Vancouver Voyage | DAY 11: Revisiting Estea + Richmond Night Market

Today's citizens exist in the Information Era, where first world problems such as slow Internet are regular occurrences.
Relying on a Wi-Fi connection with an upload rate of less than 1 MB/s became an increasingly painful issue for me, thus prompting me to take my setup outside in hopes of quickly finishing pending work.

I took to Google to narrow down a spot that would fit the bill: low noise levels, free and stable Wi-Fi, and ease of accessibility were my main factors of concern. Unfortunately, the only location that fill the bill was Estea Cafe in Aberdeen Square.

​​Besides attempting a rather flavourless milk tea with tapioca on my second day in the city, I had also popped in several times while hovering around the Aberdeen area. I hadn't purchased anything though; I wasn't particularly prompted to considering that they had been incompetent enough to botch even the most basic drinks of all time: Milk Tea with tapioca pearls. To my knowledge, there is a standard ratio of black tea to milk powder and syrup, along with generally-practiced tapioca cooking methods. Neither principle had been executed properly.

Another aspect I was severely unfond of was the fact that customer service was consistently lacking every time I dropped by. With the exception of the male member of staff that had served me during the first visit, the girls working the counter managed to maintain a rude, condescending demeanour each and every time. On one lonely evening, I had waltzed inside in search of sustenance, only to find that their sole savoury options were frozen takoyaki and popcorn chicken. The "healthy sandwiches" that they advertised so lavishly over Yelp were nowhere to be seen either. (Did I mention the girl hadn't been apologetic about it either?)

Despite taking the above into consideration, Estea remained the closest cafe to my living accommodations. Around 11:30 am, I stepped onto the empty, pink-tinted premises and proceeded to camp out. Prior to engaging in Internet usage, I placed an order of their Original Milk Tea Waffle; the dessert required approximately the same duration of time to compile as one trip to their disgustingly dusty bathroom combined with complete laptop setup. The resulting product was a milk tea slush topped with two scoops of, presumably, no name vanilla ice cream, caramel sauce, mini tapioca pearls, a chocolate wafer, and a waffle that had been sectioned into quarters and eights for easy placement.
At $6.75, it was a fairly decent dessert. The outer edges of the waffles were undeniably crisp, while the milk tea slush was of a fine, icy consistency. Flavour-wise though, the sweetness was just overbearing: it was essentially 16 oz. worth of a diabetes-inducing creation that only tasted more sugary with each bite. The caramel sauce was overkill, and eventually, so was the submerged melty ice cream and soggy waffle pieces.

It's highly unlikely I'd return for Estea's milk tea-based items, should I return at all. The password-secured Wi-Fi connection proved to be much quicker than at home, but fluctuated quite significantly throughout my five-hour stay. Download speeds ranged from 11 MB/s to 23 MB/s, while upload rates bounced between a measly 0.3 MB/s to a max of 4 MB/s.

To conclude, Estea just isn't worth the visit. Poor customer service, lacking drink and food items, and a grimy, neglected bathroom is enough to keep me away; the two potential redeeming factors would be a decent environment for doing work (I spy outlets!) and bag hooks inside the washroom stall. Other users have written positively about their coffee, though I'll probably err on the side of caution and suppress my cravings till I reach a proper cafe.

With the conclusion of my camp-out session came an early dinner run. To banish the tacky aftertaste of Estea's unauthentic milk tea creation, I headed to Shiny Tea to try their Herbal Jelly Milk Tea. Lo and behold, the lineups still hadn't ceased and the efficiency rate hadn't increased either. On the bright side, the cashier attendant serving me this time had normal levels of comprehension and communication skills.

Tea in hand, I then headed in the direction of Saboten to pick up one of their renowned Tenderloin Katsu Sandwiches. Looking to avoid the dinner rush, I first inquired about my wait time. A great deal of confusion took place, as the girl at the cashier began running from co-worker to co-worker looking for an answer. One member of kitchen staff emerged shortly after, and proceeded to tell me "No.".
By this point, I was extremely puzzled, I simply repeated that I wished to know the wait time for a Katsu Sandwich. A different cashier worker uttered, "One hour. But we have one right here." and lifted the packaged sandwich in her hand.
"That's all I want!" I was frustrated and exasperated. "I'll take it! That's all I wanted!"

As a quick fix, I greatly enjoyed the sandwich. Pressed between two slices of crustless white bread was a crispy pork cutlet and proper-tasting katsu sauce; surprisingly, it was neither dry from extended preparation time nor spongy from condensation. Personally, I found the dish to be a tad pricey given that the box only contained one sandwich that had been sliced into thirds for ease of consumption. That being said, the probability of giving this sandwich a second taste is high. (Might I add that  being able to snatch the last sandwich of the day implanted great pride in me.)

The reason behind my super early, ultra-light dinner was the fact that I would be heading towards the Richmond Night Market after returning home to gather the appropriate equipment. I departed around 8:00 pm after a brief moment of detergent-hunting, only to be faced with one of the more vivid sunsets of the week.
While patiently waiting for the bus to arrive, thoughts of turning back to pull out the tripod surfaced in my mind.

The trip was honestly one of my most tedious experiences with Translink. Firstly, neither Google Maps nor the official Translink website was capable of providing real-time information; while Google Maps had initially stated a 12-minute wait time for the next 401, this later morphed into a 16-minute wait for the C94. Ultimately, the 401 arrived after a solid twenty minutes, disagreeing with both Google and Translink schedules.
Reaching Brighouse, another wait ensued for the arrival of the SkyTrain. I found it absolutely ridiculous that, on a weekday evening (and a busy Friday night at that!), only one train was scheduled for every 15 minutes or more. When paired with an atrocious lack of A/C, the trip only worsened.

I made my entrance to the Night Market after travelling for a total of 60 minutes, three-quarters of which was spent wasted by waiting idiotically. Step it up, Translink!​

Adopting a similar setup to the previousyears, the Richmond Night Market set Bridgeport ablaze with rows of food vendors, colour merchandise booths, and a carnival section emitting a Playdium-but-better vibe. 

​View the full album HERE !

Similar to Pacific Mall, the Night Market is never short of phone cases or mobile accessories. Whilst having picked up several low quality items in the past and never utilized them to their full potential, I stuck with my traditional sock purchases this time.
​Take note: there are approximately three to four vendors that sell relatively similar products, some pricing their items more economically than others. That being said, it's important to cover the entire area to scope out the best deal.

Numerous stalls also hopped on the Pokemon fad, retailing anything from tiny plastic figurines (circa the 90s) to overpriced Pikachu octopus renditions. Quite frankly, I couldn't care less about the Pokemon. Rather, it was the selection of available LINE character plushies that had me entranced: I was finally able to locate crying Moon!!

---