The Yu's arrive...

Today is the day that Mandy’s family finally arrives in Vancouver from Toronto! To start the morning, we went to a very popular brunch place called Café Medina. We went there earlier to avoid the crazy lineups that we heard about. This restaurant is well known for its waffles and its brunch fuses typical brunch food with a middle eastern flair. We had a waffle, a paella and beef short-rib skillet. I also had the lavender coffee (decent, but not really aligned to my personal palette) and Mandy had a recent healthy apple smoothie. Overall, this place was quite delicious and we were very full afterwards. (Mandy: It was also entertaining sitting beside a couple that was trying to quietly argue but eventually made up at the end of their meal.)

Norm inspecting the food very carefully

Cafe Medina!

From then, we did some light shopping and walked through Chinatown. Mandy’s friend Tina recommended we check out the Nordic clothing brand called Fjallraven. They were actually having very good sales and I picked up two rain jackets (one orange and one blue) and Mandy picked up an army green rain jackets. The cool thing about Fjallraven is that they wax the jackets so that they are waterproof, and it comes with a lifetime service of waxing. However, they currently don’t have a location in Toronto, so we waited a few hours to get them waxed before we picked them up. To kill the time, we followed Tina’s suggestion of checking out 33 Acres Brewery and have a drink. Shortly after, Mandy’s family joined us at the bar and we headed back to Fjallraven to pick up our jackets.

Vancouver's Chinatown

Apple cider beer (not very good) and some amber beer (good)

 We then went in search of food. Originally, we wanted to return to Yaletown and eat delicious sushi at Minami again as well, but we realized that they were only serving their “Bar Eats” menu during the afternoon, so we decided opted to eat elsewhere. We eventually ate a pre-dinner at a Korean BBQ restaurant called Gyu near our AirBnB. We just had some light snacks and Rony and I had a massive Sapporo again. From then, we went back home and changed and headed back to our actual dinner at 8pm.

At least we saw the farmer's market in Yaletown

My mom downing some beer too

Reunited!

Pre-dinnering

Cook for me!

We ate at Stanley Park Teahouse Café with Mandy’s and Rony’s family. It was good to see Charles’s kids again and food there was quite good. I had to the Sablefish and Mandy had the seafood pasta. The view at the restaurant was breathtaking and we were there just in time for sunset. Tomorrow will be the docking day. I haven’t been on a cruise since I was 18, so I am looking forward to the experience! Hawaii, here we come!

Amazing view by the restaurant

Family dinner

Almost married!