Vancouver, Richmond, Seattle, and Vancouver Island

A friend of mine, Di Yin, was to present at a conference in Victoria. Always looking for an excuse for a trip, I joined her for the excursion, which lasted from June 10, 2008, to June 17, 2008. We mainly spent time in four places:

• Vancouver. I still really like Vancouver and think it's a well designed city. I entirely agree with my previous impressions (second paragraph). While in Vancouver, I took the opportunity to see a few of the places I didn't see during my last trip, and returned to some places I really liked, such as the Granville Island market.
• Richmond (the suburb just south of Vancouver). I ate a ton of great Chinese food! I'm told and believe that Richmond has the highest density of good Chinese restaurants of anywhere in the world. (Yes, a greater density than even cities in China! Richmond's populated by people who had the money and resources to leave China, meaning the standard of living is much higher than China's. Thus, Richmond doesn't have all the eateries China has that are just there to provide calories to the poor.) We stayed in Richmond for much of the trip.
• Vancouver Island (which includes Victoria). We spent two days there, allowing me to briefly explore beautiful nature, eat very fresh fish, and observe the lack of non-white people. Di Yin remarked that she likes Vancouver Island more than Vancouver. Regardless, as I didn't see downtown Victoria, Vancouver Island deserves another trip.
• Seattle. We visited Seattle briefly at each end of the trip, reminding me how cool Pike Place Market is.

Incidentally, while in Canada we noticed a large number of Boston Pizza restaurants, a chain which apparently has no connection to Boston. They chose the name because Boston is "big league." (And yes, the chain does serve pizza.)

Di Yin also took pictures during this trip.