Believe it, or not, my first Christmas in Vancouver, Canada wasn’t all that interesting 😛 If you have to juggle between work and final exams, finding time to go see the Christmas lights in the city becomes a challenge.
For most of the month before Christmas, the Christmas lights I saw were of the ones at the mall I worked in, and of the ones in the neighbourhood.
Every night, as I trekked 1 km from the bus stop to my house, I would pass by 3 blocks of houses. Over the weeks, the residents started to put up their lights for the festive season.
About 2 weeks before Christmas, Olaf started popping up in the hood…
Of course, I still tried to go elsewhere in the little free time I had after exams were over.
I also managed to catch some trees – in downtown and on the ferry to Vancouver Island (stay tuned for my post on Vancouver Island road trip!)
I also redeemed my staff benefit – a birthday cake – for a Christmas cheesecake lol
Christmas Eve
One day before Christmas Eve, I told myself I gotta go soak in the Christmas atmosphere of Vancouver before they were all over. After a quick search on Google, I found out that Christmas in Vancouver is for the rich – almost all Christmas markets require paid admission – this is on top of the marked-up prices at the carts in the markets!
I finally found a place which had Christmas installations free for public to enjoy – Canada Place!
In actual fact, there were zero stalls selling zero Christmas related food and stuff >.< Vancouver Fraser Port Authority decked the esplanade with Christmas-ish stuff. For example, when Woodward’s department store closed down, Canada Place purchased the famed windows display in 1993. The display featured holiday scenes with animated characters, which were handcrafted back in 1960s (source: https://www.canadaplace.ca/events/christmas/woodwards-windows/).
Elaborately decorated Christmas trees also lined up the sidewalk.
The highlight was the North light display, located at the northern tip of Canada Place.
What I particularly enjoyed was the view across Vancouver Harbour. Be it towards Stanley Park…
North Vancouver
Or towards Downtown Vancouver.
Or just admiring the views of the Vancouver Convention Centre and Vancouver Harbour at night.
I particularly liked watching the seaplanes land with a thunderous splash!
After that, I took a walk around Downtown Vancouver and saw more light displays.
I found the rotating globe at Vancouver Convention Centre mesmerising to watch…
Christmas Day
Well, one of the reasons why I wanted to go out on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day was because the weather forecast said both were clear days. In contrast, rain is expected on Boxing Day, so I decided to stay at home instead.
There were few places opened on Christmas Day – interestingly, the Chinese / Japanese shopping places were open. So I scooted down to Richmond to do some long-due cheap shopping at Oomomo in Aberdeen Centre, which was off Aberdeen station on Canada Line.
In contrast to the ghost town of Downtown Vancouver, Aberdeen Centre (not the train station and not Aberdeen Square which I had to pass through to get to Aberdeen Centre) was bursting with crowd!
After completing the challenge to fulfill my shopping list despite the crowd that thronged Oomomo, I finally found the food hall less crowded at 4pm. I settled down for my dinner, with a splendid view of Grouse Mountain in the evening sun.
I had Meat Patty with Pickled Vegetables on Rice (梅菜猪肉饼饭) from Leung Kee (亮記). I gotta say the patty was the tastiest I had ever eaten! The texture of the patty was akin to that of a button mushroom – qq and still well cooked. Despite having just a meat patty and a serving of green vegetables over rice, it was one of the most gratifying meals I had in Canada!
Note: There are 2 Leung Kee in the food hall. One selling Cantonese food (亮記) and one selling dim sum (龍記).
Errm… What’s a Christmas jalan jalan without looking at Christmas displays? Unfortunately, I did not bring XK and XD to meet their distant cousins… XP
To round off Sing in Can’s first Christmas in Canada, here’s a beautiful panorama of Richmond skyline in sunset.
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Till then, sing while you can!