LOVE . the symphony of life: CANADA - of Vancouver & Victoria

Hi everyone, happy new year!

It's been a while since I last updated my blog, but one of my resolution this year to continue writing, posting, updating about my life in the tiny space :)

To start off, I'm going to write about my trip to Canada, where I visited Vancouver and Victoria, which is just north of Seattle, Washington.

I've been in the States for almost 7 years, and I've always wanted to go the country up north. In fact, I even got my VISA to Canada in my third year here, but I didn't get to go due to some reasons. Finally, I got to cross out the trip on my "US' bucket list" after so many years!

The trip lasts for 7 days and 6 nites, in conjunction of the new year long weekend, and we spent our times mostly at Vancouver and Victoria.

On the first day, we woke up super early on the morning, as early as 3.30am, to board our flight to Seattle at 6.50am. We took the plane to Seattle, and boarded the bus to Vancouver as it's more economical to fly domestic during this holiday, ie peak, season. We reached Seattle-Tacoma Airport at around 8.30am and took the 9.30am shuttle to Vancouver downtown. The bus trip was around 4.5 hours. We slept all the way, except when crossing the border, because of waking up too early!

Filling in the custom declaration form

On the bus to Vancouver

At around 2.30pm, we reached Vancouver downtown, but because the bus driver went to many places to drop off the passengers, we only checked into our hostel at 3.30pm. We stayed at St. Clair Hostel, which is located at one of the many heritage buildings in Vancouver. We got a private room for 2, cost around $44 per nite per room, which is pretty cheap I'd say. However, the shared washroom conditions were so-so, but still okay la. I gave it 6/10 points on the 1st impression.

First look of Vancouver

For the meal at Vancouver, we chose a Malaysian restaurant that got pretty good reviews on Yelp, called Banana Leaves. It's at the Davietown area, around 20-minute walk from our hostel. I got Malaysian Iced Coffee ($4) and Curry Mee ($13). The food was just okay, comparing to the one served in M'sian restaurants in the States, 6/10 is my score~ On a side note, eating out in Canada was pricier than in US. Usually, it cost $7-8 for a bowl of curry mee here.

Sarah's mojito mocktail and my Malaysian iced coffee ~very kao~

Mee Curry

Saw this building on the way back from the restaurant

After the meal, we took the bus to VanDusen Botanical Garden to see the Christmas Light Exhibition. The student ticket was around $15. The weather was not that good that night, it was raining, so it was wet and cold at the park....