Now, I’ll talk about the first two days of that trip. I was only in Canada for a week, but the first two days I spent in Vancouver and then after spending that time in Vancouver, I flew to Kelowna for Christmas with my family. And I’ll tell you about that in a different episode. Today, I’m just going to tell you about that first 48 hours.

I met up with my best friend Luke and we got up to a lot of fun things. So that’s the story for this week. I hope you’ll enjoy it. And without any further ado, let’s get right to it. Here we go. The flight from Seoul to Vancouver takes around nine hours, which may seem like a long time, but to be honest with you, I find that it passes pretty quickly.

Once you board the plane and you take off, well, when you’re around an hour into your flight, they serve you a meal and then you take a nap and then you wake up and you eat some breakfast. And then an hour or two later you land, and the time seems to go by pretty quickly. And it’s nice when you fly from Seoul to Vancouver. You leave in the early evening around 5 or 6 p.m.

I can’t remember exactly when the flight departed, but it was around that time. And you arrive in Vancouver in the morning. Now, there’s a 17-hour time difference between Vancouver and Seoul, so there’s a huge time gap. But the way that it works out, you can sort of psychologically trick your mind into thinking that you left in the evening, and you woke up and it’s the morning.

And it kind of works somehow, even though you’re actually repeating the same day over again because you’re going back in time. Anyways, when I arrived in Vancouver, I felt pretty good. I felt like I had a restful flight and that was really important because I had a huge day ahead of me. Now, I was planning to meet my best friend in Vancouver.

His name is Luke and he actually appeared on Culips not too long ago. He joined me for an interview to talk about learning how to scuba dive. So many of you will have listened to that episode already, but if you haven’t listened to it and you’d like to go back and learn a little bit about Luke and who he is, then you can do that.

I’ll put the link to that episode in the description for this episode. But yeah, he’s been my best friend for over 30 years. We go way back to elementary school. He lives in China and, of course, I live in Korea. So, we’re kind of in the same neighborhood, geographically speaking, but we don’t actually get to see each other too often.

Usually, when we do run into each other, it’s back home in Canada, weirdly enough. And so, this was one of those times. We were both going back to Canada for Christmas to see our families and it just so happened that we were in the same place at the same time, and we could meet up. And Luke was visiting some of his family in a different city in Canada when I was coming to Vancouver.

So, he actually had to fly into Vancouver as well. And it was just amazing. Our flights landed at the Vancouver airport at almost exactly the same time. I think I was around an hour ahead of him arriving, but he was coming on a domestic flight. And when you’re on a domestic flight, you can just sort of hop off the plane and you’re here. OK?

But on an international arrival, you have some extra steps. You have to go through immigration. So sometimes that can take a little bit of extra time. But the timing was almost perfect. By the time that I had got my bags and went over to the domestic terminal to meet Luke, he was just coming off of his flight. And so, it was perfect timing.

We did have to wait for Luke’s suitcase to come and arrive. And we were just chatting. You know, I hadn’t seen him for a couple of years. So, we were just hanging out and talking while we were waiting for his bag to arrive. We were just standing there at the luggage carousel and not really paying too much attention. He told me his suitcase was bright blue and is really easy to notice.

So that’s kind of nice. Like, we just were like, OK, we’ll see it and we don’t have to stare and check every bag that looks really similar because so many suitcases look similar, right? So, we were just hanging out by the baggage carousel, waiting for his suitcase. And then we were like, wow, it’s been over 30 minutes and there aren’t very many people waiting anymore.

We’re the only two people near that baggage carousel. And there were a few stray bags just going around and around, but his wasn’t one of them. So, he’s like, “Hmm, I got to see what’s up with my bag.” So, he went and talked to the airline at the baggage counter, and they were like, “Yeah, we don’t have a record of your bag being on the airplane.”

It’s still back where he was coming from. I think he was coming from Calgary. So, he lost his bag, but they promised to send it to Vancouver and deliver it to the hotel that we were staying at by the end of the day. So, we’re like, “OK, whatever. Let’s go.”

So, we got out of the airport, and we were going to take the SkyTrain, which is Vancouver’s version of the subway, to our hotel, check in at our hotel, and then explore Vancouver for the day. That was our plan. As we walked outside, we were met with very, very rainy weather. Vancouver’s nickname is Raincouver after all and it lived up to its nickname.

It was very rainy, and Luke didn’t even bring a raincoat or anything with him. He just had like this big flannel jacket kind of thing. Very Canadian. And I, luckily enough, did bring a raincoat, but neither of us had umbrellas. And so, we had to run from the airport to the SkyTrain station to catch the SkyTrain and to avoid getting wet. Honestly, that wasn’t so bad.

But once we arrived at our SkyTrain station and we had to walk to our hotel, which was only 400 meters or so, but at that point the rain was really coming down and we were quite soaked by the time that we got to the hotel. We asked the hotel, we were like, “Are there some umbrellas that you can borrow?” As we were checking in and they’re like, “Yeah, we got lots of umbrellas.

Don’t worry. You can borrow some umbrellas. Of course.” So, like, OK, that’s not a problem. The weather wasn’t too cold. It was just really rainy. So, we went up to our hotel room and we changed and got ready to go out. At this point, it was just around lunchtime. So, we’re going to go out and get some lunch.

So, we went down back to the hotel lobby, and we talked to the hotel staff and the guy at the front desk was like, “Oh, I’m so sorry. I just gave the last two umbrellas away.” I guess every guest didn’t have an umbrella and so they were in high demand and that left us without any umbrellas. That’s OK. It’s the Vancouver way.

It’s actually really interesting coming from Asia now because here if it rains just a little bit in Seoul, everybody’s got their umbrellas out but in Vancouver, not so much. They’re not really an item that people use even when it’s pouring rain. You see just people walking around with rain jackets and trying to stay out of the rain, take shelter under buildings and this kind of thing.

But not too many people use umbrellas. So, we were getting a little wet there for the first little while but thankfully after 15 to 20 minutes, the rain stopped, and it actually turned into quite a nice afternoon. So, since Luke and I we’re both Canadians who live abroad, we wanted to have a nice Canadian lunch, something that was a taste of home.

So, we decided to go to this restaurant in downtown Vancouver which serves Quebecois fast food. Of course, Quebec is the region in Canada that is really unique and special and different from every other region of Canada. The language that’s spoken in Quebec is French and they have a very distinct, unique culture there.

And of course, I lived in Montreal for several years, over a decade ago now, but I did really enjoy my time there and I love Quebecois-style fast food. I’m talking about things like poutine which is, Canada will brag and say that it’s one of our best food exports, one of the best foods that we have but really it comes from Quebec. It’s like French fries with gravy and cheese curds on top.

So, I ordered a poutine and so did Luke and we also ordered a couple of steamies. Steamies are just hot dogs that are steamed and so the bun is really, really soft, and also there’s some nice coleslaw on top, kind of cabbage with a little bit of a vinaigrette flavor and just light and it was delicious. It hit the spot. I was like, ah, we’re back home. We’re back in Canada.

And the place that we went to which was called La Belle Patate. Shout out to La Belle Patate. If you’re ever in Vancouver, you should check it out for some delicious, authentic Quebec-style fast food. It was decked out and decorated with a lot of hockey paraphernalia and just really felt like a Canadian vibe in there. So, we enjoyed it.

So, we ate a lot of food, probably too much and after we finished our lunch, we decided we have to go for a walk because we just ate a lot of calories. We need to burn these calories off. So, we went for a nice walk through downtown Vancouver and we ended up on the seawall which is this nice walking and cycling path that goes alongside the ocean and goes around the edge of the whole city of Vancouver.

So, we were just hanging out, catching up, enjoying our walk along the beautiful seawall, taking a look at the ocean and the mountains in the background. Vancouver is one of the most beautiful cities in the world that I’ve ever been to, definitely in terms of its natural beauty. It’s just a really gorgeous place.

So, we were enjoying our walk and as we were maybe 45 minutes into our walk, suddenly the seawall was closed and there was this sign that said, the seawall is under construction. You can’t go along any further. And so, we decided, hey, let’s just go up this path that was off to the side and we followed that path. We thought eventually it will come and meet back with the seawall, right?

Of course, it has to. Well, it was not exactly true because this path led us into Stanley Park which is one of the big famous parks in Vancouver. It’s this huge park and I didn’t realize this but it’s really, really big! And it’s got this forest in the middle of it and even it has like a mini mountain in the middle of it.

Because we were walking on this path and suddenly it turns into a hiking trail and we’re going up quite a steep hill and we were really in a wooded area all of the sudden and we’re like, where are we? Are we even in Vancouver?

Thankfully, we had our phones with us and our maps with us and we are able to follow the navigation system on our phone to get us back to the city, back to the seawall, and eventually back to our hotel.

But we were both laughing, especially me. I was like, this morning I woke up in Seoul and now here in the afternoon I’m in the middle of the forest in Vancouver. Life is so weird how it can just change so quickly. So anyways, we walked back to our hotel and by the time we arrived back at our hotel, it was the evening and we had walked over 30,000 steps during our walk.

So, I think mission accomplished. We were able to burn off all of those calories that we ate at La Belle Patate. So that was good. Mission accomplished. Obviously, I was pretty tired by that point in the day after a long flight, after a big meal, after a huge walk and a hike. I was done. So, I think at that point we just called it a night.

We got a good rest and a good sleep in because we had a busy day planned for the next day which would be our final day of the trip together. Luke’s girlfriend originally planned to come and visit Canada with him. She, of course, also lives in China but she had a problem getting something to do with either her visa or her passport.

I can’t exactly remember but originally, they were planning to come together but then they had to change their plan. And Luke was just going to come by himself, and she had to stay in China which kind of sucks but that’s just the way it looked like it was going to work out.

But at the last possible moment something happened, and she was either able to get her visa issued or get her passport. Something happened where she was suddenly able to join Luke on the trip. So, she messaged him and was like, “I’m coming to Canada! I’m on the plane right now. I’ll see you in 10 hours.” And so, Luke was like, “Oh my God, my girlfriend’s coming.”

So, we had to make some quick adjustments to our plan to accompany her. Now, obviously, we already had our hotel booked and we had just two beds in the hotel room, two twin beds, and we’re like, OK, I think we can sneak her into the hotel. She can stay just for the one night. It was our last night in Vancouver.

So, we decided just to sneak her into the hotel for that night and that would be fine. But our big plan for that day was we were going to go see a professional National Hockey League game. See, the Vancouver Canucks, my favorite team and Luke’s favorite team, play the San Jose Sharks. And this would be our first time watching a game together.

Often, we watch games at the same time, and we chat on our phones as we’re watching the games happen live. But this would be our first time going to the arena and watching the games together in person. So, we were super stoked for that. But then at the last moment, Luke’s girlfriend was coming. So, he’s like, “I got to get her a ticket as well.”

And so, because it was like the day of, it was impossible for us to get an extra ticket right beside where we were sitting. So, Luke ended up getting just a single ticket that was like on the other side of the stadium, unfortunately. And not the greatest seat. The San Jose Sharks are not a great professional team, but they have this one star rookie who is just a really, really great player.

And so, so many people wanted to go to that game just to see that star player perform. And also, this was a game that happened on December 23rd. So right before Christmas. So, I think a lot of people have some free time around the holidays. And so, going to watch a hockey game is a great way to spend some free time in Canada. So, the game was almost sold out.

So, it’s lucky that he was able to buy a ticket at all. But yeah, unfortunately, we weren’t able to get the three seats together. So, we had to make these last-minute adjustments to our plans. So, the next morning when we woke up, we went to the hotel gym actually. Luke enjoys exercising and he wanted to show me his exercise routine and teach me some weightlifting maneuvers.

And I was down for that. I wanted to learn about what he does to stay in shape. So, we did a little workout together. It was cool. It was almost like I had a personal trainer. And then, you know, I’m a runner. So, we also hit the treadmills up for a little bit. And I got Luke running for a little bit on the treadmill. So, we did a little bit of his style of exercise and a little bit of my style of exercise.

And then it was time for Luke to go to the airport to meet his girlfriend. And that meant that I had some spare time. So, I went to an area of the city called Commercial Drive. And I wanted to go to a record store there. So, I went to a record store there that I like. And I didn’t buy anything. I was really, really tempted to buy some records. But I didn’t have any room in my bags.

Of course, after Vancouver, I was going to my hometown, Kelowna, to see my family for Christmas. And my bags were filled with Christmas presents. I was like Santa Claus with his sack full of presents. So, I couldn’t, unfortunately, buy any records. As a record lover and music lover, that was a little bit painful for me.

But it was cool just to do some window shopping at the store and some browsing. And then I went back to the hotel. And I met up with Luke and his girlfriend. Meeting her for the first time was really cool. She’s a lovely person. And so, after getting acquainted a little bit, then we went to an area of the city called Granville Market. It’s a really famous tourist destination.

And we wanted to introduce Luke’s girlfriend to that market. A beautiful market on the water. And also, it’s got a nice food court there with many different kinds of options for lunch. And so that’s what we did. We ate some lunch there. I ordered pierogies, which are another kind of famous Canadian food. I know they’re originally from Eastern Europe.

But in Western Canada, we love pierogies, which are a kind of dumpling stuffed with potatoes. And the ones that I had were also filled with cheese, I believe. And Luke also ordered pierogies. So, we had a pierogi lunch. And yeah, although not a famous Canadian food, it is a food that Canadians, especially in Western Canada, love.

So, we had a great lunch. And then after lunch, we had coffee and a doughnuts from this really famous doughnuts shop called Lee’s Doughnuts. And I absolutely love doughnuts, especially ones that aren’t too sweet. And these doughnuts at Lee’s doughnuts, I think, are like just right. They’re not too sweet. They’re not too big. They’re not too filling. They’re just like the perfect doughnuts.

I consider myself somewhat of a doughnuts connoisseur. And Lee’s Doughnuts are some of the best around. So, we had to get some of Lee’s doughnuts. And we sat outside and ate them by the water. And we had to fend off attacks from seagulls as we were eating the doughnuts. I guess they look so delicious that the seagulls and the other seabirds wanted some as well.

So, we kept having to be like, yeah, yeah, get out of here, get out of here as we were trying to eat our doughnuts. But we got them down and the birds got none of our crumbs or anything. So that was a success. And then it was time to go to the hockey game. So, we got on one of the water taxis that operate in that area. And that’s always fun to get on one of these little boats.

And it ferried us across to the area where the… Rogers Arena is the name of the arena where the ice hockey games happen in Vancouver. So, it ferried us across the water close to Rogers Arena. And it was perfect timing just for us to get into the arena and get some refreshments and then sit down for the game. Now, everyone, I have a question for you. What would you do in this situation?

This is the situation I was in. And it was really a kind of dilemma. And a dilemma is when you have to make a decision and you have to choose between multiple options. And none of those options offer you a good outcome. You’re going to be dissatisfied or unhappy or in a bad kind of situation no matter what you choose.

So, my two options were, you know, Luke’s girlfriend had just arrived in Canada. And Luke and I were originally planning to see the game by ourselves. So, we had two good seats. We were like third row on the upper deck of the arena near the center of the ice. So, we had a great view of all of the playing surface and the players.

And then Luke’s girlfriend, on the other hand, was in a much worse spot. She was like on the 10th or 11th row, kind of in the corner. And so, I had to decide, do I let Luke and his girlfriend sit together? And then I’ll go and sit in the back and just let them have a nice experience together.

If I did that, then of course Luke’s girlfriend would be happy and that would be a very kind and nice thing to do. My other decision would be just to sit in my original seat. And sit with Luke and enjoy the game like we intended to. In the good spot, in the good position. But if I did that, then maybe Luke and his girlfriend would be a little bit disappointed. So, I didn’t really know what to do.

So, I asked Luke, I was like, what should I do in this situation? And he’s like, eh, she doesn’t care about hockey. She can sit in the back. So, I guess Luke was on my side. You know, we just decided to stick with the original plan. And I did feel a little bit bad about that, to be honest with you. But I wasn’t willing to give up my good seat.

So, it was kind of funny because Luke’s girlfriend was wearing this bright neon yellow toque. A very, very bright yellow toque. And we took her to her seat and sat her down. This was also her first hockey game. And she doesn’t really know too much about ice hockey or anything. But she was excited just to check out the atmosphere. And they put on a really good show for the games.

There’s lots of entertainment. And every time there’s a break in the game, they’re playing loud, exciting music. And they always are throwing t-shirts. Or the mascot is out there dancing. Or sometimes they have little toddlers come onto the ice to play a game of hockey.

And it’s cute to see the little toddlers try to skate around as they fall over. And there’s lots of entertainment that happens during the game when there are break times. And so, she was just excited to check out some of that entertainment and the festive atmosphere right before Christmas. It’s a good vibe in the arena. So, we brought her to her seat. And then we said goodbye.

And we went back to our seat. And it was hilarious because of that neon yellow toque. We could see Luke’s girlfriend all the way across on the other side of the arena. And we were waving to her. And I don’t think she saw us, but we could see her. And we were able to keep her in our sights. So that we didn’t lose her during the intermission breaks or anything like that.

But the game was great. The Vancouver Canucks won. I think that’s the first time I’ve ever seen them win in person. I’ve seen them lose before, but never win. So that was a great feeling. And we really enjoyed that game. And then after the game was finished, we went and got some dinner. We had Japanese ramen. Kind of Fukuoka-style ramen.

Which Luke and I were laughing. Like we came all the way from Asia to North America. And then we eat Japanese food, which is Asian food. But of course, I live in Korea, and he lives in China. And so Japanese food is something that we don’t eat every day. And I think Vancouver in general does have pretty good Japanese food. So, we really enjoyed that. It hit the spot.

And then after that, we were pretty wiped. Again, that was like a full, long day. And I felt like the jet lag was starting to catch up with me. And then the next day, actually really early in the morning, I think at 7am. I had a flight to catch to go to my hometown of Kelowna. To spend Christmas with my family. And a 7am flight means that you need to be up by 4am.

Because you need to be at the airport by 5-5:30am. And so, I wanted to make sure that I was asleep early. So that I could wake up and get to the airport in time for my flight. So, it was a short but sweet, fast and furious, 48 hours in Vancouver. But it was so awesome to hang out with my old buddy Luke. To see a Vancouver Canucks game. To eat some great food.

And to meet his wonderful girlfriend as well. So, you couldn’t really ask for a better time in Vancouver in the winter, I think, than the 48 hours that I spent in Van City. So, I was really happy that I got to do that. Well, everyone, that’ll bring us to the end of today’s episode. But great job on listening all the way to the end. Thank you for spending some time learning English with me today.

This is what you need to do to improve your fluency. Remember, when you are learning English, consistency is key. Consistency is king. So, spending time with English every day is really going to add up and make a huge difference in your fluency levels. So, since you studied all the way to the end of today’s episode, I need to give you the completion code.

Share the completion code with me and our entire Culips community in the comments for this episode. Either on the YouTube page, or the Instagram page, or our Discord community. And that will signal to everyone that you did it. That you made it all the way to the end. So, for this week’s completion code, we’re going to go with the word doughnuts. Doughnut. D-O-U-G-H-N-U-T.

And the reason the completion code is doughnut is because I had one of the most delicious doughnuts in the world at Lee’s Doughnuts in Vancouver, BC. So, everyone, until next week, have just a great time, a great week ahead. Happy English learning, as always. Please take care, and I’ll be back soon with another brand-new Culips episode. Until then, goodbye.