Vancouver, Canada

Rested, after just one night in Hong Kong, we made our way to the airport. The bus arrived on time. However, in Hong Kong, a general strike had been declared, so most of the metro trains were not running. As a result, the streets were completely congested. Luckily, we had allowed enough time. After what felt like an eternity, we reached the terminal two hours before departure. Since we had already received the boarding passes in Tokyo the day before and checked in, we only had to drop off our checked baggage. Unfortunately, we had to queue up at the check-in counter like normal. The line was quite long and we waited and waited. After an hour of waiting, our nervousness grew with each passing minute, as we didn't know how much time we would need for the customs and emigration procedures. When it was finally our turn, the lady started asking the same questions that we had already answered in detail in Tokyo (visa, address, duration of stay, etc.). A bit annoyed, we mentioned to her that all the information should already be in the system. Fortunately, that was the case. The security check including emigration procedures only took twenty minutes. Happily, we made our way to the gate. We boarded the new A350 of the Hong Kong Airline and took off almost on time.

Twelve hours later, we reached our destination Vancouver. Since we had crossed the international date line, we still had the same day and the same time as when we departed from Hong Kong. We took the metro and bus to our Airbnb. Like with the previous Airbnbs, we gained access to the house by entering a code. To our surprise, we had almost an entire house at our disposal. Two large living rooms with a terrace and a spacious kitchen could be used. We practically never saw the other roommates. All in all, a lot of comfort for surprisingly little money.

Since we had skipped a night and couldn't really sleep on the plane, we rested a bit and went out to a restaurant in the neighborhood in the evening. We decided on the Mexican place. The food tasted excellent and we enjoyed the change after the long time in Asia. We find the pricing system a bit cumbersome. Like in America, the price is always displayed without sales tax and tip in Canada as well. So you have to calculate about 20% extra on top of the advertised price. Slightly less for poor service.

In the following two days, we explored the city of Vancouver. We enjoyed the mild climate and the quality of life in the west. We visited downtown, Granville Island, and Stanley Park. We really liked the city.

We found the high number of homeless people and drug addicts shocking. Later, we learned that Canada is dealing with a huge fentanyl problem (a cheap heroin substitute). In Vancouver alone, an average of two people die each day from overdosing. This is mainly due to the fact that it's difficult to dose fentanyl correctly.

We were excited to pick up our rental car, a spacious Kia SUV. After over six months without a car, we are really enjoying the freedom and mobility. We made our first stop at a huge Walmart (supermarket). We decided to buy a complete camping equipment and found everything we needed right here. Luckily, our rental car has enough storage space.

On Thursday morning at 8:00 a.m., we set off for Castlegar. We will be visiting Andreas' host family, with whom she lived for over 7 months exactly 10 years ago.