Day 7: Happy Canada Day (Day Off)

04 Jul Day 7: Happy Canada Day (Day Off)

The Parliament Building

The fruits of our pedaling labor has finally brought us to this day, our first day off!  To celebrate, we spent whole day basically eating.  Okay…maybe not the entire day, but it did seem that way.

Morning Jaunt

We decided to go to Starbucks to grab a cup of coffee before we enjoyed our breakfast across the street called Honey Buns.  They serve your traditional breakfast entries and some Asian varieties.  Both Sang Hyun and I decided to go for the wonton soup.  It was delicious!  Not salty at all like some places I’ve been to and really hit the spot since we rarely have Asian food.

We then walked to the Parliament and visited some places to find out what time the fireworks were suppose to start that night for Canada Day.  It was all coincidental to be there right on Canada Day so we were in for a treat.  Everybody in town seemed to be wearing red and white.  People had red maple leaves painted on their faces.  Chorus of the Canadian national anthem bellowed out of party revelers in the middle of a crowd.  There was such a positive energy in the air wherever we went.

Normal Activities

People waiting for the firework show

We even got a little bit of shopping done.  I picked up another light weight shirt to wear on off days as my Smartwool ones are too warm for hot days.  We eventually made it through Chinatown and saw the local law enforcement command traffic as they dealt with a potential bomb scare.  Someone had left a duffle bag unattended on the street in front of the Chinatown entrance.

We continued our Asian food indulgence at a local Vietnamese restaurant and enjoyed our meal while watching the World Cup match between Belgium and the United States.  We left the restaurant to catch a movie at their local theatre.  Lucky for us, it was $5 Tuesday.  We got to see the new Transformers movie.  I’m going to refrain from talking about the movie, except that it was long!  Almost 3 hours long.

Happy Canada Day!

We went back to the hostel by 7PM to shower and settle our expenses so far.  That took a good 2 hours until we decided that we should get food and enjoy the fireworks.  We went to another Asian restaurant for dinner!  This time it was Thai food.  We ate our food while we watched the restaurant close at 10PM.  We quickly settled our tab and headed straight down to the harbor.  15 minutes later, the fireworks started.  It was such a treat to watch a 10 minute light show, and then we headed back up to our hostel to prepare for our journey the next day and turn into our bunk for the night.

Back to America

I was still sore from our 5 days of riding and was limping around town, but I think it helped my body relax and loosen up on our day off.  It was nice to just not be pedaling on the saddle today.  We’ll get back on the bike tomorrow and head out of Canada and back to the good ‘ole U-S of A where we can turn on our data plan and use our Google maps.