join the johnson journey: venturing around vancouver

Before you read my blog post about Vancouver I would like to just take a few minutes to write about what was going on in Houston during this time. I am VERY thankful I made a last minute decision about 1.5 weeks before we left for Alberta to extend my trip to Vancouver and Portland. If I had not I would have been on a plane on Thurs Aug 24th to Houston and would have been stuck at my house for a week by myself during Hurricane Harvey since none of my friends live close enough to us. God has a plan for sure...500%. Luckily, all my friends in Houston were spared for the most part from Harvey and the best thing is that no one I know was injured during these horrendous few days. I appreciate each & every person that reached out to me to ask if Nick & I were safe and if our house was okay. To say we are blessed is an understatement. #houstonstrong

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Vancouver would legit be a fabulous city to live in.. it has everything you need: mountains, beach, sea, skiing... cannot imagine a better place honestly and the weather stays nice! It's well worth adding it onto a vacation if you're in Alberta or Seattle/Portland. Not sure I'd go just for Vancouver but if you're headed to Whistler then definitely stop over for a few days. Read below for my personal adventures!

On Thursday August 24th, Nick headed to Nashville for a bachelor party from Calgary and I headed to Vancouver for the first part of my solo trip. I got in on Thursday and immediately headed to my airb&b. The place was a first level of an old house and it was very cute. It was a good location and I could walk to most places that I wanted to. I'd recommend. It was kind of in between Yaletown & West End. It was very residential and quiet at night! I had a ton of fun exploring Vancouver. I went to Stanley Park and just walked around English Bay for a few hours on Thursday afternoon. I stopped by Cactus Cafe right on the water and had a kale salad as a snack since I had not been able to eat lunch due to the timing of my flight. It was a gorgeous sunny day and I was really enjoying just spending some time outside. I continued to explore for awhile after that then headed back to the airb&b. For dinner I went to Yaletown Brewing Company. It was alright. Nothing too special and not that good of brews. Would not recommend.

english bay!

stanley park overlooking english bay

On Friday, I got up and headed to the Tour Guys Vancouver tour of Downtown/Waterfront. It was fun and informative. It's a free walking tour so you just tip whatever you think is appropriate at the end. Our guide gave some good advice for the area and definitely knew what he was doing which I appreciated. After the tour ended, I grabbed a great lunch at Tap & Barrel again directly on the waterfront! Then went over to Granville Island. This island is awesome. It has a great public market where I got to check out all the fruit, flowers, and food. I went to Granville Brewing Company and ended up in a long chat with a college student who was on a solo vacation as well. You never know who you'll meet!! Granville Island is somewhere you could spend hours walking around and exploring and you'd never get bored. Afterwards I took the ferry back over to the mainland and grabbed some thai food. Again it was not that splendid... I was not having the best luck finding food on this trip !

vancouver is trying to make pedestrian only areas.. here's one!

hotel that allows dogs... and 2 dogs actually live there!!! so cute

building built for the olympics ... looks like a ship, so cool!

meant to look like the olympic torches

granville!

On Saturday, I headed to an all day tour of Vancouver Island through Viator. I would absolutely recommend doing this tour if you have a few days in Vancouver. The weather was out of this world perfect. The tour itself is a bit pricey; however, it takes care of all transportation the entire day. To get to the island you have to drive to the ferry stop, get on a ferry, then drive around. You could not do it without a tour guide or a rental car. So I definitely think it's worth the money. The first few hours of the day is spent just trying to get there. Once we got to Victoria our tour guide dropped us off and we got 3 hours to explore. I was able to find a quaint restaurant on the water and grab some grub. It was called Flying Otter Grill. Very very good food & would recommend. There was also this insanely good icecream store that you have to try called Chocalats Favoris. They dip your cones in different fondue like dips. I got cookies 'n cream. Can you say sugar high!!! Afterwards, I just walked down near the water, checked out the government building, and the gorgeous Fairmont Empress hotel that is right on the water. Also, the Chinatown in Victoria is the oldest one in North America and the smallest. Awesome to walk around there and into the smallest alleyway ever. Before we got picked up, I grabbed a peach-infused cider at Milestones Grill & Bar which was directly on the water. Top notch views & drink! After we got picked up in Victoria we headed to Butchart Gardens. These gardens are phenomenal. So many flowers of all different shapes and sizes. And they have a Japanese Garden which I personally loved as well. The ticket for this was included in the overall tour price. It's a must see if you are on the island for a day. After a long day we headed back to Vancouver. I was exhausted and once I got back to the house I just stayed in for the night - it was still pretty late when we got back around 9:30.

beautiful government building... reminds me of Reichstag in Berlin!

ohhhh yeah baby!

smallest alley ever!

cheesing cause life is so fab

butchart gardens!!

so intrigued by black flowers....

g'night Vancouver Island!

Sunday was my last day in Vancouver so I decided to do another tour through Viator of Grouse Mountain and the Capilano Suspension Bridge. Overall I thought the tour was good. But I was not that impressed by either place and I would have preferred to have some more time of Grouse Mountain than we did. We started the morning by getting picked up and we headed to Capilano Suspension Bridge. The park area was very cool and lots of nature. However, I do not think it is actually worth the money. Also if you are a thrill seeker like me and have already done things like skydiving and hiking on cliffs, then again it's probably not the best use of your money. That being said I can totally see how a lot of people enjoy this excursion. I just want to set expectations properly :) You can check out the pictures I took below & be your own judge. Grouse Mountain which is the second part of the tour was very pretty. There were some great views of Vancouver. However, I do not feel like we had enough time up there. I would have preferred another hour or so so I could have gone up even further and gotten a better view. I did get to see two bears while I was up top of Grouse and that was AWESOME! After I got dropped back off in Vancouver, I decided to hit up Steamworks Brewing Company for a salad and brew. It was pretty good and I'd recommend. Their IPA is a classic. I also checked out the steam clock which is a very unique monument in Vancouver. I then headed back to the house because I had to draft my Fantasy Football team.... priorities right?! After the draft, I went out for an Italian meal on the water again .. by myself... so romantic! Then called it a night as Monday morning was going to be an early one!!!