Northwest Road Trip 2013 - Whistler and Richmond, BC, Canada, Day 7

The alarm rang at 5:30am this morning and we JUMPED out of bed! It was still dark outside but we knew we had places to be! We actually stayed up past midnight and managed to catch 2 different firework shows from our hotel window! Great view!

After packing up all of our belongings, we checked out and began our long day's journey. Jumping on the Skytrain, we were able to get to the bus meetup point about 10 minutes from departure (which the time we were asked to be there). We were greeted by a bus driver with a French accent that told us we only had 4 minutes, after Greg asked if we had time to grab food. OoooK, guess not!

The bus only had about 15 people total on it and it was a huge coach bus! We plopped ourselves in the middle of the bus, which turned out to be a mistake after the bust took off. There were 3 high school boys sitting in the back who were TALKING AT FULL VOLUME even though they were only 2 feet away from each other. Everyone else was trying to catch some ZZZs and these bozos couldn't chill out. So, we got up and moved to the front of the bus (I know, we're old, so what!) and were able to sleep for more than an hour before we arrived in Whistler Village.

Not Disneyland, but close

The village was dead when we arrived at 8:20am, most likely from the major partying the night before! The village is modeled after a Swiss mountain village, so it's very cute and walkable. First stop, breakfast!

Um, the best thing was the coffee so that's the only picture I will post :-/

We then began a short walking tour of Whistler and all of it's delightful Olympic memorabilia.

USA! USA! USA!

Even though he brought his snowboard, Greg decided not to bring it to Whistler. Turns out it may have been the right decision as there were brown spots on the mountain, signaling low amounts of snow. But, it was probably snowing up on the mountain. There were many clouds and grey skies so the plan of taking the gondola up the mountain was out of the question.

Anyway, we decided to go on a hike, since we weren't go up on the mountain. A lot of them were actually snow-shoeing trails but.... there was barely any snow on the ground. Frozen lakes and ice though!

It was cold but not THAT cold. Some young guys were walking out on the lake and being general bozos. After I said that, I saw this randomly on a sign.

HA HA!!!!

This sign had a very memorable NYE

We made the loop and somehow found ourselves back in town. And this was one of the first shoppes we saw.

Seems like copyright infringement.

Using Yelp, we headed over to a burger joint in Whistler with good reviews. But, it wasn't that good. I chalk it up to the fact that you're not allowed to have a medium-rare burger in Canada. True fact. The accepted temperature for a meat patty in Canada is 71 degrees Celsius, which is 8 degrees higher than medium rare. BOOO!!!!!!!!! Canada, playin' it safe since 1974. Back to Splitz burger: not that exciting and we split(z) just one.

HOWEVER! On the way into Splitz, I had been intrigued by the place next door by the name of Peaked Pies. Turns out they are Australian meat pies, which you can get a scoop of mashed potatoes and mashed peas with gravy on top!!! WHAT! It was a pot pie with 3 of my favorite things on top. Uh, duh, I HAD TO HAVE ONE!

ONE OF THE BEST THINGS I HAVE EVER EATEN! And you know that means something coming from me! We had the Aussie which was ground beef and onion on the inside. The crust was seriously perfect and I could've eaten a whole one by myself. OMG. I love it.

I checked in on Yelp and it had a check in offer of "Free Minington" but it didn't exactly say what a Minington was. I tend to be shy about these things so Greg asked and he came back with a delightful surprise!

Turns out a Minington is the "mini" version of their Lamington which is a sponge cake covered in chocolate, then rolled in coconut. Much amaze.

We only had a couple more hours until the bus was due to arrive so we headed over to Brewhouse at Whistler for our last activity: beer tasting and catching the end of the Winter Classic game.

These beers were mostly just OK to me. Greg liked their award winning IPA.
After that delight, we walked around town and then got to our bus just as it was arriving at the Visitor's Center. It was our same, efficient, French speaking driver and he was not messing around. Five groups of people had not yet arrived at 3:55PM and as he explained to someone at the Headquarters, he was going to give them 5 minutes past 4:00PM because they were told to be at the bus by 3:45! No messing around!!!

Thanks to his efficiency and wonderful driving, we made it back by 6:30 and headed back to our car. Luckily it had not been towed or broken into. Yes! We then headed over to Richmond, BC for some dinner and our lodging for the evening (which was at my cousin Edward and his wife Brenda's home).

Above is one of the most delightful curries I have ever had in my life. It is the famous Mui Garden Beef Brisket Curry. YUM!!!

Our evening ended at the home of Edward and Brenda, our fabulous hosts for the next day and a half. Edward's grandfather and my grandfather were brothers so we are cousins of some sort. They graciously offered us their home and we would be having dinner with Edward's siblings and families the next evening. We spent the rest of this one getting to know their adorable puppy Teagan (aptly named as her sister's name was Sarah) and getting to know them as well. I cannot gush about what wonderful hosts they were: just making sure we had everything we needed, asking us our preferred items for breakfast, and providing us with a warm home. More about that tomorrow!