JillMelancon Travel

An Ugly American Abroad

Heading to the 49th State Via Vancouver

3 July 2023 Usual sad goodbye with Bert. Got ready and Ubered to the airport. Flight to Toronto without incident. Once there, had to go through customs, then back through security…weird. Grabbed a meatball sub at Subway and headed to the gate for a short wait for boarding. This is my first time on WestJet…and…

JillMelancon Travel

July 3, 2023

1–2 minutes

3 July 2023

Usual sad goodbye with Bert. Got ready and Ubered to the airport. Flight to Toronto without incident. Once there, had to go through customs, then back through security…weird. Grabbed a meatball sub at Subway and headed to the gate for a short wait for boarding. This is my first time on WestJet…and they have no entertainment screens! The flight is over 4 hours and no screens (and the girl next to me painted her nails)! Just a drink and snack (pretzels). However, all Canadian airline employees (even in security) are very nice—one of them literally said “no worries” to me.

Made it into Vancouver and to my Airbnb easily—public transit/metro so clean and easy to use—you don’t even have to buy a special card or anything because you can just tap your credit card. My Airbnb is in a really nice building of condos, but on the ground floor inside area with trees and green space and little ponds in front of each unit. I went to lunch around the corner at Tako—a Korean BBQ taqueria—and had a really good bibimbap bowl with spicy pork.

Walked to the Chinatown gate (my Airbnb is in that area)—Vancouver has the second largest Chinatown in North America. Next, headed to my first tour—the Lost Souls of Gastown. Gastown is the nickname of a particular area of town named after a famous resident known as Gassy because he talked so much (talked a lot of “hot air” or gas). It was okay…but not really a ghost tour or scary at all. I did learn a lot of good history stuff about the city.