It seemed that we had picked the most inauspicious week to visit Vancouver, weather wise. The city was wet and dreary when we arrived, and such misery was preceded by weeks of sun shine, which, according to the forecast, will return next week.

We were determined not to be aggrieved by the unfortunate timing, however, and we rented a car on Wednesday morning and drove to Langley, fifty minutes outside of Vancouver, to visit Katy’s good friends, Joyce and David.

Joyce and David are both retired. A few years ago they discovered a love for fishing and bought a boat. They now go on a three-months long fishing trip every summer around the nearby Vancouver Island. For lunch, they treated us to their bounty from a recent fishing expedition: homemade lox, smoked salmon candy, baked salmon, and steamed crab — a triple-yum meal as Dave, Drew’s father, would’ve called it.

In the afternoon, Joyce and Dave took us to Fort Langley. A former 19th-century trading post for the Hudson’s Bay Company and later a starting point of the Fraser River gold rush, Fort Langley is now a historical attraction where one can step back in time and learn about the early history of British Columbia, including the fur trading era between the founders of B.C. and the First Nation People. Our visit was both fun and enlightening.

Vancouver has a very diverse population. Unlike San Francisco, where various ethnic groups are confined to separate neighborhoods, e.g. Hispanics in the Mission, Chinese in Sunset, and Italians in Little Italy; in Vancouver the footprints of different cultures seemed to integrate in a more organic way. Some parts even reminded us of Taipei as rows and rows of brightly lit-business signage written in Mandarin lined the street.

For dinner Joyce and David treated us to a Taiwanese soup dumpling house that rivaled Din Tai Fung. The steamed buns were light and moist while the meat fillings juicy and flavorful. No doubt, if you are ever in Vancouver, be sure to visit to Dinesty for some authentic xiaolongbao, especially on a cold, rainy day.