Lovely Sunday: White Rock

The Rain God has been very kind to me recently, He decided to give me a break from the rain and shower me with lots of sunny love instead. Thanks to his generosity, I had a short road trip with my friends last Sunday, to a place which took about 45 minutes of driving from Burnaby- White Rock.

White Rock is a small peaceful seaside community lying within the Metro Vancouver district. It is quite underpopulated with approximately 18,000 residents, but the low population density makes it relaxing and ideal for weekend getaway.

The first thing we saw upon reaching was the wide stretch of beach along the seaside. It definitely helps to boost up the 'vacation feel' instantly.

I will let my pictures do the rest of the talking. :) This beauty is just way beyond verbal description.

Basically, the sea side is the main attraction of this small town. The beach is wide and spacious, you don't feel pressured even when there are many people. To me, it's also a good picnic place or weekend leisure walk for family and couples. 

There is a rail road beside the beach, :) making it a unique place for photography. Shipping trains pass by it few times a day, carrying tonnes of goods and I just happened to catch one during my visit! *feeling lucky*

 I even caught sea gulls lining up for photos, perhaps they were just waiting to be in frame eh! *chuckles*

Opposite the waterfront is a row of restaurants and souvenir shops. We picked a local seafood favourite for our lunch. Seafood there was pretty cheap considering the portion, $7 for a Fish & Chips combo. I'm not a fan of Fish & Chips but the food taste and price well deserve a recommendation! Don't forget to check out Moby 的鸡鸡 (according to the funny Kareshi) next time you set foot on White Rock.

Basho cafe: A gem in town

Thanks to my good friend Xin, I found a new gem in town. :) What's even better is that it's located pretty close to my work place!

Basho is a lovely cafe run by a Japanese family. It's a small shop sitting on East Hasting st, with around 4 table seats and 2 more window seats in total.

 The menu is very simple, which I think is good considering that it's a small cafe. Sometimes less means more ( in terms of food quality).

The cafe is a mixture of contemporary and retro setting. It gives me a homely feel, with a lot of D.I.Y decorations in place, and of course, a friendly obasan serving me in front of the counter. All these contribute to a cozy place to chill on a weekend.

The crowd was manageable when we went there. Although there were grab-and-go customers hassling in and out every couple of minutes, it did not create an intense feeling to the customers sitting in the cafe.

 The pastry is pretty unique too! It infuses the Japanese flavours into Western pastry.  We tried the Nut mochi, Kabocha muffin, Chocolate matcha cookie, Matcha white chocolate brownie, and Sesame brownie. Prices are quite reasonable, ranging from $0.5-2.00 per piece.

I guess the Japanese style pastry really suit my palate. Similar to Japanese pastry, they have lighter texture and sweetness. Except for the nut mochi, the others are not too sweet, just nice for my liking. Sizes are just nice for the 2 of us, not too big and we managed to try on various types.


I personally like the Matcha brownie a lot because the texture is light but every bite of it feels like I'm immersing myself in a Matcha sea.

We ordered the Matcha latte and it came in a huge cup. The latte is lightly scented with Matcha, it has more milky taste instead.

I really like this cafe a lot because it's not too crowded, providing the right atmosphere for chatting with a friend I've not seen in a while. The eats taste really good and reasonably priced, I would love to go back next time!

Short business hours would be the only disappointing part of this lovely cafe, as it runs from 9-4pm from Sat-Sun and 9-5pm from Wednesday and Thursday (Yes it's closed on Mon and Tues). Hopefully they would extend the hours in future so that I could grab some cookies home after work!

* Special thanks to Xin for most of the great pictures :) *

Friday date: Granville Island

Hello folks!

Last Friday was another Friday date for baby and I. With the presence of warmer weather in Vancouver, we could stay outdoor longer and hop around more places leisurely. Without hesitation, I picked Granville Island for our afternoon walk.

Compared to other islands, Granville Island is relatively smaller piece of land sitting in the heart of Downtown. Because of its convenient assess from Downtown, there's always a huge crowd in the island during weekends and technically, any sunny weather. Vancouverites know exactly where to head to whenever they see the sun!

I don't like huge crowd and long line ups, so going there on a weekday sounds like a perfect plan for me. It allows me to capture the peaceful side of Granville Island.

One thing that keeps me visiting Granville Island repeatedly has to be the crafty boutique in there!

You get to find many small and cute things here, from ancient seal stamps, postcards to vintage hats! Seriously, I can wander around these small shops for the whole afternoon just because of the fun things I can find here. A lot of the things are also unique, most of the time Granville Island is the only place I can ever see them. That just makes window shopping a fun experience here.

Many shops also have contemporary settings, creating a comfortable shopping atmosphere for customers to wander around.

I skipped the beer tasting this time, tried it with my friends on my last visit here and it was quite a unique experience. There were 8 brewery selections and we picked 6 different brews altogether.  The brews came in 4oz glasses to leave some space in your stomach to try all 6 types.

Each of them had pretty distinct taste and flavour, from bitter to sweet.There was also a tasting map on the table which explained each type and their flavour to help us better understand the beer flavour profiles.

The tasters were quite cheap too, 3 cups of 4oz for $6! :) I would definitely recommend this to anyone who's visiting there!

:) That was another lovely Friday, how I wish every Friday stays awesome like this!