In Vancouver

I'm up north here visiting Brad for the next week and a half. I arrived late Saturday and, whadya know, it was raining. Also rained all day yesterday. We went out anyway, rain being something of a novelty for me these days. "Walking in the rain sounds fun,"I thought. And it was--for about an hour. We stayed out for four.

We went to Chinatown and then sloshed around Gastown. Seeing as how it was wet and miserable, we didn't really feel up to looking around either place much. We did stop into a bakery in Chinatown for lunch and had the best steamed pork buns ever. Brad said they reminded him of the ones he had in Beijing, but the ones I got down in WuXi were never that great. The pork buns yesterday though were fluffy and soft with tangy shreds of pork in the middle.

Of course today, when we aren't going out anywhere, it's nice and sunny. Hopefully the weather will stay that way for at least a few days while I'm here, because I'm sure Vancouver's very pretty when it is. There's some hints of fall color in the trees , which is a nice change.

Funny, I 'd forgotten that I have seasonal allergies, not having lived any place with real seasons for such a long time. My sinuses remembered, though.