Day 9: back to the u.s.

I once had an education advisor in college claim that there weren't bad days in teaching, just "learning days". Today was definitely one of those.

one last run along the Vancouver coast today and we checked out of our hostel room. Both of us are not quite excited about staying in the hostel, but it was fantastically cheap and had great running.

Our last Vancouver activity may have been the best. The n.y. times had featured a dim sum place in Richmand, a suburb south of the city. Evidently, this city has even a larger proportion of Asians than Vancouver proper does. More or less every business had bilingual signs. Even the McDonald's. The dim sum was actually in a large rose dale-esque mall, of all places. Save a handful of other patrons, we were the only non Asians in the mall. If you're looking for anime action figures or crumby Asian hard candy, this is definitely your place. And Kate was actually medium height. Probably a good place to shop for her. Not so much for me.

We didn't exactly know what we doing for ordering, but Yelp pics helped us through it and we ended up with a good selection.

The border crossing back was a learning experience we'll say. We had the bright idea of spending the last of our Canadian money at the grocery store before crossing. I know, I'm in the future too. I also made the mistake of telling the truth. In my head, it crossed my mind, but it was a Safeway for crying out loud and I guess it just seemed too similar to be a big deal. A half hour later at the border, we parted ways with a tomato and green pepper and headed for the ferry.

(Near) Learning experience #2: you should definitely make a reservation for the port Townsend ferry. We ended up getting there with an hour before the next ferry, and thus got on, but I bet there was a good number of cars that had to wait. funny thing, I didn't even bother to look back once we made it on. Forward moving only I guess. You'd think we'd get sick of the ferry at some point, but it was still awesome. Something about being out on the ocean with the breeze, headed somewhere new.

During our wait for the ferry, we hedged our bets, folding our idea of camping, and reserved a hotel in. Port Angeles for the night. Funny thing, after we got across and were a half hour out, the sun was shining and it looked like great night for a camp fire under the stars. Sometimes it's better to be safe than sorry I guess. Funny that we seemed to be off on all of those gambles today.

But hey, we are at the edge of the olympics, have a good running path to run on tomorrow, and a nice place to shower afterward.

Chalk it up to another day of learning.