japanese adventures

Guess where I am? I'm in the land of the rising sun and sushi, they are so right because the sun sets like at 5:30pm! but besides that, i want to share my top 5 list so far of my japanese experiences:

5) dessert in Kyoto called matcha parfait with mochi
4) kaiten sushi with fresh seafood caught in tsukiji market
3) young guy having a seizure in the Kyoto hostel bathroom while we were brushing up, we didn't know if he was sleeping walking or having a seizure!
2) fresh seafood at numazu (mmm kani soup!)
1) dressing up as a geisha in Kyoto and getting pictures taken

I'll add to my list soon! notice most of the list consists of food...and that is true, i have eaten like there's no tomorrow, and it does not justify with the amount of walking we've been doing. We have been lazy and taxiing it to places. Yatta!

a brand new day, a brand new year

Can't believe it's 2006. What happened to 2005? As every says, "My, the year flew by!" I vaguely remember my last day of work on Dec. 23 and saying Merry Christmas to everyone. I had the last week off and was going to spend some R&R time in Calgary. Um, yes I went there cuz Dex was visiting his family. I was here with my dad for Christmas but then I went to Calgary Boxing Day. No, I didn't get to take advantage of the tax free shopping cuz of Air Canada.

WELL let me tell you a sad story about Air Canada and my last ride on them! I was taking it to Calgary and had a 9am flight. It says that you're supposed to be there 30 minutes ahead of time. I got there exactly 8:30am and tried to check in on the auto system. It wouldn't let me. I went to the lady and she said, it's after 8:30 so she wouldn't let me get on the flight. What the heck?! I said so will I be able to get on the next flight? Westjet tries hard to get u on the flight...i mean, i still have time right?? The lady said I could get on the next flight if I paid $150!!! That is ridiculous. You've already paid ~$300 to go on your current flight, why would I pay more? Stupid! What would I do with my return ticket if I didn't even go? They're just money stealers! So I went to the ticketing booth to see what I could do. At this point, I was almost near tears if not in tears already.

When she assessed my situation, the lady behind the ticketing booth said the same thing as the other lady. But she also said that I could take the 5:00 flight for only $30. Man, what is Air Canada? The only airline? If it were West Jet, I think it would be immediate, and free! I ended paying the $30 and telling my dad to pick me up. I went for breakfast and a little bit of shopping. What else can I do? I got dropped off at the airport and waited for about 5 hours for my flight. On top of that, I had to wait an extra 1/2 hour because the flight was delayed. That just sucks, doesn't it? I sat in the wait room for 4 hours, read cover to cover of People magazine Best of 2005. Bought a book and read half way, watched a kid play with his cookies, listened to a girl talking to a boxer type guy. I was really really bored as you could tell.

Calgary was okay. I finally caved in and bought my LV bag. The popincourt. It's nice but I havent' used it yet. I will break it in on Chinese New Year!

Anyway, I have just been busy with work! Not much. I have a new boss and he's from Toronto. I still can't read him that well yet over the phone. I can't tell if I can really joke with him or if I need to be super serious. I will never know until he comes out Valentine's Day. Yes, Valentine's day. What a bummer. I almost had an opportunity to go Montreal for a course too...I guess that's not happening!!

Winter Blues

yes I have retired from blogging. It seems like there hasn't been a whole lot of updates (none actually) from me but that's just because my calendar has been full and no time to blog/talk!! since my bday, the mountains have opened and I have been snowboarding for a few of those weeks -- Twice at Whistler and once at Cypress. The snow is getting worse but I'm optimistic it will get better next year. The conditions were hard packed but not too icy. There are still some brown spots and rocky patches in the bottom half of the runs. So...that is the entirety of my exercising. I have not exercised otherwise since the strike (or the "event") ended.

Actually, let me correct myself. I went to the gym yesterday and felt I needed to at least work up a sweat and feel guilty for all that chocolate I was indulging at the snack table at work. They cut up this HUGE piece of chocolate and we have still not finished it after one week. And read...there are lots of people on this floor, but we still can't finish the chocolate.

You wonder how people can disappear from your life and suddenly appear 5 years later, and in droves!! I saw my old family friend on the weekend, Miranda. We used to play with each other and go to each other's houses when we were younger. Now, we just simply have mutual friends but I never managed to see her until now. At the same time, I found out her brother's email from a mutual friend of ours through SPAM actually and we've started conversing via email. Interesting how we all find each other eventually. The city is too small. I gotta move.

All this time, I wanted to commit to studying for the GMAT. None of this ever happened. Where did the year go? Too much partying? maybe. Too much shopping? maybe. the strike? maybe.

Where did these months go? I thought my sister just left for her exchange in HK, but we're preparing for her to get back already. That was waay to fast. I miss her....it was waay to noisy in the house when she was around but we need someone to fill the silence around here. ;) Em, you need to come back.. no going to HK!! and I want some of that yummy tiramisu that you have perfected!!

What else have I been up to? not much. I'm currently stressing over Christmas presents. More for dex's family but hopefully things will pull through this week!! I'm going to Calgary so I'll update you more on my expeditions then!

Happy Birthday to me!

All in all it was an uneventful day like any other day! Except for cake, dinner, and 2 coincidences. On Sunday, I went to dinner with my parents at Fish House. Appies were yummy but didn't get any pics of the food!

Then we had cake on my actual bday - Senses Chocolate Passionfruit Mousse Cake. It was very very yummy.

What coincidences you say? Dex brought me to Octopus' Garden. It was an Izakaya/Sushi/Kaiseki place. When we went to the restaurant, we didn't have reservations and the only table they had left was the table in the middle shaped like a BOAT!

I felt like I was on a stage or pedestal with everyone watching. But it was really cool! We were the only ones who needed to take off our shoes. Here are some of our dishes. I had the Asari clams (no pics), Kobe Beef Sashimi:

O-Wasabi:

Yellow Submarine (the owner made the sushi, and walked it to our table while sinking the song "Yellow Submarine"! You'll notice that stick of green and red is actually a bean shaped into a telescope!

For dessert, since it was an octopus themed restaurant, we get....TADA!

The other coincidence you say? There was another party there with 2 bdays on the same day as me! They had a humongous cake for 6 people so they offered us dessert/cake! They then found out it was my bday too. Man my bday isn't very unique! You can see the rest of my pics here.

And in typical fashion, we were late for our show, and couldn't buy tix anymore in Granville Island. Instead we rented a movie (Ocean's Eleven, and bought Ocean's Twelve finally!) and I fell asleep within ten minutes -- as usual!! I guess I'm getting OLD.

Wined out

I haven't posted in a while, and it's not because I'm busy, but that I'm lazy. Yes I feel it settling in. The winter blues. People, or rather I, get more cranky, short tempered and chilly! But lets get on with the negatives and into the positives. I went to Seattle on the weekend (long weekend I should say) and my guy had planned for a whirlwind tour of the Puget Sound wineries! We ended up going to more wineries (7 in total) and took 3 ferries! it was nice to get away! Here's what I ran away (fine, I paid for them) with:

Mount Baker Winery

• Chasselas Dore
• Late Harvest Viognier
• Late Harvest Pinot Gris
• Pinot Nior

Eagle Haven Winery

• Madeline Angevine Siegerebbe
• Black currant Late Harvest

Carpenter Creek Winery

• Late Harvest Semillion

Pasek Wine Cellars

• Syrah Port
• Cranberry Wine

BainBridge Island Winery

• Strawberry Wine

Greenbank Farms and Winery

• nothing!

Whidbey Island Winery

• Siegerebbe
• Rhubarb wine

As you can tell by my selection, I have quite the sweet tooth! Late Harvests are soo yummy. Pasek actually has a bigger selection of berry wines but we didn't have time to try them all. I was MOST impressed with Mount Baker as they were the most friendly and their wines were the best tasting out of all of them. Well this was my Bday weekend so I thoroughly enjoyed it. Only time it was a downer was the fact that we were stopped at the border for have ANY alcohol content in our car. Yes, we didn't do our research and find out how much alcohol you're allowed within 48 hours. You cannot bring any amount of alcohol back. We got taxed around $50 but that was because it was using Dex's Alberta license ( 1 tax)!!

Another first for me was eating at a Moroccan restaurant. It was yummy but I was not educated in their rituals from the beginning. We were attracted to the menu because it was open late and it served Hare! Well we went in to see 3 people waiting for us to come in, and it smelled! Eww...but I got used to it being smelly after a while. We then got seated and got handed a large towel (little smaller than a body towel). They brought a basin and told us to put our hands in for washing...they poured water onto our hands. Interesting. Okay so I wiped my hands on the towel and put it aside. We got our appetizer, some salsa salad plate. The waiter gave us bread from a basket at the front of the restaurant and left us. WHERE ARE OUR UTENSILS??

You don't get utensils...you eat with your hands and bread! So that's what our towel was for. You drape it across your legs in case you drip. We sat on these low cushions so you have a risk of dripping. So then onto our main meal. Dex ordered rabbit, I ordered Lamb -- they MUST give utensils now! How can I possibly eat three huge chunks of meat bare handed, especially with a lot of sauce around it? Well we confirmed it, you do still eat with your hands. Don't get me wrong, the lamb was very tasty in with Eggplant. The meat just fell off the bone, but I was using my hands to peel off the fat etc. My hands stunk (well smelled like cooked lamb) after wards, even after I showered, washed my hands twice with soap, and put on fruity antibacterial cream. Nope still stunk. It was a food stink so it wasn't that bad but bad enough to annoy you. They sprayed some fragrance oil on your hands after eating and it smelled really nice for a while, even masked some of that lamb smell. They gave us Mint Tea after which was nice....got that lamby taste from your mouth but otherwise you still got it on your hands.

I finally managed to get rid of that smell somehow, probably just from sleeping it off! Magically! Nevertheless it was an interesting experience that I might not want to do again!

My Big Apple!!

I haven't posted in a while and that's because I have been on a much needed R&R vacation. This is partially true as I did go on a vacation but it was for my cousin's wedding. I'll be posting pics on my site so check it out. I just realized that I didn't have any pictures of my pink dress at the wedding, that I was so desparately trying to match accessories to prior to the vacation. MAN!! In any case, I probably look more classic in the black dress I wore at night anyway. I felt like such a clepto because I borrowed many jackets and shawls from my aunt to compliment my look because I needed to keep WARM! I wore her raincoat for the ceremony, her long black matrix jacket for the dinner and her shawl on one of the random days. I believe Hurricane Wilma was heading to NY while I was there so I didn't even anticipate this rainy and windy weather. Thank you I am back. The weather here is much nicer, thank you very much.

I had a great time while I was there. More so than any other time in NY. It's probably because I could finally explore and get to know the city on my own. I even navigated with some help from the unfriendly train folks, but I made it through with limited difficulty. I was able to finally find Soho when it was too late and I was late to meet up with my cousin. I was like..."where was I all this time, going in the wrong direction!" What was wrong with me? Nothing because the subway map I had was not sufficient to bring to the right streets! Sheesh. In any case, I got to check out the latest H&M Stores, Macy's, Canal St., Soho and Lower East Side. I got to try some really good French (Bacchus) and Italian food (Lupa). I even got to see the BLUE DIAMOND from Tiffany's on 5th avenue. It is to die for, I wish I could go there everyday. I didn't bother asking for the price because it's probably way out of my price range. I mean look where it's situated. It's in the middle of the most expensive brands around: Rolex, Ermenegildo Zegna, Salvatore Ferragamo, Hugo Boss, Brooks Brothers, Cartier etc. I decided to go to H&M and Zara, the least expensive brands on the blocks.

I got to meet up with Steph, one of my best friends doing architecture in NY, and Derek, Dex's friend from Calgary.

To top off my stay, I had Lychee Martinis at Verlaine that I have not been able to find except here in NY. Yum!

iBlogger

They announced the new Apple Video ipod to the masses today. Man I want one but do I really want to watch episodes of shows or music videos on such a small screen? Pictures I could see, but why don't I just bring my camera??

Nevertheless, I have succumbed to the Apple Giant and bought/ordered an ipod mini. It hasn't come on my rewards system from work, so I think I'll just cancel it and actually buy the ipod nano. Instant gratification baby! Yes yes I just commented about the merits of seeing my photos on a different device than my camera. But alas it's the novelty. It's all about the novelty. Will I ever use my nano? Yes, maybe, yes I definitely will.