Happy Birthday Dad!

;)

Happy Birthday Dad!

Love

Andrea & Mike

XO

The Cannery

In Vancouver one of the places everyone says you have to go to once is The Cannery.

It is a great seafood restaurant out by the port where all the containers come in.

Quite an industrial area. We had a coupon in the old entertainment book so we gave it a try.

It is odd because you are driving and driving and thinking you are going the wrong way and then you come across this gait and you have to buzz and talk into a speaker.

They ask you where you are going and you tell them the Cannery.

I guess this is the port authority. I could have said "I'm going to break my buddy out of one of those containers over there" and I probably wouldn't have made it to The Cannery.
The Cannery is a very traditional Seafood restaurant. With nets, lobster cages and ship wheels as decor, but done very nicely with a big fireplace. We had a fantastic dinner of salmon and haddock. My favorite was the lobster infused oil that they bring with the bread and balsamic vinegar. Soooo yummy!

Mexico!

A few weeks ago Michael and I were in Mexico for a vacation. We stayed at an all-inclusive resort.

We dropped the dogs off at the kennel and the next day took an early flight. We made a connection in San Fransisco and landed in Mexico at about 1:00pm. By the time we checked in and got settled we had just enough time to explore the resort, get a couple of drinks and have a yummy dinner.

We had been up since 4AM so we dropped to bed and planned on getting up very early the next morning.

Look at that sunset! Gorgeous!

I will explain a little about the resort first. The resort has many bars. You can throw a sandal in pretty much any
direction and hit a bar.


There are swim up bars like this one where there is a bar facing the pool and one facing the walkway.

You can get anything you want: wine, beer, Bailey's, margaritas, pina coladas, you name it!

This one is more of a sports bar in the main lobby. Sunshine streams in from the open windows. That was something that I found very different. In the public areas of the resort, there are no doors or windows. Everything was open and free flowing. We once witnessed a bird fly from the main entrance through a window on the other side of the huge lobby.
Upstairs there is a classier bar where the nice restaurants are.

There is live classical and jazz music. One evening there was an opera singer. She was amazing!

I swear she could have shattered glass, but it was beautiful!

There is also a disco called Cesar's that is populare with the college kids. We steered clear of it.

Also in all the restaurants you can order any kind of drink and in the buffet there is beer and wine on tap that you just go up to and pour yourself!

Now for the restaurants...
There is a snack bar that runs virtually all day (early in the morning to about 2:30 AM).

It serves fresh thin crust pizza baked in a brick wood-fired oven. Mike could not get enough of it. He is a pizza fanatic.

There is also fries, hot dogs and hamburgers, nachos with fresh salsa an guacamole, ribs, all kinds of salads, fruit, chicken wings, burritos, mack and cheese, etc.



There is a French restaurant that we ate at a couple of times. It has an amazing duck dish that Mike had twice and I had once and this to-die-for chocolate dessert. At all the restaurants you can order Mexican coffees afterwards.

The whole time we were there it was sunny and hot!

I wore sunscreen every day and still I managed to get burns on my hands and feet and by the last day I was getting heat rashes on my neck and chest. My fair skin is not made for these temperatures, but Mike looked golden and healthy by the end of the week.
Here I am enjoying a massive strawberry daquari at the Mexican restaurant. It was a fantastic meal with amazing desserts.

There is also a really nice Italian restaurant and a steakhouse. All day long there is a buffet somewhere serving breakfast, lunch or dinner. You can pretty much get anything you want at every meal.

For dinner buffet, there was a different theme each night. From steakhouse to Italian to Oriental with Chinese food and sushi!

Mike and I ate so much. It was impossible not to. It was all free, there was an amazing variety and it was very good. I recommend this kind of vacation to anyone who likes to eat, but next time I would like one with out the all-inclusive food. The all-inclusive drinks I like, but by the end of the week I'd gained about 7 pounds. Oh well, you only live once!
There were load of things to do. There was mini golf, scuba lessons, wind surfing lessons, cooking lessons, archery, cocktail lessons, tennis, karaoke, you name it.

Her I am playing a quick game of mini golf.
We went rock climbing, which was really fun, I'd never done that before.

You had to get to the top, rattle the chains and then repel down while the guy at the bottom supported your weight.


I went sea kayaking, and we both really enjoyed boogie boarding.

Here is Mike catching a wave.













We took a trip on a catamaran. It is the boat with the big blue sail.

You balance people one one on each side and sail back and forth. It's a bit wet, but very cool.

We had a guide of course, I'm sure we would have tipped it on our own.
We went on a bike tour where we ended up at a swimming with the dolphins facility.

We got to watch the dolphins zooming around the tank and doing tricks.

They were feeding them little fish and they did everything from wave hello to kiss the little kids on the cheek.

The resort had the massive cages at the front gate and while waiting for a bus for our city tour we wandered over and discovered that they were full of parrots and other exotic birds.

Pretty much all the birds could say Ola!
We actually went to a time share meeting the first day we were there.

Out of it we got 2 tickets for a free tour of puerto vallarta, $80 gift certificate at the spa and a couple of t-shirts.

For the tour we were picked up in a bus and it stopped at a few places in the city. First on the beach in front of city hall. There were a number of statues by a world famous Mexican artist, like the one you see here and a number of sand sculptures. Since it was around easter, most of them were religious. One was actually a recreation of the last supper which was pretty impressive.














We went to the city hall and the town square. The massive cathedral that the town is famous for, a flea market, a silver jewelers where they served us margaritas while we browsed and finally we got back on the bus and headed for the lunch destination and the tequila distillery.
The distillery was fairly high up in the hills and we were in this massive tour bus. I was impressed that we could get around all the narrow streets and the windy curves.
We got to this outdoor restaurant and we crowded around and listened to the greeter while he explained the dishes.

He had everything on a tray fresh, raw and ready for the grill.

They also had these 2 drinks Pineapple Surprise and Coco Loco.
Here I am with my Coco Loco and Mike with his Pineapple Surprise. The restaurant had an outdoor pool beside it and a little stream as well.

There were all these little skinny dogs running around down by the stream.

I was thinking of the dog whisperer Cesar and how I read his book on North American dog behavior vs. Mexico.

All the little dogs were getting along, but they certainly were scrawny and probably a little flea bitten, but they seemed to be quite happy.
These mariachi sang to us while we ate. They took requests and sang happy songs, romantic, whatever you wanted.
Up in the hills, there were quite a few people on horseback with their dogs trotting alongside.
The next stop on the tour was a tequila distillery. These are tequila plants. The tequila comes from the fermentation of the sap from the big juicy part that is in the ground. It looks somewhat like a pineapple. The showed us all the different steps and then the fun part we all got to take shots of tequila. We tried a normal tequila and 2 liqueurs. One was an almond taste and the other chocolate and vanilla if you can believe it. The last stop on the tour was a tour of all the celebrity mansions in the hills that have their own private beaches.

Jack Nicholas and Kevin Costner were two of the "Gringas" that live there. We were beat when we got back and the next day we used the gift certificate to get a his and hers massage.
It was in this beautiful little hut on the beach and you could look out and see the waves rolling in.

It was heavenly and we were so relaxed afterwards that we were almost comatose.

We also did our fair share of just hanging around on the beach, soaking up the sun and enjoying the strawberry daiquiris and pina coladas. We people watched, dozed and read just relaxing. Here is Mike on the
balcony of our room.

You can see one of the pools. There were 3 different pools. One was a quite pool just for adults.

On certain days they would serve champagne by the adults pool. Heaven!
Every day there were parachute rides on the beach. It was amazing. These guys would get dropped off by a boat and would hold these massive cloth bags over their heads that contained the parachutes and the gear. They would wade in without getting the bags wet. Then the boat would tow the customers into the water. It was $60 for about a 5 - 10 minute ride, so we kept our money. Countless teenagers with parents and their wallets in tow were up for the challenge though. It was amusing because sometimes the less skilled of the riders would almost end up in the trees. There were also jet ski rides, but again the price tag was astronomical.

There were also these people walking up and down the beach with all sorts of things to buy.

A guy wearing 10 cowboy hats and carrying another 20 in his hands. Women draped with beach dresses, beach bags and table cloths for purchase.

There were also these fake tattoo artists who would tattoo young girls with semipermanent ink.

When we went into the city, I was surprised at all the white faces.

Mexico seemed almost to be another state. There were Americans everywhere and there was a Costco, a WalMart and a Sam's Club near by.

According to our tour guide 14% of the residents of Puerto Vallarta are foreigners.

Lots of the Canadians, Americans and Europeans.

The reason is that the dollar goes a long way there. Mexicans have a very low average monthly salary and the cost of living is also therefor fairly low.
Everyone was trying to sell us something or asking for money.

That of course is the biggest part of the economy tourism.


We had a fantastic time and would certainly return, but we have some other tropical destinations to get to before coming back.
The Caribbean, Costa Rica, Argentina, Dominican Republic, Cuba, and Hawaii are all on our list of tropical paradises to visit and we're going to start planning the next one very soon!
Well everyone, until next time Adios Amigos!