But everything was on sale!

I suffer from a few addictions in my life, there is no denying it, the most dangerous of these addictions is my shopping problem.

I LOVE SHOPPING!! It has to be right though. You can't force it, you just have to go with it. Vancouver was one HUGE shopping trip for me.

Yaletown & Robson were already done, so on Tuesday, Ally and I hit Chinatown and Gastown. Did you know that Vancouver's Chinatown is the second largest in North America? How random is that! I digress.

Little ethnic nooks are some of the best places to find cute, cheap shit, that isn't in a mall. (While I love shopping, I hate malls). We found a few cute things. I was expecting something more like Canal Street, but it was just stores, no booths or makeshift stores, no real bartering here.

We then walked to Gastown. I have been a lot of places and I like to think of myself as someone who isn't a scaredy cat. You know, I will walk by myself almost anywhere. We had to walk down East Hastings a bit to get to Gastown, and wow. I have never seen anything like it. This was an uber-sketchy neighborhood. Thank god I had Ally to protect me.

We hit Gastown, and it seemed like nothing was open. We had to walk forever to find an open store, but when we found it, boy did we go crazy.

As I had done most of the shopping thus far, Tuesday was Ally's shopping day. A few vintage stores, some boutiques and then we headed home.

Oh, yeah, we found the weirdest thing EVER! SO there is this cafe in the Gastown area that lets you smoke weed in it. As we are walking by, we smell it, and being curious humans, we wonder, WTF!? There are people rolling, smoking, you can buy upstairs, there is a guy selling seeds. This was like marijuana paradise. How does a place like this exist? It was like we were in Amsterdam (or what I believe Amsterdam to be like) RANDOM!

We went for some more sushi, boarded the plane and got home in one piece.

A tally for anyone wondering. I bought:

Three pairs of shoes
Two jackets
Two cute tops
One dress
One necklace
One pair of jeans.

Needless to say, I blew my budget. But that is what you are supposed to do with budgets right? My bad!

All in all, however, this was a great trip. The thing that I really love about traveling with Ally is the silences. Ally and I have this amazing ability to be completely silent for long periods of time, without any of the awkwardness that is sometimes associated with quiet. To sit and be with a person is something very rare and special. Thankfully, I have found this quality in most of my good friends. I can't wait for my next trip, anywhere.

Slave Lake anyone??

i