I’m home, for a more than a day now, and still haven’t quite gotten back in gear. My mind is resisting the need to get back to the show I’m designing, to the classes I have work overdue for, to the life I have here.
Day two was spent exploring Granville Island and the area to the south and east. Granville Island is an arts and commercial center, and is packed with art shops, studios, food markets and performing spaces. And a cement plant. Access is by a road to the south, under the Granville street bridge, and we made our way there by way of a fish place that buys from fishermen and cooks them right there on the shore of False Creek.
The halibut fish and chips was amazing, but the fish tacos were a little less impressive. Still a great meal, though. Next was a walk around the east end of the island, heading towards an art gallery, which turned out to be closed that day, but which led us to a chocolate shop, so it wasn’t in vain. Then to the Granville brewery, where several beverages were sampled. My cream soda was delicious, by the way.
We took an aquabus to the Olympic Village, walked south to broadway, and west to Tojo’s, our first dinner reservation of the trip. Tojo’s is famous for omikase, which is a kind of Japanese dinner where you simply let the chef prepare awesome food for you to eat, without any input as to what you’re going to get, other than the number of courses. And whether or not you’re allergic to something. And whether you hate fish or whatever. I’ll leave the descriptions to Stef, but the food exceeded my expectations by far.
We were meant to meet our friends at a bar to watch the Canucks game, but we decided to pass, and caught a train south to see a movie, Hanna, which also exceeded my expectations, though admittedly, the Japanese food was in a class by itself. By this point it was about 10PM, and we made our way to the Braid SkyTrain station, where Maria picked us up, and we chatted about our evenings and headed for bed.
The Canucks blew the game anyway.