Vancouver 2016
My husband and I took a short trip to Vancouver this past weekend, a half business a half fun trip!
Day one of our trip started with getting up at 4:30am! Flight to Vancouver from here only take 1.5 hours but since we couldn't get a direct flight (it was full), we first had to fly to Calgary...
But we managed to get to Vancouver safely and headed straight to this trip's main event, Knit City 2016 (Knit City is a yarn & fibre & everything knitting related festival in Vancouver)!
Knit City was bigger and busier than I had imagined!
Sooooo many beautiful yarn.... I took photos of some of the vendors, but this is only a small part of the show. There were lots of unique shops mainly from Canada, some from USA!
I got to meet some knitting celebrities too. It was so nice to meet people you see on social media all the time, finally in person and they were all so lovely!
We went to Knit City the both days (it was a two-day event). I'm so glad we go to go and have met so many wonderful vendors.
I feel so lucky that I get to call this my job!! (I went to Knit City as a social media team for my LYS which I work for.)
From left to right:
Superwash Worsted in Taffy by Yarn Ink
Cashmerino 20 in Worn Denim by Sweet Fiber
Wellspring in Mint by Bumblebirch
My husband bought the Sweet Fiber and Bumblebirch ones for me, he’s so nice.
I'm not usually the one who buys pink yarn, but this Taffy from Yarn Ink was impossible to ignore. How cute is this yarn?!
I've always seen wonderful photos of Sweet Fiber on Instagram and I was so excited that I finally got to see them in person. They were beautiful. Sweet Fiber had one of the biggest booth and probably the busiest too.
Bumblebirch is from Portland and this was my first time seeing this brand. They had very pretty yet simple display to show off their beautiful yarns. The ladies there were super nice and they complimented my shoes and dress :) I fell in love with this mint coloured skein, so fresh!
View from our Hotel. We stayed at Blue Horizon which is right in downtown of Vancouver, super convenient location. They have a cafe/restaurant in the main floor called Abode which we always call it Adobe (nerd alert!)
Food from first day.
We had a snack from Poke Time which was right across the street from the hotel.
We had dinner at The fish Shack. We've been here before and loved it, so we wanted to go back. They didn't disappoint us this time either, everything was so fresh! We both especially loved the steamer.
We spent our second day mostly at Knit City as well.
In the afternoon though, we had a little time for going shopping in downtown.
I had to try some macarons from Ladurée. They were so so good!
The dinner on the second day was at Rodney's Oyster House. We didn't make a reservation but luckily we didn't have to wait that long. (But would recommend to make a reservation.)
We loved everything we ordered! The clam chowder (not pictured) was probably the best chowder I've ever had. It wasn't loaded with saltiness, yet really flavourful. In fact, everything was fresh, juicy, and flavourful. We would definitely go back again.
Can you tell we love eating in Vancouver? (In fact, food is what we look forward to during our trips anywhere.)
As Knit City was successfully over, the third day was fully sight seeing day for us.
We spotted this cute dog boutique shop called Barking Babies on the way to the dinner the night before, so we decided to go check it out!
We got a new collar, a jacket, and tamago (egg) sushi toy for Momiji! We also got some toys for the dogs of our friends (who were looking after Momiji for us).
We met up with our friend who lived in Vancouver and had a ramen lunch at Marutama Ramen. Again, so good.
I wanted to go check out some local fabric stores. We visited Atex Designer Fabrics, Dress Sew, and Spool of Thread.
My favourite was Spool of Thread, just because they had fabrics that were my taste and the shop was very tidy and clean! The ladies who worked there seemed pretty friendly too. I didn't find anything I really liked, so I didn't buy anything. But I'd like to go back there again to see what's new next time I'm in town.
I also wanted to visit the button shop, but they weren't open during our free time. Maybe next time.
And then, we went to visit VanDusen Botanical Garden.
We've been here in spring when the laburnum was in season and loved it. This time, the winter walk/autumn stroll area was pretty with all the red leaves!
Hydrangeas are very common in Japan during rainy season (June), so it was a bit surprising to see them in fall. It was nice to see them in Vancouver, since we live in a dry climate area and rarely get to see them.
The last meal in Vancouver was at Cafe de L'Orangerie! Japanese-French (Italian?) fusion I've read about before and it was near the airport so we gave it a try and I'm glad we did!
It's a small casual cafe with friendly service, and the food was great!
I loved my Masago de Creamy Spaghetti. Hubby ordered Hashed Beef Stew de Creamy Spaghetti and Hamburger Steak and he really like his too. The portion was generous, we were pretty full!
My first knitting/fibre festival experience was amazing, everything we ate was amazing, I love Vancouver!
I'm so glad we go to go on this trip and I'm very thankful for my wonderful employers, the lovely ladies I work with, and really good friends whom we can trust completely with our fur baby! They also have two cute pups and apparently Momiji wasn't shy this time, they played together. We're so grateful that they were able to take care of her and we hope we can do the same for them!
Oct 6, 2016
