Girls' Trip to Vancouver Part II

There comes the train!

Yummy oysters at Rodney's.

Mike and I frequented Nando's while we were in Australia.  They serve excellent roasted chicken burgers. 

Waiting at the light near our hotel.

Spotted an interesting looking children's play area in an Asian market building on Robson.  It just caught my attention.  I don't know why.

After nibbling on Timsbits at my new friend Tim Horton's, we walked some more and discovered what looked like a tram station.  Is there a train system here?  Amazing, I thought.  I sure miss the web of trains running like busy ants in Osaka.  You can get to anywhere in Osaka using multiple train lines and they encourage small businesses to flourish near the stations.  I loved seeing all kinds of shops and restaurants as I walked by.  The smell of chicken skewers grilling in front of the store, the cheerful music coming out from a super bright drug store, I had an instant flash back of my found memories in Japan.  Back to Canada, we asked a man going into the station to find out if it is a train station and he shook his head.  So, we assumed it's an underground bus station like in Seattle's International District.

We walked back to the hotel to map out the dinner plan and crashed in our beds stretching our legs.  We watched some American TV and relaxed.  Both of us love oysters.  They taste like the best of ocean got trapped in a shell.  We did some quick research on our smart phones and found a place called Rodney's in Yale Town with good reviews on their oysters.  We had doubts about what the guy said earlier about trains, so we asked the front desk person if there is a train system there and if we could take it to Yale Town.   In fact, they do have trains in Vancouver.  We walked to the nearby station and took an underground train.  The train had only four carts, but it was a lot of fun taking it.

Rodney had a beachy white dining room with ocean inspired decorations.  One reviewer onlie said their servers are all handsome young males and many of the customers are older ladies (they used the term cougars).  While we jokingly growled, we tried six different kinds of oysters.  We love Kumamotos and Kushis but we also found new favorites called larger variety, Hollywood, and petite type, Miyagis.   They were quite pricey, but we were glad we tried all of them.

We decided to walk around a bit since that was only the round 3.  After eating oysters, we decided our main dinner should be some sashimi over rice.  We headed back to Robson Street since that is a place to be if you want to have Asian food.  It was raining slightly with cold breeze, but we enjoyed looking at shops and buildings as we walked by.  It felt quite safe walking around at night and I didn't encounter anyone that might possibly be threat to us.  They all seemed like people just enjoying the evening out.  We settled in an izakaya near the Stanly Park and had some Japanese comfort food.  It didn't look like a good sushi joint, so we didn't order any raw fish.   I ordered some small plates and a glass of chuhai (Korean liquor and apple cider).  They were delicious. I may have ordered too much because for the first time in our dining history, we left some food on the plates!  The people sitting next to us had a passionate discussion about some "important" topics and we listened and giggled.  Wish I could speak Korean so that we could have made fun of him and not be understood.

There should always be dessert after dinner, so we headed back to Robson for a French crepe.  I was grossly full and couldn't even walk straight, but I was in a combat mode and could not let myself or my team down (besides, the smell of crepe was so inviting).  I ordered a banana chocolate crepe and Jen had a Nutella crepe.  We ate it as we headed back to our hotel at 11 pm.  I was seeing the goal getting nearer.  I was elated that I wasn't sick and I could still eat a big crepe with a substantial banana in it.  Jen on the other hand started to feel sick as we got closer to the hotel.  I exclaimed "I am a champion!" as Jen reluctantly agreed.  I celebrated too quickly though since I started to feel sick when I laid down to sleep.  I had these terrible heaviness in my stomach and couldn't be comfortable.   I felt like that wolf in "The Wolf and the Seven Little Goats" with huge rocks in its belly.  I tossed and turned all night and felt quit miserable while Jen slept better.  Now who's the champion??  To be continued.