I have the day off of work, as Karin and I have to go into both Surrey and then New Westminster for appointments for her with specialists. While Abbotsford is part of the Lower Mainland/Fraser Valley, most Vancouverites don’t consider us part of their city, and I’ll admit that there are a lot of people here that don’t go into the city much or know it well. But Karin was raised there, I lived there while attending UBC the first time, and I worked many a job in the city. We both know it quite well, and I’d consider us Vancouverites that just can’t afford a downtown Condo. But then I also face reality in that Metroblogging Vancouver won’t be knocking on my door looking for me to join their writing staff.

While we may love the city, when Karin got sick in 2001, she was not able to handle crowds, traffic, nor many other things you would automatically associate with the denser populated portions of our area. The only “cure” for her is exposure and time, and slowly we have been able to spend more time in the city. It’s actually good therapy for her, but until recently the only therapy she was willing to endure was IKEA. Her ability to handle the city has really improved, and just the past couple of months we have been into downtown Vancouver almost every second weekend and elsewhere in Greater Van the alternative weeks. We’re both been enjoying our time out.

Loving Vancouver like we do, we have kept up to date on the changes and happenings around the city; but unless you are in often, you just cannot keep up with where are the current spots to go eat. We have turned to our trusty friend, the internet, and found some good advice there (thanks Jeffery for helping us decide when it was down to two restaurants); however the amount of everyday citizen reviews is certainly lacking. I guess I can see it from a the perspective of someone that lives right in the city… you eat at Vancouver restaurants all the time, so writing about it is as boring as writing about where you parked you car today. But I also would not gain much from the posting of a tourist who has no local experiences to reference.

So I’m going to try and contribute whenever we go out. When I have some time later, I’ll write about our two Dine Out Vancouver experiences for this year. I’ll also write about our dinner tonight, wherever that might be. Budget is always a concern for us, and so the criteria for our restaurants is largely going to be reasonable price without being too cheap. Right now I have to see what in the New West/Coquitlam area might be recommended on other sites, hopefully something that also has Entertainment Book coupons.