Since we were in BC now, I had to wake up at 5:30am to get ready for work at 6am. It was a bit difficult since I was a bit exhausted from the trip already, but I knew that this was one of the prices I had to pay to live a lifestyle like this. Since I was up, I went downstairs to get the free breakfast, which involved fruits, yoghurts, coffee, and granola bars. I took a bunch of everything. Hohyun slept in until check out time, and I had to get late check out so he could get ready and pack his stuff. That still wasn’t enough time for us, and we ended up getting quasi-chased out of the room by the front desk. We quickly put our stuff in the car and left.

Kamloops was hot. Even though we had only been outside for a short time, we were both sweating. There wasn’t much else to see in Kamloops so we stopped at the Costco there to get gas and to get a cheap lunch (aka wings, hot dogs, and soda). The drive to Whistler was going to be somewhat long (4-5 hours) and we both wanted to take the Sea-to-Sky highway since it was rated as one of the most scenic drives in Canada. However, it was supposed to be really dangerous as well because of all the turns and cliffs.

Hohyun was back to driving my car. We drove past Kamloops Lake, which I thought was stunning until I remembered the man telling me yesterday about how there were rumoured to be bodies thrown into the lake. There was a point on the highway where you could stop, so we stopped to take a few pictures and to relieve ourselves too. We could’ve stayed longer since the view was incredible, but it was really hot so we got in the car and kept driving.

The highway really was scenic. We drove through a series of provincial parks and stopped at another roadside point. The landscape consisted of trees on mountains and lots of lakes, which were so clear I could see reflections off of the water. At one point, I made Hohyun pull over just so we could take more pictures.

The road got pretty twisty and had many sharp turns. At the speed that Hohyun was driving, I was pretty scared that we would actually fall off the cliff especially since there were no barriers. I kept telling him to go slower, but he wouldn’t listen so I made him switch seats with me partway through so I could drive.  We passed by another turn off point with a really nice lake and a mountain, so I pulled in to take a look and to take some pictures. To my surprise, there was a campervan already there. I walked over to it since I’m really interested in looking at van conversions, and found a guy reading a book in the back with the door open. His name was Mitch, and he was from Vancouver but liked to live in his van during the summer.

He was really nice and gave us a tour of his campervan, which really made my day.

We then kept driving for Whistler. I really wanted to get there since I was pretty tired. Whistler kind of reminded me of Banff in a way in the fact that they were both touristy mountain towns. We were pretty much surrounded by trees the rest of the drive there, and the land got flatter as we got closer to Whistler. It was still a bit twisty at certain parts, but less scary than the road before.

The hotel that we stayed at that night was the Pangea Pod Hotel. I was super excited about this since it was Canada’s first-ever capsule hotel. It also wasn’t expensive, and we paid around $80 for the pod. The check-in was done through a tablet at the front desk instead of having the receptionist do it for you. Instead of room keys, they gave us bracelets that we had to scan at the doors. They even had a part on the main floor to store bikes and ski/snowboard equipment.

The room was super cool as well. The pods were separated into 3 large rooms, with each large room containing a certain number of pods. Inside each room, there were a couple showers, change rooms, and sinks that everyone in the room would share. It reminded me of a hostel in a sense where you were literally paying for your bed only and sharing amenities. The pod was really ergonomically designed to fit everything you would need for a comfortable night stay. There was a light switch next to the bed, a couple shelves at the foot of the bed, a charging port, a mirror, a place to hang clothes, and even a tiny trash can.

We went back to the car, parked it in a nearby lot, then moved our stuff upstairs. We met the people who were staying in the pod above us, who just so happened to be 2 girls from Quebec. They both were really friendly and explained that they were also moving to Banff rot eh season but had to go to Vancouver to pick up a friend. They had driven from Quebec to Whistler in 4 days essentially nonstop, which I found insane. After having some time upstairs to decompress for a bit, we decided to walk around the village to see it and to look for food. Hohyun really wanted to try Cows, because it was apparently a really good ice cream shop. We went there and was instantly greeted by the smell of fresh ice cream. They hand-made all their flavours and there were so many it was hard to choose.

After we finished the ice cream outside, we decided to get proper food for dinner and went to El Furniture Warehouse for the cheap food and drinks. Indoor and patio dining was open but elected for the patio seating since it was less crowded. There were a lot of people there, which made service a bit slow, but we eventually ended up getting all of this:

We went back to the hotel and decided to get more drinks on their rooftop patio. We realized that we were still hungry, so we went to a pizza place (Fat Tony’s Pizza) and ordered a large pizza to share. We went back to the roof to eat the pizza and watch the news.

It got cold a bit later on and I was getting tired and wanted to go inside. We ran into the 2 Quebec girls and a British guy that they were with, chatted with them for a bit and exchanged phone numbers so we could potentially meet up in Banff. After that, we decided to just call it a night and got ready for bed.