monday • june 16 • 2003

I was pretty stoked for our big day in Vancouver. Our friends are always going on-and-on about how the record shopping rules around here, and how the American dollar is stronger so you can buy even more stuff!

First we walked around downtown Vancouver, and actually, it wasn't nearly as scary in the daytime. We found the Glico store, which has a giant box of Pocky in the front! Admittedly, I was a little bummed about the selection, but I guess I'm pretty spoiled when it comes to tasty Japanese treats. ;)

The stores were kinda boring. Ooh, a Club Monaco. Ooh, an Esprit store. Shrug. We went to The Gap, for crying out loud, although it was there that I got my first Canadian "eh", as in: "That's a cute hat, eh?". But anyway, downtown Vancouver reminds me of downtown Seattle. We had a delicious lunch at a Japanese place, followed by this amazing gelato (both excellent recommendations from James), and then decided to clear out of the hotel and drive into the suburbs.

Our first stop was Zulu Records (1972 West 4th Ave, 604-738-3232). It is easily one of the coolest record stores I've ever been to! It's two-story, with gorgeous architecture and spiraling staircases, and super-rad vintage video games! Holy moly! And fab 1960's chairs everywhere! Mike and I immediately decided we wanted to move in soon, or at least re-model our apartment to look like this.

We bought tons of CDs, then left and wandered around the nearby stores. One had tons of Miffy notecards, and we almost bought them, but by this point, I was just really, really tired and wanted to sit down in the car instead. We decided to drive out to Stanley Park. We kinda drove around the shore, looking at the water, but then we parked and headed out on foot. We checked out the totem-poles, and that's when I found the cutest lil' stuffed bear, who was actually articulated like a real bear, and since my hubby's last name is Baehr, I've kinda developed this silly love for bears. ;)

And then we just decided to head on home. I was a little bummed to learn that Vancouver wasn't as amazing as I imagined it to be. *Shrug* Wah. Oh well. Again, we had no problems getting through the border. (When asked what we had bought in Canada, I replied ditzily, "Well, I bought this haaa-at, and this cute little stuffed bee-aaar, and---" and the woman looked at me and said, "Have a good night, kids" and waved us on our way.) We got home three hours later and crashed.

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