Immaculate Reception

We finally had our first out-of-province visitors this past week, just in time for the holidays. Last Monday, we picked up these two at the Vancouver International Airport (YVR, for those of you who want to check ticket prices). 


One other, unrelated, thing—my brother-in-law B.J. wanted me to mention him in this blog, but I'm not going to. 

Here's a better picture of our guests, my sister Trisha and her Friend Alex O'Meara, visiting all the way from wonderful little Bisbee, Arizona.

On this day, we were on our way downtown, to have lunch and then visit the Vancouver Art Gallery. 

So, we hopped on the SkyTrain at Nanaimo Station just up the block from our place. Tuesday was a beautiful sunny day, for the most part.

Trisha took this picture in the Granville Subway Station. Douglas is a border town near Bisbee. In spite of the sign, however, we clearly weren't in Douglas.

We had lunch at Shizen Ya, a great little organic Japanese restaurant near the art museum. 

I had the vegetable miso yaki udon, Patty had the teriyaki tofu steak with salad, brown rice, and spinach gomaae, and Trish and Alex had sushi, miso, and gyoza.


Also, Alex performed an exorcism before we ate. 

After our late lunch, we took Sid and Nancy to a great little exhibit at the VAG [sic] called Shore, Forest, and Beyond, art from the private holdings of  Michael Audain and Yoshiko Karasawa who have, over the last two decades, amassed an incredible collection of work by First Nations and non-First Nations British Columbia artists, with a few notable Mexican artists thrown in for good measure.

Trish and Alex got to use our two free guest museum passes as they were our first out-of-town visitors. 

And naturally, we had a night cap at our favorite brew pub, the Steam Works in Gas Town. Alex and I had the Coal Porter, Trisha had the Nirvana Nut Brown Ale, and Patty had the seasonal Hefeweizen. Oh, and we shared some tasty garlic fries.

To be continued...