Wednesday
An early flight (6:30am departure) and 7 hours later, I arrive in Vancouver to have dim sum at the airport. The restaurant is next to the International gate, which is typically packed with everyone going back to Asia. Quick power nap and then it was off to the 1st wedding of the trip. The couple who got married are two of Tim's high-school (sweetheart) friends. The ceremony and reception were in the same place, outdoors looking out to the beach and with the mountains in the background. It was a small celebration with close friends and family.
Lots of picture taking, buffet dinner, and speeches didn't leave much time for dancing at the end. =( The only downer was the DJ, who kept playing oldies; I tried requesting Celia Cruz's 'La Vida es un Carnaval', which he had on his list but claimed he had too many of other people's request to play.. Gggrrr. I didn't see anyone else go up to request songs..
Thursday
A day to hang out, starting with lunch and window shopping in downtown Vancouver. Two fun finds in Robson St. (the trendy, full of shops street in downtown) were the Darth Vader bear outside of an HMV and the Japanese Colonel Sanders.. jeje.


Later, we enjoyed the beautiful, cloud-less, sunny sky with a quick walk on the beach before an all-you-can-eat dinner sushi. There was still time left over in the day/night to play some mah-jong at home.
Friday
Another fun day to enjoy the beautiful weather. We spent the day hanging out and taking in the scenary around Stanley Park. Highlights included my first real totem-poles, a gas station in the middle of the bay and a cute sea-otter using a frisbee to cover his face from the sun as he swam around his pool at the Vancouver Aquarium.

The day ended with a visit to Richmond Night Market, filled with rows of tents with vendors selling all kinds of stuff and all types of food (curry fish balls anyone?).
Saturday
After brunch and a quick walk around the Richmond Salmon Festival, which we unfortunately missed out on because we only walked through the pier and most of the fun stuff was somewhere else, we drove up to the Capilano Suspension Bridge. =) Halfway up one of the mountains north of Vancouver is this famous suspension bridge, which you can walk across and do some sight-seeing in the little wooded park they have on the other side. It was so beautiful and just perfect. A little scary to walk across at first, but it's actually fun; by the time you reach the other end, your legs feel weird walking on firm land.
At the other side, this mini version of a yellowstone-type wooded park, including treetop bridges to walk between trees and get a view from the top, ponds with fishies, and observation decks to look down at the river below. I loved it. At first, I thought "wow, this place is big, we won't be able to do everything"; it actually wasn't, and we were able to walk all the trails! Quite nice for someone who doesn't like the idea of going to a real park and hiking for hours...
They also had cute signs around...

Sunday
Today was wedding #2. The bride was one of Tim's neighbor and they went to elementary school together. After a short ceremony at a church, the reception was at the same location as the 1st wedding. Don't worry, I wore a different dress. There was a lot more people, different set up of the place, same food though; there was a lot of "I haven't seen you in so long, you look so different!" from both parents and kids from the ol' neighborhood. The DJ was a lot better, and although he didn't have the Carnaval song, I got in one of my favo(u)rite Michael Buble songs. Too bad Tim's parents were not into the late-night partying/dancing.. Oh well, it was fun overall.
After the wedding, we hung out at a friend's house playing Mafia till about 3am...
Monday
Yikes, last day!.. long post, but how else to recap such a fun-filled trip! A day to rest, and squeeze in a go-karting trip with some bubble tea (mini bobas!), dinner at home and a relaxing game of mah-jong with Tim's Popo.
And that's it.. Flight back to boring DC on Tuesday..

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