We started the day off pretty easy. We didn't set any alarms and left our hostel at 10am. We decided to pay a visit to Finch's, a cute cafe we had passed by the other day.
We stayed here for a long time, just journaling and enjoying the atmosphere. As the lunch rush came in, we decided to leave and popped into another store we had passed by before. Jimi Hendrix and Bob Marley shrine meet thrift store - it was every bit as eccentric as it sounds.
I visited the JJ Bean store again for my second London Fog of the day, and when we dropped by the hostel, we realized we were on a bit of a time crunch, with about 4.5 hours to cycle to Granville Island and back. We decided to head out anyways and hope for the best.
The rest of the photos today were from my phone as I didn't trust my biking abilities to not let me fall and crush my camera. We went with a 4-hour rental from Club 16, and began our ride along the seawall and through Stanley Park.
We were making good time and decided that we would be able to bike to Granville and back in time. Unfortunately, when we got to the Granville Bridge, we found it above us and were unable to find the stairs leading up. We decided to bike further to Burrard Bridge and then loop over...
How wrong we were. We found ourselves near Kits Beach again, and quite a ways away from Granville. Dan, in search of her daily ice cream, suggested we visit Rain or Shine, an ice cream parlour near Kits Beach that Ranee had mentioned. As we made our way over, the bike path soon ended, and we were cycling on the streets trying to find the shop.
We spent a good ten minutes trying to figure out our bike locks, then went to Rain or Shine - honey lavendar and bomber passionfruit ale; Dan influenced me to spend good money for a waffle cone upgrade.
We were pretty tired and ended up staying here til past 5pm, and as we biked over Burrard Bridge, I realized this direction was all uphill... and my thighs began to cry. As we made our way back to Stanley Park, we encountered the same problem as many... the majority of the path is one way only. And we were on the wrong side of that way.
We quickly consulted the maps and decided it would be possible to cut through the park, but in reality, it was quite difficult. We didn't want to bike on main streets, so we tried wood-chipped trails, small streets, walking paths... and they all seemed to lead us further away from our destination. We started to panic as we realized we had rented out bicycles much earlier than we thought, and were cutting it close to our 4-hour limit. Finally, we decided to cut our losses and go down Hwy 99 to get ourselves out of the park as quickly as possible.
At first, the bridge out of the park had a separated bike path with warnings that stopping was forbidden unless it was an emergency. The bridge began to drop downhill, and I picked up speed quickly. I kept pumping the brake and hoping I wouldn't lose control as we sped down the bridge. I was so scared that I couldn't look back to see if Dan was still behind me.
Then... signs appeared warning that the bike lane was about to end, and we were to merge into the car traffic coming off the highway. We were operating on a pure adrenaline rush as we cycled into the city beside speeding vehicles.
We were so hyped to be back in the city, and cut through to the seawall path again. The surge of adrenaline probably made me a little too cocky - we were speeding through and I got stuck trying to slip between two planters before I realized I wouldn't make it. I wiggled out and sped up to catch up with Dan, who had slowed down to wait for me. I passed by her and while trying to taunt her slowness, slipped on sand around a sharp turn and nearly wiped out. Ride safe, people.
We got back to the rental with two minutes to spare, and then ran to Waterfront Station. As it had just passed 6:30pm, we only needed to pay one zone fare to Burnaby. Success!
After dinner at Sushi Oyama with my family, we headed to Metrotown for some grocery shopping at T&T. We stocked up on drinks, fruits, and snacks for our train ride back home. We headed back to Ranee's and watched Netflix til 11pm... when Dan informed me that we still needed to do laundry.
I passed out after we put the clothes in the washer, and Dan woke me once the dryer had done running. I grabbed my clothes, made sure anything that would get wrinkly was laid out, then passed out once again.
Our last day in Vancouver - we woke up to take one last shower before another shower-less 4-night train ride. We met up with Ranee at Acme Cafe for one last meal together, as it was one of the only places open early enough for her to still make it to work at a reasonable time.
Let's just say their interpretation of Eggs Benedict was quite... loose.
After eating, I headed to JJ Bean once again to spend more of my hush money, and gave the remainder to Ranee. We packed up our room, then left our luggage in storage before going souvenir shopping one last time around Gastown.
We also went to Pacific Centre but found ourselves too tired to shop anymore. Dan headed over to Granville while I went to the library to renew my library card, read, and nap. After our unsatisfactory breakfast, we both had mourned the fact that we didn't visit Finch's one more time instead - and we had the same idea to go there as we texted each other our plans.
One last Finch's, and one last JJ Bean (for Dan), and then we grabbed our luggage and headed to the VIA Rail Station. We met up with some of our train friends, met a friendly three-legged dog, and decided against buying $8 playing cards.
Goodbye, Vancouver. I hope to be back soon.
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