Escape from Richmond: My Canada Line Adventure

My Canada Line Souvenir Passport (not a real passport)

I rode the Canada Line on Monday with my Dad and 80,000 of our best friends. We parked at King Edward Avenue and then spent 30 minutes in a line-up for the southbound train to Richmond. All we wanted, was to go to Aberdeen Mall to eat in the Chinese food court. Once we were on the train, we realized we were surrounded by a mass of riders who thought they were

going to YVR. There are two types of trains: one type goes to Richmond/Brighouse and the other diverts at Bridgeport station and goes to the airport. It was kind of funny when people realized they wouldn't be seeing the airport if they stayed on our train.

Once we arrived at Aberdeen, we did all sorts of cool stuff.

We sat in the $7000 massage chairs. Then, we went in the Taiwanese dry goods store and touched all the bags of dried fruit, which almost made the high pressure sales lady yell at us. After

that we went to Daiso (the $2 store) and I bought a bunch of cool stuff that I didn't know I needed (really cute pocket tissues and cloth tape). We also looked at the high tech Japanese toilets that have heated seats and automatically spray your bum. Then, we went up to the top floor food fair and ate takoyaki (octopus balls).

Afterwards, we wanted bubble tea, but we decided to get it at Yaohan centre. On our way to Yaohan, we walked through a small T&T supermarket in the Radisson Hotel. Then, we took the newly planted promenade beneath the skytrain track. It is really beautiful and pedestrian friendly. It was pretty amazing to see all the people walking along Alderbridge Way. Once at Yaohan, we went to Osaka Market (yes, another T&T within half a block of the last one). We bought some baked sweet potatoes and cold mussels for a snack. After our little rest we went to check on the skytrain line-up: it had stretched to over an hour long. That's when we decided to walk back to Aberdeen Mall. We went back to the food court and had really great prawn dumpling, noodle soup. We forgot to get bubble tea and when we went to get some the mall had closed. Dad and I could not believe it was already past 7 pm. When we went to look at the line up for the train, it had stretched to over two hours long. So, we decided to walk along Alderbridge Way to the Lansdowne Station.

Along the way, we stopped at PJ Pet's and Superstore to peek

around. Once we arrived at Lansdowne, we headed for the skytrain line up. As luck would have it the workers cut the line off right in front of us. We were told we could not get on in time for the 9 pm cut-off. We ended up catching the 98 B-line along Granville Street to 41st Avenue, then we took the #41 bus to Oakridge. At 41st and Cambie, we finally got our bubble tea (by now it was past 9 pm). Then, we caught the #15 bus back to King Edward Avenue where we got in the car and finally drove home.