And here’s one of a Tigey dominating a cheetah.

There was a free (included with admission) screeing of a 10-15 minute video called Wild Survivors, that was billed as a “4D” experience. We were given 3D goggles and then sat down in a theatre, and not only did the movie play around with perspective to make us feel like we were in the scene, the seats would also rumble when animals were running, and when something jumped into the water, a little splash of water was squirted all over the audience too. It was interesting.

I also picked up an axolotl plushie, and she will feature in a future Plushie of the Week, naturally. It wouldn’t be a real trip without me picking up a new plushie, now would it?

Once I trudged through the entire aquarium, I left and took the bus back to Waterfront Station, and then all the way back south again, this time to Aberdeen Station. I had already explored the malls connected to the station, and also gone north and south to Asian malls with food courts there on previous days, but this time I went east to another one called Pacific Plaza. This one was laid out very weirdly, it had an outer loop of shops, an inner loop of shops, and then upper loops of shops. And it was almost completely open to the elements, and right in the middle of the mall area was a large multi-storey carpark.

Despite the big carpark in the middle, this shopping mall actually gave me big school vibes. Like it’s not that far removed from a school that one would find in old Singapore, or Malaysia, or something like China. The shops were all half-dead as the mall was quiet though, but that’s pretty standard for this sort of Asian mall.

There was a small indoor area here too and that’s where the school canteen — I mean the cafeteria — I mean the food court was located.

But because many of the shops were closed, I did not commit to eating here right away. I heard that there was another mall called Admiralty Centre the next street over too, and that one was open until 8 pm or 10 pm, so I went to check that out first, only to find out that even though the door said the mall was open until 10 (I think), the individual shops inside were all mostly closed by 5 pm. What was the point of the mall itself being open so much later then???

So whatever. I went back to the school tuckshop, I mean Pacific Plaza, and had dinner from one of the open stalls there. This store was called Gee! Taste Good. What a cheerful name

They happened to have a special, only on Fridays and Saturdays, and only while stocks lasted, of a very beloved dish that I had had on this trip already, Hainanese Chicken Rice.

And this was Saturday afternoon, and when I inquired they said it was still in stock. Now, who am I to argue against fate, correct? If they still have it in stock and it doesn’t sell out before the end of today, then what’s left over surely isn’t going to be kept until next Friday, it’ll get tossed. So it was definitely socially responsible of me to order that dish, and so I did.

This was pretty great! They had the three requisite sauces here, the chili, the dark soy, and the ginger. I think the chili could have been a bit stronger or more garlicky, but the ginger was bang on and that was nice. The chicken was good too, but the rice was again the wrong type of rice — I don’t really know why the Canadian renditions of that dish that I’ve ran into love using yellow rice, but classic Hainanese Chicken Rice from Singapore typically uses white rice. Well whatever, they don’t claim to be trying to specifically copy the Singapore version. It was pretty good though, although the soup threw me off a bit, it was carrot and onion soup and had some sort of medicinal herb in its stock, and to me it didn’t go well with the rice dish at all. Still a pretty good Hainanese Chicken Rice dish overall!

The last stop on my itinerary for the day was the Richmond Night Market. I was semi-worried that it wasn’t going to run if it was raining earlier on the in the day, but then I checked their website and it said that the market would run whether the weather was wet or dry, so that was good (for me). The rain had stopped in the early afternoon either way though, and the weather was cool and windy as I headed over to Bridgeport Station and over to the festival grounds.

But wait, who was this I saw walking to the night market from the station at the same time as me? It was the golden statue guy from the Shipyards Night Market who I had photographed in yesterday’s blog! And he was obviously coming to this night market tonight too!

I was very amused. And also impressed that he’d take the train dressed like that.

He had what they call a Zoom Pass though. That or maybe some sort of a vendor pass. He went into the VIP side of the entrance whereas I got to join the long, long queue of people going in through the peasant gates. This took around 20 minutes to navigate.

But at least there were interesting posters and displays to watch while snaking through the line.

There were signs and also a note on their website (local) that each food store was supposed to have a dish under $10, this turned out to be an abject lie though, there were a good number of food stores with no option, or at least no advertised option, for any food under $10. So it was a suggestion at best, I guess, but that did miff me a little.

Admittance was $7, though it apparently dropped to $5 after 10 pm. I couldn’t stay quite that late though, as I thought I needed to get to the airport and past security before 10 pm as well in order to stay there on the airside overnight, since the security lines at the Vancouver airport apparently close at around 10 pm each night. I learnt later though that I could have gotten in as late as just before midnight and the security line would still have been open, but eh, the extra time was good for scoping out the airport anyway.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. In this current timeline, I had just entered the night market proper, and a symphonic band was playing on a stage next to the entrance. The market was laid out with two or three long columns of craft market vendor stalls in front, with each column having vendors on both sides of the “aisle”:

With everything from independent crafters to brands like Rolife. Though like most maker fairs, it was mostly independent crafters as far as I could see.

On the non-food side of things there were also game tents, pinball machines, a zipline which I did not see a single person ride (it might not have been set up due to the rain, perhaps), tables for people to eat at, and themes of love and rubber ducks strewn around the place.

On the food side, there were around three long rows of food stalls too, I believe, again with each row having vendors on either side of the aisle, so the real numbers were doubled. There were an insane amount of choices here, and most of them reflecting the East Asian theme by being largely a mix of China, Japan, and Korean cuisine, with an occasional stall from another country as well. There was also a slight Western influence too, with some stores selling things like candy floss, though most of the stuff you’d normally find at a Western carnival was not present.

Here are some generic food alley pictures that I took: