Friday
Friday was filled with driving, we left Calgary at 1:30PM and arrived in Richmond in 11 hours. It would have been faster, provided that I:
1) had a car that had power (I rented a Hyunday Tuscon 4WD V6)
2) if the roads between Lake Louise and Kamloops were 4 lanes instead of 2.
3) if we left on thursday to avoid Friday long weekend traffic
However I won't complain about 11 hours as it was estimated on Microsoft's Streets and Trips to take 12 hours. I probably made up that hour by taking the Coquihalla toll highway from Kamloops to Hope B.C.
When we arrived at the Best Western Richmond Inn Convention center we basically unpacked, freshened up and hit the hay...I was pretty exhausted from the drive.
Saturday
On Saturday our goal was to leave the hotel by 11AM and we were successful in doing so! We then headed down to Fisherman's Wharf in search of some fresh crab for brunch. However we couldn't find any (we were thinking they'd have it like San Fancisco did) and we opted for some Sushi instead. The sushi was pretty good, the quality of the fish/seafood seemed a lot better and I sure hope so since we were right by the ocean!
We headed downtown after sushi and were so amazed by the skyline of Downtown Vancouver when we were entering from the South. Condo towers to the left, Condo towers to the right, Condo towers everywhere! Calgary's downtown skyline doesn't even compare!
We quickly found parking and then we walked around Robson Street and the rest of downtown for a good 3-4 hours. Mostly we window shopped and then called it a day when our legs were just way too tired. We headed back to Richmond and went for supper at this Chinese place I saw earlier in the day and I wanted to try it (it seemed busy at lunch time). The place was called Neptune Sharkfin Seafood Restaurant and it was located on 100-8171 Ackroyd Road. We didn't expect much going in it...I mean if you have been to one Chinese Restaurant, all the others are pretty similar. But boy was I ever wrong. This one was more posh but still very chinese. We got in, we were seated and then they pulled out our chopsticks out of the paper for us and they poured our tea for us....it seemed so VIP (for a chinese restaurant). Then came the food, dishes were quite pricey, they averaged about $15/plate but in my opinion it was the best tasting food I have ever had. The seafood fried rice was amazing! The shrimps and scallops were huge and abundant, and the hot and sour soup was phenomenal. I even opted for Lobster and we had it cooked "Singapore Style". Which was basically a spicey tomato sauce. It was so good! And it better be good for $60!!!!! I can't believe I spent that much on a sea crustacean!!! But it was well worth it. When supper was all done we left super satisfied and super full!
We ended the night by renting The Davinci Code on the hotel network and I'm glad I didn't pay full price for it in theatres as I found it really sucked (that's not even comparing it to the book).
Sunday aka Splurge Day
We set the same goal of getting out of the hotel by 11 and we were successful yet again. This time for brunch we opted for a place called Hon's Wun-Tun House.
We had seen this place on Rachel Ray's Tasty Travels and also in the tourist guide in the hotel. Seeing that it was so recommended we decided to try for ourselves. There was an address for a location in Richmond, we looked it up and followed the directions but couldn't find it. So after a bit of searching we headed for downtown location on Robson Street instead. Let me tell you, it is well worth the effort of going here. I loved their dumplings and their Honeymoon Fried rice (aka Yin Yang Chow Fan) was amazing. Funny thing is that I have had this fried rice once before and have always wanted to get it again but never knew what it was called. This time I just chose the most expensive rice on the list and when they brought it out ...to my suprise and my delight it was the one I was always wanting to have again!
After that it was back to shopping on Robson Street. I guess we used Saturday to scope out all the things we liked and used Saturday night to decide whether or not it was worth buying...or this is what I did anyways because we went shopping crazy on Sunday. All 3 of us were buying stuff, mostly clohing. We hit A|X (Armani Exchange), FCUK and The Adidas Original Store! I was carrying so many bags that at the end of our 4 hour shopping spree we had to go back to the hotel to unload the goods into our room before we headed back to Stanley Park! It was crazy, I haven't spent this much on clothes since...ever. 
Stanley Park was beautiful. I can't believe that Vancouver citizens put aside land that is as big as Downtown Vancouver to make as a park. We arrived there at about 6 and everything was closing down. So we just walked around a bit and drove around the perimeter of the park. I ended up taking some beautiful shots of the sunset and the moon over the bay between Vancouver and Stanley Park. We ordered some Fish and Chips at some place on the park at one of our stops and all 3 of us agreed that was the best Fish and Chips we have ever had. We ended up leaving the park at about 9:30PM. We had to drive through the night life of downtown Vancouver to head back to Richmond and wow was it ever exciting. There was so many people (mostly girls, heh) out on the streets, so many shops/cafes open and full of people...the atmosphere just seemed so awesome. Next time I head back to Vancouver I will definitely have to check out the night life...I HAVE TO! 
The next thing we checked out was the Richmond Night Market. It is held every night from 7PM-12AM (7-11PM on Sunday) and is an annual thing that goes from mid May to Mid October. We showed up at 10PM and stayed till closing at 12PM (they opened later because it was the long weekend). 
It's basically like a T&T but outdoors with vendors in little tents selling everything from chinese dvd movies to dog clothing. But the best thing is they have a section totally devoted to food. You can go and try cuisine from almost every asian culture. I saw Korean, Chinese, Vietnames, Japanese and Indian food being sold and tried most of it too...yum! Each dish is a reasonable size and goes from $2-$4. My favourite of that night was bbq'd spicey squid tentacles....mmmm so good and so spicey!! If you ever go to Vancouver/Richmond between May and October you definitely have to check this out. The atmoshpere is killer and there is lots of people that frequent it. My tip is to splurge and pay the $4 to park instead of parking far away and walking.So we ended our night after the Night Market. We had so much fun on Sunday, its definitely something I will remember forever.
Monday
I thought I was done shopping but I wasn't. I wanted these shorts from A|X but never bought them on Saturday, but was regretting not getting them. I wanted them so badly and there are no other A|X stores in Western Canada I decided that we hit up the store one more time before we headed back to Calgary. Arrived on Robson St. once again and went to buy the shorts ASAP. Then we headed to a Sushi place across the street for some brunch. I forgot what it was called by the "Special Box" lunch special that we got was amazing! After that we headed for the Trans-Canada East and headed home. Once again we took the Coquihalla after Hope to Kamloops and then to Calgary with stops in Kamloops in Revelstoke for food and gas. We arrived back in Calgary at 12:30AM MT which isn't bad considering we left Vancouver at 2PM MT (much faster than the trip up to Vancouver). 
Overall the trip was fantastic. It was the first trip that my brother, Tuyet and I went on together. Before that my brother would stay home. We had a lot of fun experiencing all that Vancouver had to offer. We left feeling satisfied but not fully quenched because we know that Vancouver has a lot left for us to discover. This is definitely a trip I will make yearly. I love Vancouver so much that I would not hesitate to live there (of course if my gf comes with me). However I would never ever cheer for the Canucks haha!
P.S. I will post my pictures from my Vancouver trip in another blog after I get a chance to resize them.
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