I’ve always had a soft spot for Canada. I remember going on family vacations here since I was little. Also, my parents almost settled down in Canada instead of the US back in the day when my dad was still attending grad school in Canada. I’m practically Canadian! :) Now that I live in Seattle and am so close to the Canadian border, trips to Canada are so easy. I even spent my birthday in Vancouver B.C. last year – see the recap here. When a long weekend came around where all of my closest friends were available, we booked a trip north and finally went on our first girls trip together! 

The highlight of our trip, in my opinion, was just hanging out together in our Airbnb. When I found our Airbnb listing, I didn’t have high hopes for it to be honest. Being a long weekend and Lunar New Year, almost all the listings were sold out! This ended up being a really affordable option that I felt looked decent enough, so I bit the bullet and booked it. When we got there, imagine our surprise when we discovered it was adorably decorated and actually just a short drive to downtown Vancouver!

You can tell that the place was decorated by someone who has an eye for design, right? We later met the owner and she told us she’s a stylist and art director. Go figure. Some of the best times we had were just sitting around on the bar stools doing our makeup while listening to music on the Bluetooth speaker. I forgot how fun it is to get ready with a bunch of other girls! 

On our first full day there, we first headed out to get some food! We ended up dining family style at Peaceful Restaurant. I can’t recall everything we ordered, but I do remember the beef pancake rolls and you definitely need to order those if you ever dine here! Next we walked to 45 Degree Bubble Tea house and each got a drink in these fun cups. Naturally, I stopped to take a photo of the dog that we saw along the way.

We did some shopping on Robson Street then headed further downtown to stop by a store that sells The Ordinary products! (The store is called CurliQue Beauty Boutique by the way and it’s right by the Vancouver Public Library.) We all went a little nuts so out we walked with 6 bags of products which we obviously dug into later that night. Another fun stop we made was to the Muji store!! I’ve never been to a Muji store so this was a dream. Luckily you can get Muji products on Amazon because now I want to get even more haha! 

At night we went to the same all you can eat sushi restaurant that I went to with Jared for my birthday which was so much fun! I highly recommend making a reservation if you have a large party because it tends to have a long wait. Later we tried to go out to some bars in Gastown but it ended up snowing like crazy so we returned back to our Airbnb. That was a dramatic turn of events as the entire day was pretty clear and sunny!

The next day we went to Aberdeen Centre to get dim sum at Fisherman’s Terrace. Of course, the wait was over an hour so we killed time by shopping, watching some of the Lunar New year performances, and pre-gaming the dim sum feast we had. The food court here is awesome and you can get everything from laksa to bubble tea to bubble waffles. We got some matcha and original bubble waffles (yum!) and all types of bubble tea to sip on. Then at dim sum we ordered so much food which I’m proud to say we KILLED!

Before heading home, we stopped to take some sunset photos along the West End of Vancouver. It was freezing cold but a beautiful day!

I didn’t go crazy with the photos because 1) I left my SD card for my DSLR at home, oops and 2) wanted to live in the moment with my girlfriends. It’s not often that we get to go on a trip together! There are plenty of other places to visit in Vancouver B.C. but if you’re just headed there for a weekend trip, I think I’ve covered some of my favorite places to go in this post and my other post. As I go back I’ll keep updating these posts to share new places I’ve visited!

 

Oh hi! Just me, your local wannabe traveler, who is terrible at sharing travel posts in a timely manner. I still have photos from London (…yeah) to illustrate this point. Anyway, since it has been a little over a month since my trip to California, I figured it’s still acceptable to be sharing some photos. I could really use some beach therapy right now so writing this is kind of letting me relive a really fun day from our trip. In case you didn’t see it, I shared some photos from our days at Disneyland, California Adventure, and Universal Studios in this post.

One day on our trip the forecast projected a high of 90 degrees so naturally I was like OH HECK NO and asked if we could skip an amusement park that day. Jared, being the accommodating boyfriend that he is, agreed that for my sake we should skip the parks this day. Not to toot my own horn or anything but this ended up being a fantastic idea. Even on the coast, it was soooo hot and almost unbearable without any shade. Still, the breeze by the beach felt great and we are so glad that we were still able to see the beach.

Oh yeah, my rental car situation ended up falling through and we ended up having to Uber to the beach. It is not cheap to take an Uber from Anaheim out to the coast, by the way. There are some other beaches further away that we would have loved to visit but there’s always next time! We even met a really fun driver on the way back from the beach who gave me his business card because he wanted me to set him up with someone from Seattle haha!

For a weekday there was a surprising amount of people at Huntington Beach but most were either lounging like us or out surfing. Overall it was still pretty empty and relaxing as we just recently went to Hawaii where the beaches are very packed. I recommend bringing an umbrella if it’s convenient and you’re driving because like I mentioned, the heat can be unbearable. Unlike some Hawaii beaches, there are no palm trees close enough to give you shade.

I got to read a bit while laying out on the sand and then we just walked down the pier, went to some of the nearby shops, and then headed back to Anaheim.

OUTFIT DETAILS: EXACT SHORTS (only $20) and my FAVORITE because they’re not too short. / Off the shoulder top (similar) / HAT / SUNGLASSES

Anaheim Packing District has been on my list of places to visit for a while so I was thrilled that we had time to squeeze this in on our trip! Even better, we got to visit the Packing House on a weekday so it was actually pretty empty. Even then, don’t think there weren’t tons of photoshoots going on inside ;) I don’t blame people because every bit of this spot is photo worthy! It’s light-filled and there are air plants hanging from the ceiling. Also sooo much tasty food that’s definitely Instagram-worthy as well. If you have a few hours to stop by this place, I highly recommend it. Go with others too! Jared and I are strategic and we share all our food and drinks so that we’re able to try more unique things :)

We stayed long enough to stop at several places but truthfully I wanted to try something at every restaurant. Everything looks so good!! We started off at Sweetbird and got a fried chicken sandwich to share. Obviously we had to take a photo in front of the wall art first. The chicken is super crispy and very tender but I wasn’t necessarily blown away. Next we went to Adya and split a butter chicken dish. I’ve had butter chicken a few times and this was one of the better ones I’ve had because it tasted like a homemade dish. Plus, we actually watched the chef cook it after we ordered :) I also got a milk tea with boba at Mini Monster which was sooo yummy. Probably the best thing I got here. They have tons of cute drinks that are served in a light bulb if you’re into that sort of thing. A few bars here have happy hour so Jared got a beer for pretty cheap too.

We wandered just a bit outside of the Packing House but since it was so hot, we just called a Lyft and went back to our hotel then saw a movie! The Packing House is in a pretty nice neighborhood that seemed really quiet and clean but there didn’t seem to be much to do. There’s also a small parking lot and seems to be a decent amount of street parking so if you have a rental car this would be easy to drive to. Those of you visiting Disneyland are probably staying pretty nearby so it’s also just a short Lyft/Uber away.

Overall I’m super happy that we went to both of these spots! It was fun to have a relaxed day in the middle of an otherwise busy trip. Isn’t it funny that we have to take “rest” days on vacations? We have a habit of packing in as much as possible on vacation!

For now, I’m going to be dreaming of warmer days and hoping that Seattle starts warming up so we can get the heck out of winter!!