Author Topic: Vancouver, Seattle, Alaska  (Read 10114 times)

Offline nafnaf12

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Vancouver, Seattle, Alaska
« on: August 19, 2016, 03:23:52 AM »
Huge thank you to all the DDFs who have helped with the planning or with the itinerarys they posted.
We flew from EWR to YVR Arrived sunday night with AC flight, at the national desk i asked for a van with US plates luckily they had so i just disregarded my original resevation (saved $400 ;D)as we made our way to the hotel we stopped off at 7/11 to pick up a "speakout" prepaid sim, checked in at the sherton wall centre and called it a night
Monday
drove to chabbad for shachris @7am got there lights were out so we head over to Sharrai T'zedek for 7:15 shachris, got back to the hotel picked up the rest of the crew and we head out to Shuk&Eat service was great food was okay.
we then made our way to UBC gardenshttp://botanicalgarden.ubc.ca/ did the Greenheart TreeWalk and thats about it
from there we drove back to the hotel dropped off the car and got on the Hop on Hop off bus, at the end of the route(from where we started) i think it was stop 14 we got off and took a boat ride (one way ride is included with the bus pass across) to Granville island spent some time there walking around baught soem fruits/drinks, picked up the bus at the island stop and took it back to a stop which was 2 blocks away from the hotel, got the car and drove to Canada Place (5 min drive) and we did Flyover Canadahttps://www.flyovercanada.com/ which was really fun!
after that we went to the Real Canadian Superstore picked up some snacks and breakefast for the next day, aside from having some kosher food in the international aisle like tradition soup, bamba,and cake they had a kosher fridge with CY milk,cheese, cottage cheese,and some deli. after that we rushed over to the 8:10 mincha-mariv at S"T (only minyan in town) the rabbai speaks for a couple min after mincha so we davening ended at about 8:50. dinner we ate at maple grill. great food, good price. dont forget to make a resevration.

Tuesday
at breakfast on Monday I bumped into the rabbi of chabbad and he told me shacris is at 7:30 and i should join so thats what i did I was the 10th guy.
got some fresh pastries from Shuk&Eat  got back to the Hotel, ate a quick breakfast and we started our drive to Whistler Hwy 99 is just gorgeous period! kinda reminded me of Hwy 1 we did last summer (LA-SF) stopped off at Shannon Falls also really nice,  the village stroll in Whistler is nice they have an frozen yogurt shop called Menchie's which has both parve and dairy options everything is clearly labeled if its kosher or not. on the way back we went a bit out of the way (aprox 10 min) to Lynn Suspension Bridgehttp://lynncanyon.ca/. Dinner we ate at Sabra which was good (israeli style). after we finshed eating we walked to mincha which is a 5 min walk. at night we walked over to IGA to get some fruits&vegtables and i took Dans recommendation and got a couple bags of old dutch potato chips i gotta say they are pretty good.

Wednesday
 we ate breakfast in the room, drove to the ferry terminal we didnt make reservations and had no problem getting on with our car but YMMV
Victoria was Amazing! we did the gardens and Fishermans Wharf, took the 6pm ferry back (i checked online and saw the 5pm was sold out so i quickly made a resvation for the 6pm. i think everyone went back on the 5pm ours was only half full! lol) got back just in time for mincha.. Ate at Maple grill again they are the only ones open past 8pm food was once again great.

Thursday
breakfast in the room again checked out left the car at valet. Walked to the airport( right by Canada place for our seaplane tourhttps://www.harbourair.com/ a must do IMHO
after that we walked to pick up some rental bikes right at the entrance to Stanley park  biked around the park(MUST DO). got back to the hotel picked up the car and drove to Omnitsky's
great food, the owner overheard us saying how similar it is to what bernstein on essex was he ran over and told us thats where he got the idea and he proceeded to personally make us his favorite sandwich and packed it up for us for the drive, we finshed eating,took some frozen meats they had there and some of his famous hotdogs.
arrived in seattle checked in at the Residence Inn Seattle University District which was built only 8 months ago everything is basicly brand new the rooms come with a big fridge/freezer a dishwasher, electric stove,and a microwave. they have a laundry room on our floor which has 1 washing mechine and 2 dryers.
thats it for Vancouver.. to be continued


« Last Edit: August 19, 2016, 03:31:33 AM by nafnaf12 »
A smooth sea never made a skilled sailor.

Offline asks

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Re: Vancouver, Seattle, Alaska
« Reply #1 on: August 19, 2016, 02:12:10 PM »
That was a great TR. Love to see pics when u get a chance. thanks

Offline nafnaf12

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Re: Vancouver, Seattle, Alaska
« Reply #2 on: August 21, 2016, 01:24:31 AM »
That was a great TR. Love to see pics when u get a chance. thanks
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/rc27iueqwddk5b1/AADSPJn5Znb3HRcvUC-t-Ipfa?dl=0
Only a few pic's there since we are in most of the other pictures.
A smooth sea never made a skilled sailor.

Offline tzifanya54

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Re: Vancouver, Seattle, Alaska
« Reply #3 on: August 21, 2016, 09:03:11 PM »
Did you find the tree walk in the botanical gardens worth it?

Offline nafnaf12

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Re: Vancouver, Seattle, Alaska
« Reply #4 on: August 21, 2016, 11:08:43 PM »
Did you find the tree walk in the botanical gardens worth it?
found a Groupon for it so price wise definitely!
And I wanted to start the day with some sort of walk/stroll and this was the just that! P
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Offline mgoldhammer18

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Re: Vancouver, Seattle, Alaska
« Reply #5 on: August 22, 2016, 01:30:00 PM »
Pictures?

Offline nafnaf12

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Re: Vancouver, Seattle, Alaska
« Reply #6 on: August 22, 2016, 02:17:47 PM »
20160816_151333 by Naftali Klein Shannon Falls

20160817_163718 by Naftali Klein
Butchart Gardens
Fisherman's Wharf Victoria by Naftali KleinVictoria Fisherman's Wharf

seaplanes by Naftali Klein
20160818_160449 by Naftali Klein
20160818_155124 by Naftali Klein
View from the seaplane

we are in most of the pictures and i dont have the zitts fleish to add emojis to all the pics

A smooth sea never made a skilled sailor.

Offline mgoldhammer18

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Re: Vancouver, Seattle, Alaska
« Reply #7 on: August 23, 2016, 10:12:08 AM »
Wow, stunning.
BTW, there is now a Menchies in Riverdale, NY in case you are ever in the mood to be reminded of your trip

Offline nafnaf12

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Re: Vancouver, Seattle, Alaska
« Reply #8 on: August 26, 2016, 04:12:46 AM »
Seattle

Friday
Shachris at chabbad where i found out they were having a friday night BBQ Dinner fundraiser but we had already made up to eat with the rabbi near 20 min from the hotel, for breakfast we went to Einsteins bagels located at the QFC, bagels where pas yisroel the eggs they make in a microwave( :o) the "shmeers" are OU-D. After that we walked in to QFC got some  cakes,sushi,deli,c"y cheese,wine etc.. passed by the hotel to put the stuff in the fridge  and made our way to the "needle" we didnt book ahead and when we got there they only had late afternoon slots so i checked online and luckily found a slot which came with admission to the Chihuly Museum about 1.5 hr later so i booked and went straight to Chihuly http://www.chihulygardenandglass.com/ which was AMAZING!!!!
The Needle is skippable IMHO got back to hotel to get ready for shabbos ran over to Trader Joe's which is 2 blocks away from the hotel to pick up Brooklyn Babka for shabbos (its parve)
Erev shabbos we drove over to the rabbis house  where we davened and had a beautiful shabbos sehuda (4hr meal). Shabbos morning walked over to chabbad which was a 55min walk normally in Seattle thats not so bad but this particular shabbos the weather was over 90 degrees ( in the past 120 YEARS only 58 days were this hot) and no airuv for the first half of the walk you can imagine it was quite hot,Davening took about 3hr was very nice and there was a Aufruf so we had a Gala Kiddush which was really nice after the kiddush we walked back ate the sehuda took a short nap and "hiked" back for mincha & mariv.
Sunday
Seattle weather had finally kicked in and it dropped down to 55-60 degrees. i was in heaven!
Drove to Mercer island for shachris since chabbad davens at 9 on sunday the drive was very short since there was zero traffic, on the way back stopped off and got bagels and raw eggs got to the hotel and made some delicious omelettes, started off with Pikes Market for a bit drove over to the under ground tour  which was very interesting after the tour we were all starving so we went to the Pabla Buffet and polished off a couple trays! interesting good food met a couple jews.(Pabla cuisine is Dairy! realised as we finished eating :-[) we then drove to the ferry terminal and took the ferry to Bainbridge  island walked around there for about 2hrs to the ferry back which itself is a very nice ride and dirt cheap! drove to mincha mariv got back noshed a little and went to sleep.
Monday
Shachris at chabbad..bagels and eggs in the room and had a relaxed morning we were only able to book the boeing tour starting at 1:30 arrived at boeing and met 3 different jewish groups
chatted till the tour started. the tour was super awesome! after the tour we walked around the gallery and the balcony watched some fighter jet to some test runs which was very cool the ground shook as it took off. we spent over 4hr there and i could've stayed longer! we then drove to island crust pizza (since we already ate at Pabla cuisine which is right there) i was extremely disappointed
service was terrible food took forever to come out im talking 30-45min for fries and pizza! the so-called garlic fries ended up being regular fries with garlic sprinkled on top. after eating we drove down to micha at the shul in Mercer waited around for a minyan till right before shkia and in the last minute 2 more guys showed up and completed the minyan. drove back got some Menchie's located at the University plaza.drove to krispy kreme got some fresh hot goodies (the yankee game had just then ended so they made a whole batch of fresh everything.

Tuesday
Shachris, breakfast in the room packed up and checked out, drove to QFC to pick up some deli/sushi for the flight that evening.
drove down to Snoqualmie Falls great 1 mile hike RT (about 30 miles out of Seattle)  spent about 2hr there and drove to Ballard locks VERY interesting to watch
after spending sometime there we went to Grand Bamboo for early supper the food was really really good! huge portions and good service and very decently priced.
got to the airport checked our bags in,returned the rental car and went to the centurion lounge to wait for our flight to ANC!
 here are some pictures
20160819_144034 by Naftali Klein, on Flickr
Chihuly

2016-08-22_05-23-00 by Naftali Klein, on Flickr
Fighter jet

20160822_163459 by Naftali Klein, on Flickr
Brand new plane!

20160822_163451 by Naftali Klein, on Flickr
testing the engine on the green plane (bottom left)

20160823_135611 by Naftali Klein, on Flickr
20160823_143533 by Naftali Klein, on Flickr

Snoqualmie Falls
from the top and from the bottom of the hike


20160823_160653 by Naftali Klein, on Flickr
20160823_160919 by Naftali Klein, on Flickr
Ballard locks
before and after
 

20160823_163942 by Naftali Klein, on Flickr
20160823_161948 by Naftali Klein, on Flickr
HUGE boat arrived


20160823_195427 by Naftali Klein, on Flickr
SEA-ANC



A smooth sea never made a skilled sailor.

Offline asks

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Re: Vancouver, Seattle, Alaska
« Reply #9 on: August 26, 2016, 07:24:21 AM »
How do you make eggs in your hotel room?

Offline nafnaf12

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Re: Vancouver, Seattle, Alaska
« Reply #10 on: August 26, 2016, 01:49:45 PM »
How do you make eggs in your hotel room?
sorry I thought I mentioned it upthread
I brought along a milchig and a fleshig pan and we use the stove top at both hotels (Seattle/Alaska, Vancouver hotel didn't come with a kitchen)
A smooth sea never made a skilled sailor.

Offline IsraelGuy

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Re: Vancouver, Seattle, Alaska
« Reply #11 on: August 29, 2016, 01:26:06 AM »
anchorage?

Offline nafnaf12

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Re: Vancouver, Seattle, Alaska
« Reply #12 on: August 29, 2016, 01:04:52 PM »
anchorage?
just arrived back last night.
Will write it up sometime this week iyh
A smooth sea never made a skilled sailor.

Offline nafnaf12

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Re: Vancouver, Seattle, Alaska
« Reply #13 on: August 31, 2016, 10:53:01 PM »
Alaska



Tuesday
landed at around 11:20pm picked up a mini van from Alamo since National didn't have any available
checked it at the Residence Inn room was spacious beds were not great.
Wednesday
Since there was no minyan shachris during the week davend in the room which surprisingly was much faster ::)
we drove to Natural Pantry almost everything there was organic they did however have kosher C"Y mini pizza bagels in the pizza section and in the frozen section they had some deli and hot dogs
after that we went to Walmart got some eggs,bread,lettuce for salad with a bottle salad dressing,and Fruits&Veggies for the day. drove back  made & ate  breakfast.
Now even though it was raining and everyone was grumpy i called MICA guides https://micaguides.com/  to make a reservation or the ice trekking as we made our drive up the rain stopped, the drive was absolutely stunning! it took about 2hr to get there we couldn't make any stops because we had to make our reservation, our guide was waiting for us so as soon as we pulled up we got our gear and took their van to Matanuska glacier the hike/walk was magnificent the views the 55 degree weather...just perfect!
 20160824_150211 by Naftali Klein, on Flickr
 20160824_155059 by Naftali Klein, on Flickr
20160824_155300 by Naftali Klein, on Flickr
20160824_155619 by Naftali Klein, on Flickr
20160824_162045_001 by Naftali Klein, on Flickr

after about 3.5hr on the ice we made our way back to the MICA lot drank a coffee and started driving back along the way we saw a huge moose i tried reversing to get a good picture but i guess me revving the engine in reverse startled it so it ran away, as we pulled up to Anchorage i noticed a Costco so i ran in a got some salmon, red peppers, and asparagus.
got back to the hotel, soon-after cutting up and seasoning the onions, peppers, and asparagus we waited a bit for the hot-dogs& steak burgers to defrost we proceeded to have a scrumptious BBQ using the grates we got at Walmart with the hotels grill (how to kasher it ask your LOR). after that i drove over to Walmart and got some canned tuna and mayo
and picked up a whole bunch of Alaska themed baseball caps for $2.97.20160831_215349 by Naftali Klein, on Flickr

Thursday 
After we finished breakfast i made fresh tuna sandwiches for lunch packed them up with some snacks and drink and we made our way to Whittier using  Anton Anderson Memorial Tunnel
which is the longest (2.5 miles) highway tunnel in North America and is the only way into Whittier.
we took the 10:30 tunnel and checked in at Phillips Cruises for the 26 Glacier Cruise https://www.phillipscruises.com/ we then drove around town a little saw the old army building
at 11:45 we got on the ship we had an assigned table by a window, after as the boat left the docked they started serving a hot meal for lunch, the only actual kosher item in the "kosher/vegetarian meal was rice pudding. they did have complimentary coffee and tea and for $5.99 you can purchase a souvenir cup that comes with soda free refiles
the ride was amazing the captain and crew kept saying how for the past 3-4 weeks it was raining everyday and how today was stunning so that really got the crowd excited
we saw some bald eagles so sea-otters chilling with their feet/flippers in the air the boat drove right through some ice and pulled up right near one of the glaciers one of the crew members got a big chunk of ice from the water washed it off and served it.
after we got back we drove through the Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center which is on the way back to Anchorage  got back to the hotel and once again had a great BBQ went swimming
in the relatively new pool.

  20160825_165520 by Naftali Klein, on Flickr
20160825_170915 by Naftali Klein, on Flickr
20160825_161356 by Naftali Klein, on Flickr
20160825_161341 by Naftali Klein, on Flickr
 20160825_160902 by Naftali Klein, on Flickr
as you can see above, there are water streams all over the mountain
 20160825_151818 by Naftali Klein, on Flickr
20160825_124343 by Naftali Klein, on Flickr
20160825_190143 by Naftali Klein, on Flickr
20160825_185156 by Naftali Klein, on Flickr
20160825_185002 by Naftali Klein, on Flickr

Friday
after breakfast we drove out to the Alaska state fair spent some time there went to the lumberjack show and a bike show got to see some cute husky's
and big vegetables.
the reason we chose to go to the fair is because it was on the way to Hatchers Pass which a in car activity....http://www.alaska.org/detail/hatcher-pass
we did half of the pass and drove back to get ready for shabbos.(grilled the salmon for the flight on motzai)
20160826_143248 by Naftali Klein, on Flickr
20160826_140040 by Naftali Klein, on Flickr
black&blue eyes
20160826_140952 by Naftali Klein, on Flickr
20160826_135250 by Naftali Klein, on Flickr
20160826_134843 by Naftali Klein, on Flickr
20160826_132703 by Naftali Klein, on Flickr
lumberjack show
20160826_125055 by Naftali Klein, on Flickr
and if you are wondering yes we did buy a big zucchini and schlepped it home

20160826_124841 by Naftali Klein, on Flickr
20160826_123222 by Naftali Klein, on Flickr
for all those who plan on visiting Alaska keep your eye out for custom licence plates
they're very popular there.

20160826_150009 by Naftali Klein, on Flick
 20160826_150133 by Naftali Klein, on Flickr
hatcher-pass


 
 
« Last Edit: August 31, 2016, 10:59:57 PM by nafnaf12 »
A smooth sea never made a skilled sailor.