Our first week in Vancouver

So, here we are, finally with our feet on the ground in Vancouver!

After months of planning, applying for visas, saving money, finishing up our jobs and, of course, saying our goodbyes to family and friends we boarded our Dublin-Vancouver (via Heathrow) flight with just one checked-in bag each and one week of accommodation booked. A little less prepared than we’d have liked but probably a little more than we needed to be.

For our flight to Heathrow, we had a plane full of college J1ers (college year was just over in Ireland) who, much like us, were off to get connection flights to the likes of LA, Boston and Toronto and adventures of their own. As if it was needed, that alone helped us get in the mood for what lay ahead. Even better, the Aer Lingus check-in staff in Dublin had bumped us up to emergency aisle seats so we had plenty of room to stretch out and chill after what had been a frantic last few days of packing up.

In Heathrow we put our stretched out legs to good use with a decent dash from one end of Terminal 2 to the other. We knew when we booked the flights that the one hour connection was tight but a 15 minute delay leaving Dublin and a “flight closing” status on the departures board when we landed left us a little concerned. The healthily-long boarding line that greeted us when we reached the gate was at serious odds with the “flight closing” status that had us hurrying from gate to gate. We’d made it with plenty of time to spare. All the same, it was nice to be boarding our second flight without even a sit down in between; it made the outward trip seem that bit shorter.

Onboard we settled in for a longer flight all the way to Vancouver. We managed to get three seats to ourselves on a mostly full Air Canada flight – almost as good as the emergency aisle on the Aer Lingus flight. Nine hours, two films, one tv show (American Sniper, The Great Escape and Taxi if you’re wondering), some sleep and a few meals later we landed at a warm but cloudy Vancouver International airport (or YVR for you code lovers out there).

With a completed immigration card, our two year visa invitation and all the supporting documents boxes ticked, ticked and treble ticked we didn’t have many worries for our route through customs. At passport control we got some light but friendly questions (along with our first of many “Welcome to Canada”) before being directed to immigration to finalise our visas. Here we had a bit of a wait (1.5 hours!) due to the sheer number of people looking for visas and the scarcity of immigration officers on duty. Once we got up to a hatch we had our freshly stamped and approved letters in hand in no time and the buzz we were on for being in a new city returned. Just like that, we were free to roam.

In true new-arrivals-to-Canada fashion, our first purchases in the airport arrival hall were a couple of Tim Horton’s coffees, perfect for soaking up our Canadian surroundings. Then it was onto the Vancouver Skytrain for the trip out to our Airbnb. The Skytrain brought us to Downtown Vancouver and from there we hopped on a bus for a 20 minute trip to the place we were staying. It was all going so smoothly. On the bus trip we got to see more of Vancouver than we expected – after a five or six stops and an unexpected bridge or two we realised we were on the right bus but heading in the wrong direction. A quick hop off, stroll across the street and hop back on another bus had us back on track. Our first wrong step of the trip and it wasn’t a big one. Credit to Google Maps for getting us as far as it did.

We found our Airbnb easily enough and were welcomed in off the sidewalk by our hosts for the week, Bob and Paula. As soon as we’d received the tour and finished up with the pleasantries, we threw ourselves on the bed – as light as we’d packed we were worn out from carrying all our worldly possessions on our back all the way from the airport. Once we’d gathered ourselves a bit, we shouted a quick goodbye to our hosts and headed back into Downtown to explore.

Getting started in Canada

Our first week in Vancouver went by pretty quickly. We had a long list of things to do to get ourselves set up and we wanted to get it all done in as little time as possible and get on the road. Our plan before coming over to Canada was to spend a week or two in Vancouver setting up, checking out places to live, getting a feel for the job scene and buying a car so that we could do a decent road trip around the States before coming back to Vancouver and (hopefully) settling into work.

Bank accounts

First on our list was to set up bank account and as it turned out, it was one of the easier tasks to complete. We had already researched the best banks for newcomers and the conclusions we came to tallied with the recommendations from reliable websites like Moving2Canada. In the end we went with ScotiaBank’s StartRight Program.

Wasting no time on our first morning – except to stop on Commercial Drive for a late breakfast – we went into the first ScotiaBank branch we came across to speak to someone in person about the set up. As luck would have it, the first bank teller we walked up to was an English guy called Liam who happened to be coming to the end of his own working holiday visit. Over 20 minutes he was able to do most of our account set up on the spot and arranged an appointment for us for after lunch to finish the set up with one of the account agents. That second visit took no more than 30 minutes and we walked out with new accounts, a debit card each and few complimentary personal cheques for paying rent and other things. Not difficult at all and so by the end of our first full day in Canada we had the task of setting up bank accounts crossed off the list.

Social Insurance Number (SIN)

Another milestone task in setting up in Canada is getting a social insurance number (SIN) and this turned out to be just as easy as the bank account set up. After a quick bit of internet research we found our nearest Service Canada office and headed into downtown Vancouver. There are a good lot of these Service Canada offices around Vancouver, with three in or around the downtown area. We picked the Sinclair Centre office for no other reason than that our bus stopped just around the corner from it.

Walking in off the street with no appointment, we expected to get a slot for a few days time but instead our passport details were taken and we were told that someone would be with us in about 20 minutes. Even more surprisingly, they actually did call us in after 20 minutes and after a relatively short process – where both of us had our passports and visas checked – we were all done. We had been given our social insurance numbers plus a small booklet informing us on the risks of identity theft – more disconcerting than reassuring. The whole process itself couldn’t have been easier and it was another task off the list.

Buying a car

We decided to buy a car for road tripping as soon as we could. The option of buying a car isn’t for everyone and depending on what you’re doing there are plenty of other options available and plenty of pros and cons to doing it. If staying locally in Vancouver the transit system is definitely good enough to bring you most places. There’s also options to rent cars for short trips or rent campers for longer trips or even Car2Go scheme to get across town. For us, renting a car wasn’t cost effective and using transit didn’t give us the flexibility we wanted.

Getting on the road with your own car in British Columbia is a little different to home for a number of reasons and Vancouver is an expensive place to buy a car due to high sales tax and simply because cars seem to hold their value more in B.C. than other places for whatever reason. Having said that, buying a car is relatively simple and for us the most difficult parts were transferring our funds over from Ireland (which we needed to do anyway), finding a car that suited and finding a local address we could use for car registration and insurance (a friend’s address is ok for this, a hostel or Airbnb can work too temporarily but you’ll have to clear with the people at the address as things will be posted there and you’ll need to change it as soon as you get a permanent address of your own).

Importantly a driving licence from your own country can be used in B.C. for up to six months before you have to get a local licence so, with us both having full Irish driving licences, at least that gave us some breathing space and wasn’t something that we needed to worry about straight away.

Car insurance in B.C. is supplied by the ICBC, a provincial insurance body, rather than by private insurance companies but, similar to home, a basic level of insurance is mandatory for all drivers. The ICBC website details the full process but we called into an Autoplan office to check our understanding of it. Autoplan brokers supply insurance policies on behalf of ICBC and also look after the change of ownership. Their offices are all over the province with most large car dealers having Autoplan brokers who’ll call out when a car is being sold. The broker we spoke to gave us an awful lot of useful information in the space of a 10 minute chat and even a few rough quotes for insurance on cars we were thinking of buying. One good point is that if you can show them a letter from a previous insurer say that you’ve been insured with no claims you can get a discount. It works out as 5% per claim free year up to a max of eight years or 40%. Without the discount, basic insurance is going to cost about CAN$1500-2500. Worth knowing if you’re working to a budget.

Similar to home (and everywhere else presumably) the option was to buy either privately or from a dealer. With our plans to road trip in the car we decided to buy from a dealer, giving us a slightly more protection if the car turned out to be a dud. We searched online for cars with Autotrader, Kijiji and Craigslist and called into a few car lots close to where we staying to look at a few cars and get a feel for the local standard. A good bit of thought was put into the car selection because of the amount of mileage we were about to put it through. A lot of the cars over here are different to home so after putting together a short list of cars we checked them against carcomplaints.com and fueleconomy.gov, using each as just an indicator. Originally we aimed for compact SUV-type cars (Ford Explorer, Toyota Rav4) thinking that they’d be more in line with the size of other cars on the US roads but the first few we viewed weren’t great quality. We switched then to estates/wagons and saloons/sedans, stretched the budget slightly and then went and bought a car we were very familiar with from home, a 2005 Audi A4 Quattro – good balance of fuel economy, comfort and reliability.

If buying from a dealer they’ll usually offer some sort of basic warranty through a third party which you also have the option of increasing. Our dealer offered us a warranty by Lubrico which covered us for engine and transmission claims up to $600 for 12months or 12000kms (whichever comes first). The only change we made was to pay another $150 to increase the claim up to $1000. Third party warranties like this can be useful to a point but can be limited too no matter how much coverage you pay for and should be viewed with a little bit of skepticism. It also means you have to get the car serviced at regular intervals by a registered garage and send the receipts to Lubrico as proof. Having said that, the actual service required wasn’t too intensive, only needing an oil change and filter change after 12000km. Given the amount of driving we were doing we were going to need to service the car regularly enough so this wasn’t too much of an issue and though we’d usually be happy to do simple services ourselves being on the road without tools meant that we would be happy enough to pay a garage for a receipted oil and filter change every so often.

The choice between a gasoline (petrol) or diesel car is another decision to make. As in most places, diesel cars are more expensive to buy in B.C.. Fuel in general in Canada is more expensive than the US with diesel more expensive than petrol in both countries. We found a website with average fuel costs and did up a simple spreadsheet to help us decide. Gasoline cars are also far more common in Vancouver so that helped the decision too and gasoline was what we went with.

Automatic versus manual was another decision. Though we’re more used to manual transmission or geared cars, automatics seem to be far more common in Vancouver and given the amount of motorway driving we were doing it didn’t matter. We chose automatic.

Accommodation

For most of our first week in Vancouver we stayed in an Airbnb in Hastings – Sunrise, changing just on our last night to another Airbnb in Mount Pleasant. We went with Airbnb over hotels or hostels as it worked out cheaper than a hotel and gave more privacy than the cheaper hostel dorm room option. Staying put in one Airbnb for a few days helped us get a good feel of Vancouver without having to worry about where we were staying and meant we didn’t have to haul our big bags around to a new place every few days. If we were to do it over we probably would have switched to a different Airbnb sooner to get a more varied view on Vancouver but as it was, it worked out ok.

That first Airbnb, in Hastings, was an ok location, with a couple of different bus options into downtown Vancouver. The owner was doing a cycle tour of Central America so her parents were staying at the house and hosting the Airbnb for her. They were helpful gave us some useful pointers about Vancouver like heading to Commercial Drive for brunch – something we really enjoyed – and the discounted transit tickets that we could get at the local 7-Eleven which made the bus in and out so much easier. The old house had paper-thin walls, creaky floorboards, loud door hinges and super-sensitive light-sleeping hosts; which meant going to the bathroom at night (after 10pm) became a ninja art form if we were to avoid thinly-veiled conversations on the subject of noisy bathroom door locks the following morning. To be fair, there were other Airbnb guests staying who were early risers and a bit loud with their chit chat in the morning and that might have had the hosts on edge. Still, if you’re running an Airbnb in a small house be prepared for the consequences of occasional late night/early morning noise. Overall, the hosts were friendly, the place was clean and while it didn’t feel as free as other Airbnb experiences we’ve had (because of the size of the house, the shared bathroom and the pinickity hosts) we were happy enough with the place.

The second Airbnb was a different experience to our first – we had a cool apartment all to ourselves in a lively part of town. The host was travelling (again, the life of an Airbnb host eh!) so interaction was minimal which was okay with us (especially welcome after the first Airbnb) and presumably ok with the host. Getting between Airbnbs was an adventure in itself. It was walkable so we threw our bags on our backs and set off. Many, many breaks later we made it. You don’t have to hop on a plane to find a hiking adventure, just throw on an oversized bag and set off on a walk around the suburbs.

We picked up the keys from a combination locker outside the apartment though the last guests had seemingly forgot to leave back the front door swipe card so we had to rely on some charm to get one of the neighbours to let us in. This she did but only after escorting us to the apartment and seeing our key fit the second door. Can’t blame her for being vigilant though our massive bags probably put her at ease – not many thieves bring full bags INTO a place, you’d imagine.

Once we got in and dropped our bags we spent a while soaking up the quietness of the place before finding a spare swipe key and heading out for some lunch. That evening we spent some time just chilling, went out for a bite to eat in a burrito place around the corner and caught up on Netflix while sprawled on the couch. After the week we’d had of running around getting to know a new city, it felt good to do nothing for just one evening. Definitely, having an entire place to yourself is the way to go and if it comes cheaply and in a great part of town too then you’re really winning.

Food

Vancouver has really surprised us so far with the choice and quality of food on offer. From what we could tell from that first week, it’s especially great for vegetarians and vegans (only one of us is a bonafide vegetarian for the record).

On Commercial drive we found a few great places to eat. Following our hungry bellies and some recommendations from friends we ate our way through Café Deux Soleis, Bandatos Tacqueria, Euro Café and Continental Coffee.

Café Deux Soleis offers mostly vegetarian dishes – and delicious at that. The same can be said for Bandatos Tacquaria – vegan, eco-friendly and really tasty food. Both places are on the drive and are to be highly recommended for breakfast, brunch, lunch and maybe even dinner though we weren’t there late in the day.

From our second Airbnb we found a few really good places too. The Foundation on Main Street is yet another vegetarian place (in case you haven’t guessed by now, at least one of us is vegetarian) and we got some great lunch there. Budgies Burritos is another cool place, serves plenty of great vegetarian options and isn’t too shabby on the accompanying margaritas either.

Another place worth a look and somewhere we wandered into on a few occasions on our route home is The Warehouse on East Hastings. It’s especially good for all you can eat burritos on Tuesdays and 25 cent wings on Wednesdays.

If you’re into Japanese food at reasonable prices then Ramen Koika on Davie isn’t a bad option and there are plenty of other choices left and right of it if you get there and decide it’s not for you. Davie street itself is full of eateries and though we didn’t have time to sample as many as we’d like we’ll certainly be putting that right as soon as we can.

All of the places above are reasonable price-wise and places we’re keen to get back to for a second, third or fourth sampling.

Wandering days

Between all our running around in the first few days and then in our much more chilled days after, we spent time exploring Vancouver as much as possible. We got around to Downtown, Commercial Drive, Yaletown, Gastown, the West End, Stanley park, Granville Island and even out as far as Burnaby (though transit is a better option for that last one).

One redeeming feature of our first Airbnb was that it was close to Commercial Drive. We’ve heard Commercial Drive described as “not a place for tourists” – a compliment to the area as it turns out. It has some amazing food places and a cool, hipster, hippy vibe about it. Everyone on “the Drive” seemed to be beating to the sound of their own drum (in the best way possible) and there seemed to be a real community feel amongst the people there.

We found ourselves drawn to the Drive at some point most days and it was usually for food that then kept us going through the rest of the day as we explored the city, not to mention a bit of people watching – and there is plenty of opportunity for people watching on the Drive.

Stanley Park is another gem in Vancouver and so much time could be spent hanging out there. It has a ton of forestry, sits along a long stretch of coast, has the usual green field park spaces and can be got to within minutes walk from Downtown. On our first visit we spent the afternoon on one of the many beaches (Third Beach) that sit in small coves along the Stanley Park Seawall. We reached it from English Bay at the end of Davie street and from there it’s a bit of a walk but well worth it. Even if you didn’t fancy siting on the beach, the Seawall walk alone is even worth doing. Just watch out for cyclists and rollerbladers on the small few sections where their paths merge with the pedestrian path, they’ll let you know what side they’re on, just listen out for shouts of “on the right” or “on the left”.

On another visit to Stanley Park we walked right through the park as far as the viewpoint in front of the Teahouse Restaurant. We chilled there for a few hours and in that time alone a couple of wedding parties used it as a location for their formal photographs, giving you an idea of how good the scenery is and even though you can see most of the same scenery from down on the Seawall the walk through the park rather than around gives you a taste of a different side of Stanley park.

Another day was spent strolling out to Granville Island (actually a peninsula!!), formerly a big industrial area but now a shopping, arts and park area. There’s some pretty cool things to see there and it’s just a bridge walk across the water from The West End. Be warned though, that bridge is high – very high – and busy with traffic, so it doesn’t make for the most peaceful of walks…we might actually take a bus out next time we go. Granville also has a small boat harbour, boat houses (actual houses that people actually live in complete with two stories), an indoor market offering lots of things from fruit and veg (mountains and mountains of it, elegantly displayed) to jewellery and crafts. There’s also a college of art and design, artist workshops and galleries, a children’s festival on the day we visited, plenty of designer dogs getting their daily walks, the coolest of cement plants (among the last of the heavy industry on Granville) complete with street mural covered silos and, again, that scary ass bridge back to the mainland.

We ventured to Gastown towards the end of our first week. We probably should have got there a little sooner but it’s location right beside East Hastings (among the roughest parts of Vancouver) put us of at first. When we did go it was a Saturday night and Gastown was buzzing with people out for the night. We’d arranged to meet a Canadian friend who was out celebrating a graduation. The graduation party was in the Blarney Stone, a full on Irish bar with Guinness on tap and all, the very kind of bar we tend walk past more often than not when overseas. But since we were meeting a friend we didn’t have much choice and as it turned out the place wasn’t so bad and had a lively crowd inside with more lining up outside to get in.

We moved on after a drink or two to a quieter bar not far away, The Steamworks, which was surprisingly the only other place open after one (we’d started late). It was just after serving last orders when we came in but luckily the manager was in a generous mood and let us have a quick one. It was a really nice place that also brews it’s own beer – definitely planning another visit when we return.

So there you have it – our first week in Vancouver where we got set up a little bit and managed to explore a bit of the city. And at the end of that week we’d seen enough to decide it was definitely a place we’d like to spend a bit more of our time in. For now though it was time to hit the road and explore more of North America, our first stop – Portland!

 

our next destination: Portland, OR ⇒