’re following along on the Map, we were at Yellow Oval number 1. We drove along the edge of the water on the road closest to the ocean. It was a one way road that takes you all around the peninsula.
There was a steady stream of bicyclists, runners and walkers coming through on the path.
The Horse drawn trolley also looked like a nice way to see the park.
The next stop was the totem poles. In addition to the totems, they had a tourist trap here that we briefly browsed through but didn't purchase anything. If you’re still counting this is yellow oval number 2.
Our next stop was the Port of Vancouver lookout point and lighthouse. On the map this is white circle number 5 at the very right bottom tip of the peninsula.
See what I mean about all the people riding bikes here?
I couldn't believe all the lush greenery. I missed being a passenger so that I could take pictures, but then again I was driving slowly enough that I did anyways.
[Continued in Next Post]
I hope that you make it back soon! At least before I do the next update!
