Monday · October 26 · Vancouver
One day, mapped out end to end — starting with coffee and ending with candles. All you have to do is show up.
— Kenny
Before we start
I flew eleven time zones to be here, so I'd like to spend one of those days doing nothing but eating well and laughing at things that aren't that funny.
I picked everything on this page for one reason or another — a view, a plate of food, a fake aeroplane that smells like pine trees. Nothing here is compulsory. If you'd rather stay in one place longer, we stay.
Gastown
No alarm, no queue, no agenda. We start with a proper flat white in the old brick part of town, sitting somewhere we can watch the street wake up.
This is the one part of the day with no plan attached — because the best version of a birthday morning is the one where nobody is checking the time.
Flyover · Canada Place
Not a real plane, and I'm not going to pretend otherwise: you sit in a row of seats, the floor drops away, and your feet dangle over a giant curved screen for eight minutes while the wind hits your face and it smells like pine forest. You fly over the Rockies, the prairies and the coast without leaving the building.
It's the least effort any form of flying has ever required, and you'll still grip my arm at the bit over the waterfall. Through Halloween it's the haunted version, so something will make me jump and you will never let me forget it.
Main Street
If I've learned anything about feeding you, it's that we order too much on purpose and then argue over the last piece. So: a loud, warm room, a table full of plates, and absolutely no restraint.
Main Street afterwards is the good kind of street — small shops that are impossible to walk past without going in.
Richmond Country Farms
This one's for you, because I know exactly what happens to you around anything with four legs. Goats, sheep, and a farm that goes full autumn in October — hay bales, a corn maze, and a tractor-drawn wagon out to the pumpkin field.
You get to take home whatever pumpkin you can carry, which in your case will be the largest one on the field and I'll be the one carrying it. There are also apparently animatronic dinosaurs, which nobody asked for and everybody loves.
Richmond Centre
Here's the honest truth: I don't know what you want. I could guess, and I'd probably be wrong in a specific and expensive way.
So we're going shopping instead. Pick whatever you actually want, take as long as you like, and I'll carry the bags and pretend I have opinions.
Gastown
Confession: I've been quietly nervous about this bit all day, because I have no idea which ones you'd pick and the florist will absolutely judge me for it.
It's two minutes from the restaurant, so we stop on the way in. You choose. I'll carry them to the table and pretend that was the plan all along.
Tuc Craft Kitchen · Gastown
Comfort food, done properly. Big generous plates, real cocktails, low light, and a room that's loud enough that nobody minds us being loud too.
We'll get there early enough to walk it first — cobblestones, the steam clock doing its thing, and every storefront dressed up for Halloween, which conveniently makes the whole street look like it was lit for us.
“One drink somewhere dark, with a menu that reads like a pharmacy and cocktails that taste like a secret.”
The nightcap ruleChinatown
A small room, candlelit, with drinks built on Chinese herbs and bitters. We get one each, we sit far longer than one drink usually lasts, and we don't look at our phones.
If we're still awake after that, the night is officially a success and I'll consider it a personal achievement.
Home
It's been in the fridge all day, hiding behind things. There are candles. I've written something on top, so you'll have to be the judge of my handwriting.
And then the day's done — which is the only part of this page I'm not looking forward to.
One last thing
Thank you for letting me drag you around a city for a whole day. Next year, we do it wherever you want — and I'll start planning even earlier.
Kenny