I’ve never visited Canada before. There were a few family trips to Seattle when we considered taking a drive up, but it never happened. But now that my brother Ken is studying in Vancouver, there’s a greater excuse to visit.

My mom flew to Vancouver with Ken to send him off, and has already visited once since. Then out of the blue, I got a text from my dad in our family chat saying that he was taking off for Seattle and would be visiting Vancouver after his business trip.

Um, hello, I’m the one whose currently unemployed and has time to travel — tfti?? ಠ_ಠ Jkjk. I wished my dad a safe flight and casually joked that I wanted to tag along — wink wink nudge nudge — and before I knew it, my mom had booked me a flight with her miles.

With that, I was off for five days in Vancouver, during which I visited five places, though you could probably hit up all the same places in less than five, but it’s nice not having to rush, ya know?

I visited Okinawa last winter, whoops. But the weather being what it was, I think that this recap fits well enough into early autumn. My family squeezed this trip in right before Christmas, and it was a wonderful way to make the most out of the sliver of time between the end of my fall semester at school and the beginning of my winter break internship. On our first full day in Okinawa, my dad took me and my brothers on a bus tour (Mom would arrive later in day, delayed by a business trip), and on our second and last full day in Okinawa, the whole family went whale watching. As for the details, I’ll remember as much as I can from the photos I took and the little notes I wrote throughout the trip.