summer reading...

i roamed the bookstore last night after yoga class... it's one of my favorite evening pass-times (the other is with karen we would browse huge pharmacies, don't judge).
mainly because the bookstores are open 'unusually' late (for this area) and also i love to read; and i was looking at the last few pages of The Devil Wears Prada - book du jour that i was about to finish.

i finally finished the book; it wasn't great, and i don't even think i'll go watch the movie. typical of light summer reading - easy reading full of girly chick drama and gossip. i had mustered lots of self control and walked out of the bookstore without buying a book - i have boxes of books i intend to read but haven't yet. i am a book whore, stringing along a few books at the same time; occassionally starting a book when another dips into lullness of slow pace writing...

speaking of writing, i like the writing for the tv series Gilmore Girls. i'm already on season 5 of the series and have gotten at least 2 of my coworkers addicted to the show. they just seem so witty and smart sounding when they speak at that superquick pace while maintaining a touch of sarcasm and using all the right vocab to boot - i slowly fall in love with small town Connecticut and even miss the snowy days of winter (sometimes). I also love Grey's Anatomy, it's funny, witty, and touching and the music from each episode really sets a good tone.

"Power Yoga" is NOT an oxymoron!

think what you will, but 'power yoga' totally kicked my @ss.

after finishing 5-day hockey bootcamp, combined with the weekend before and after camp of hockey games, i had had 9 consecutive days of hockey/skating and decided to take it easy yesterday by visiting my fancy smancy gym to take a power flow yoga class.. (i hurt my right knee in the sunday hockey game i subbed in for, but nothing broken, just bruised muscles)

my gym is in the 'hippest' part of town; women and men of all ages seem to "dress up" to go to the gym - matching fitted latest styles of sports tops, accessories, fancy shoes, matching towels and i-could-care-less-but-come-hither looks are abound in my gym. granted the whole Sanata Row area is more for people walking around to be seen than to actually hang out... i like my gym though, it's clean and more importantly i like BEING there, it's peaceful and i feel like it's my very own small sanctuary (despite that i have my gym clothes carried around in a very UNFASHIONABLE shopping bag from a store that these fancy ladies probably have never heard of; all i care about is that i had an extra set of semi-clean workout clothes therefore saving me an extra car ride home where potentially i can make excuses once i'm comfortable on my sofa to not go to the gym as per original plan...)

i was the first one besides the Miriam the instructor to be in the room. she seems nice and talks about her aerobics background. it was hot running to get to the gym on time, but lots of yoga instructors like a slightly heated room where your body is warmer and therefore you can stretch a bit more than your usual capacity. before 10 minutes into the 1.5 hour class was up, 1 woman quickly grabbed her stuff and walked out. halfway through the class, 2 other asian girls who came in together quietly rolled their mats and hung their head as they left the class. i've done a few yoga classes to know that yoga isn't "easy" as one might think, but boy we did hold some power poses (stand on 1 leg, the other knee up pulled towards chest. now grab your feet that is up with both hands, and extend that leg straight out 90 degree to ground while maintaining the other leg still stable on the ground...)

we had knee lifts and planks which are basically super duper slow push ups (feel every muscle!!!)
and now my back and arms are aching to tell me "power" yoga does exist, and boy it kicked my @ss.

hockey bootcamp...

or as my coworker put it, 'boot-y-camp' because all bootcamps do a great job at whipping you into great cardio shape - especially for the butt & thighs, be it running or skating.

have i mentioned i am a glutton for punishment?!?! i signed up for a 1 week intensive hockey bootcamp, everyday for 1.5 hours this week i will be out there training and yelled at by the Barons coaches (Barons are the SJ Sharks minor league).

so instead of watching the Cup game, i was on the ice yesterday (as i am sure my cheering and support would've yielded a different outcome for Edmonton Oilers...) Even during warm up i am glad i have taken bootcamps to get me in shape; i wanted to puke before warm up was over (thankfully my lunch was hours before hockey, so i had nothing in me to puke up, avoiding a memorable scene at hockey camp)

we skated, we did drills, we passed, we had 3-on-3 scrimmage, we skated some more... we skated a lot - a full hour+ of power skating... i have a newfound appreciation for NHL players - practicing the way they do, skating this hard, and i'm NOT nearly the level they're at by any stretch of the imagination... next time i watch a game i will refrain from thinking 'why can't they just skate a bit harder at the puck...' man i was drained...

off topic: THIS USB drive is a great example of ideas gone wrong
while THIS website is a great example of potential brilliant idea

Vancouver Follies - chapter 4a: Bushart Gardens

having visited the Butterfly Gardens, we made our way to Bushart Gardens
the entrance fee was $21 per person before we even see the sign to the gardens. having had paid 20$ for the ferry ride, we decided we should see the garden and be done with it. (when i asked my friend Em whether she recommended the gardens, she said she hasn't gone in 14 years, which is typically how it goes when you live in a place you hardly visit the tourist traps...)

let me tell you the garden was HUGE and used to be a mine until the wife of someone decide to pretty it up and even planted tall willowy trees to block the view of the gardens to the factories in the background. it would've been really nice - if anything was actually IN BLOOM at the time. but as it was, early June, nothing was in bloom. The rose garden with probably hundreds of varieties of roses had maybe 3 roses partially wilted and that's it - lots of buds, no color, no blooms in full swing. we just got real disappointed from one section to another, and were done with the garden in less than an hour - but we were stranded on Victoria island because the return trips back to Vancouver were every 2 hours.

after a disappointing garden visit, we drove back to line up for the ferry only to discover that we had to pay ANOTHER $80 for the whole ferry ride, meaning we spent 40$ per person on the ferry, 21$ for a garden with nothing in bloom!!!!!!!!!!!!! needless to say we were all super bummed out at a waste of money and time on the vacation... looking forward to the Nightmarket splurge on yummy treats.

We got to the nightmarket pretty late due to the sparse ferry rides back to Vancouver, it was past 10pm when we were parked and walked into the place... it was more packed than yesterday, we decided to buy some curry fish balls as well as steamed rice rolls to try... it was delicious! but there was so much pushing and shoving as people were vying for some room to the kiosks to pay for food... the girls decided we would buy all the stuff we want seperately and go back to the hotel to eat...

the logistics kind of failed us, because most of the kiosks sell skewers of food - not meant to be carried. we didn't have tupperwares, and only some kiosks have 'to go' containers with a lid. in the end it was super stressful and most of the popular snacks required standing in line to order then taking a number and waiting for the next batch to be done cooking. i was hungry, i was tired, i bought something in super-spicy-curry that burned my tongue, causing me and W. to quickly line up for fresh sugar cane juice (which was amazingly delicious and refreshing)

in the end, the girls bought a few items and by the time we got back to the hotel, most of us were too tired to be hungry anymore, and the food was merely ok when it's cooled down - we had leftover snacks that went to waste...

oh, at the night market this time, i noticed an asian couple in fitted cropped baby pink matching nylon sweat jackets... although it is kinda cute in the typical asian way, i can't help but think that pink made the guy look even more effeminate- and i guess bravo to him for having the guts to go that far to match his dainty little girlfriend... but ick, ick and ick.

Vancouver Follies - chapter 4a: Butterfly Garden

saturday was all planned out - get up early, go to Victoria, see Butterfly Garden and Bushard Garden, come back early, hit Nightmarket, eat eat and eat...

however, at 10am we were roaming through the streets of Richmond trying to find a chinese place opened for chinese-style breakfast food. (since we were in Vancouver/Richmond area, the girls refused to have anything but good chinese/asian food at every meal, making us spoiled little chinese girls...) Unfortunately for us, lots of places weren't opened (which surprised us...) By the time we finished eating, since the ferry ride to Victoria was every hour, we barely were in time to take the noon ferry over...

Cars lined up after you pay (including the car and 4 of us the ferry ride was $80!) and then all the cars load in, and then all the passengers rush upstairs to 2 levels of seating, souvenir stores, and a diner-sponsored cafe where passengers can hopefully spend some more money during the 1.5 hour ferry ride. The ride was peaceful - the ships were so large you don't really feel the movement of the waves... i am including a bad picture of me on the ferry here - bad because it is so typical tourist (at least i did not make a V for Victory sign with my fingers) and also because i look like shit still because i was still hella sick. but hey whatever...

anyhow... the ferry landed and we were off. First stop was the Butterfly garden. This is one of the famous Victoria tourist traps, where they have 40 types of butterflies in this beautiful indoor sancturary. we got the student discount because i still had a valid student id from the local community colledge online course i took 3 years ago (Allied Health Science), so the 8$ entrance fee didn't seem so bad. The butterflies were beautiful, but they really had neat flowers, trees, waterways, and other living lives like ducks and other small animals to make the place pretty.

the highlight for me is when a butterfly landed on my finger... come to think of it, any other "bug" i would've screamed bloody murder, but since it was a pretty butterfly, i let it hang out with me for a minute. took this picture with my left hand which turned out surprisingly clear... i also pretended i was a good photographer with my 'idiot camera' (1-click digital) and took some semi-artistic shots of the flowers i liked. i figure i can save 5$ and enlarge these prints and do better than the typical ikea print sets everyone now owns...

Vancouver Follies - chapter 3: Night Market Madness

i realize that if i don't hurry it up and finish my Vancouver Follies series, i may never, ever unravel the events of my trip (as it is, the trip was 4 days, and has taken me over 2 weeks to still tell about it)...

after dinner, we went to Richmond Night Market - this has, in the years since i've lived there, become one of the most highlighted activities for any chinese visiting Vancouver in summertime. Picture this - a large shipping carrier truck parking lot empty, spacious as far as you can see - setup full of kiosks of stalls of goods to be purchased, knock off brand names, goldfish carnival-like games, dvds, cds, phones, clothing, toys... with 2 street lengths of kiosks reserved for food - all the snacks you can think of that is typically provided like from local street hawkers from China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Korea and Japan all in 1 place (and sanitarily cleaner than from the actual street hawkers at the various places).

we roamed around, shocked like Country Mouse's first visit to the Big City, gawking and being pushed and dragged around, enormous amount of people trying to go various directions... the array of fantastic street food was amazing, everything looks soooo delicious! too bad we had gorged ourselves before coming, so we had no room to eat. there was a unanimous agreement to come back tomorrow after the Bushard Gardens in Victoria and have this food instead of dinner; so to satisfy our greedy taste buds.

On the way back to the car, we saw people still going to the Nightmarket even though it was near midnight when we left (closing time). i gawked at the asian couple where the girl was wearing no less than 4-inch heels walking on gravel and pebble road into the Nightmarket. how she can walk gracefully in those heels without a grimace to betray her pain sensors, over rugged tiva-sandals-required terrain impressed me. i hurt FOR her, thinking about the 10 minute walk to the market and 10 minutes back she needs to do.

9

9 packets of salt...
3 weeks ago i bought a bottle of french vanilla creamer; figuring i would try to make my own flavored oatmeal. as my audience is aware, i've been sick for 3+ weeks, so the other day was the first time i was able to create my own experiment...

opened the fridge... weird, there's some creamer on the side of the bottle. flipped the cap - THE SEAL IS OPENED and HALF of the creamer in the bottle is GONE. gone. gone...

after getting over the initial shock, i was furious at the audacity of a person who would OPEN a bottle of something OBVIOUSLY not theirs, there weren't ANY OTHER bottles of creamers in the fridge for them to 'be mistaken' about. our company doesn't provide bottled creamers. So whoever it was, intentionally OPENED and used the creamer; probably thinking that a little bit they steal a day wouldn't be noticed. (although what idiot would think that a person would not remember whether they had poked through a brand new sealed bottle of creamer would be... well, an idiot!!!!)

i've been fuming since then, thinking about sweet revenge, and checked out my options. the most obvious i wanted was to add ex-lax to MY bottle of creamer. but as it was, except for the chocolate format, all the other ex-lax come in coated capsules, and i would hate the amount of work required to grind it back down to powder to add to the creamer...
i bought a bottle of fiber - odorless, tasteless, won't-make-liquids-thick fiber powder, and intend on putting A LOT OF IT in the remainder of the creamer....

however, i was talking to someone who gave me an even better idea.

salt.
plain old salt.
and lots of it.

so i added 9 packets of iodized salt in the creamer this morning and shaked. i tasted it briefly (i didn't get to work early enough to have good amount of time i needed). it tasted slightly salty. it would definitely taste icky in the coffee or tea of the thief.
however, i took another 7 packs of salt to add some more tonight, after work.

... the salt is more in-your-face, even though the fiber would be more 'punishing'. but if i didn't put enough fiber, then i would only help the bowel movements of someone not deserving...
the salt is saying 'i know you've been stealing, steal again at your own risk'.

i am so vindictive... but really, if ppl don't have the nerve to steal and use other ppl's stuff, i wouldn't have to feel the need to bring justice and be my own SuperHeroine

Vancouver Follies - chapter 2: day 2

drizzle... drizzle. we thought the entire 4 days in vancouver would be just drizzles...

our first stop in Canada (other than at the Canadian custom where i jokingly replied "yeah, we wish!!!" when the officer asked if we were transporting 100,000 in cash over the border in the car with us) turns out to be a little chinese mall where the food court has familiar street food from HK. we then continued our drive and checked into the Pan Pacific hotel in downtown Vancouver - right by the major landmark called Canada Place. the hotel is beautiful and upscale, the room big enough for us to rehearse our olympic-level gymnastic routines end to end!!! the view breathtaking as well - better than our $14 view from the Seattle Space Needle.

after jumping on the bed to ensure its quality, we changed for our dinner venue. C. had The List of places we MUST go eat at recommended by her friend, and we MUST oblige by it. First stop was restaurant Kirin, a fancy chinese restaurant chain known for their "good seafood" (read: "expensive chinese place for hosting banquets for fancy occassions"). we had a seafood 'set dinner' which includes shark fin soup, lobster and some other dinner dishes. everything was just 'so-so' but considering the expensive price tag it wasn't worth it. (and i tried not to think 'i have better places to recommend that is not on the list')

we had a long day of sitting in traffic in drizzling weather, so everyone was tired. i took my cough syrup with codeine (thank heavens for codeine) before bed, and YET at 5am still managed to wake myself up in a coughing fit, afraid to wake the girls. i grabbed my fleece jacket and the pillow, and in the ottoman to sleep the rest of the night sitting up (less congested, almost no coughing).

the next day was a mad dash for Starbucks coffee (W. and C. were the ultimate addict) and headed off to Stanley Park. think of it kind of like Golden Gate park - people know about it, it's one of the tourist attractions - but in the end it's "just a park"! i went with the other 3 girls who are not outdoorsy/sporty AT ALL, and when we got there they were like: 'what, this is it?!' and in all honesty, if you're not an outdoorsy person, a park IS just a park, that *IS* it, get over it, move on.

then we shopped at The Tourist Street aka Robson street for 2 hours. which may sound like a lot but it isn't since we spent 30 minutes of it finding a bathroom (30 minutes divided by 3 trips to the bathrooms). and we were 4 girls so it was a lot of loitering at 1 store for 1 person while the others wait, pass it on.

one thing i've realized on this trip at this point - 2 of the girls are PARANOID about bathrooms - as in, first thing we do at ANY destination is find a bathroom. then right before we leave the LAST thing we do at ANY destination is finding a bathroom. therefore, we spend 50% of our time planning, looking, using the bathroom at any destination. by the end of the trip even *I* was swooped up by this paranoia that i may have to go too every time we stop at the bathrooms... mind you i was even drinking 3 to 4 times the liquids they were because i was still coughing and itchy throat and i was less paranoid...

anyways, that evening, i insisted on going to Mui Gardens, which has amazingly good HK style curry beef brisket. it is SOOO good, but it's not fancy or expensive like shark fins or abalone. it's a chain restaurant, KNOWN for their curries. As we sat, i glanced at C. who is furiously raking her list since this place isn't on The List; but offhandedly i had said i thought it was recommended (in fact, it was, by W's friend, on HER list...). Anyways, the first bite of curry they try, everyone was in heaven, and i think 'AHA, NOW will you drop the list and just enjoy the good food...?' but i let the curry speak for themselves. i... am... in... heaven...

rippling on the water life moments...

sometimes in life, some moments just catches and holds onto your breath, and you think, wow, this is a moment i will remember...

a friend just sent photos of the new baby, the first picture of lil Nathan uncannily, eeriely resembles the father. oh my gosh, i think, these people, my friends, are PARENTS, they are responsible for this little guy's life, for the rest of their lives.

they're not the first of my friends to get married, and have a kid. but some moments in life just hit the right note, like the perfect stone skipping ripples across the water on the lake...

it's the whole Circle-of-Life feeling.

Vancouver Follies - chapter 1b: cinnamon pieces of heaven...

the plane ride to Seattle from SJ was only 1.5 hours (flightcrew singsong time included), but there was only 1 person working at Alamo, so it took another hour before we picked up the rental car...

having been to Seattle/Vancouver before, i was unofficially the map-looking-navigator. it was decided that we go to Pike Place to eat, then Space Needle because that's the famous tourist spot of Seattle.
Pike Place is like Atwater market - kinda a cross between your fresh produce market and a seafood-oriented farmers market inside a building by the piers. It is also where a lot of the seafood vendors throw around whole big 12-lb salmon fish to each other and put on a show to display their fresh seafood for sale. Of course none of the signs had the price, causing one to think just how expensive it'd be. But the lobster tails are HUGE (measure against the forearm of the man in the picture, the tails are still bigger) we had clam chowder at the kiosk in Pike Place, it was good and we were hungry.

then i noticed this HEAVENLY scent; and followed it to this donut place, where mini-size donuts rolled right off a little machine into the plate, and the vendors bag the donuts into a paperbag, add some cinnamon sugar and shake it up. They are warm, fluffy, cinnamon-y and surprisingly not overly-sweet. it's a little bit of heaven in my mouth - yum yum

we made our way to Seattle Space Needle. Mind you i've been to Seattle twice before but no one i'd travelled with had an urge to go - neither did i, but i figured whatever, i'm along for the ride. the ticket was $14 to go up, it's about 40 floors high, and let me tell you the view wasn't spectacular, the walkway wasn't spectacular, and i can get much better view from a skyscraper, any skyscraper, for free...

scratch that off the list, i shall never visit the Space Needle again, at least now i won't be curious about it.

after that we took Hwy 5 north towards Vancouver. even at 3pm on a thursday afternoon we got stuck in an extra hour of traffic. we arrived into Richmond, BC with the slight drizzle welcoming us...

Vancouver Follies - chapter 1a: there is a song...

i might be long-winded (haha, can you imagine otherwise), so i figure i'll break my thoughts on the trip down into chapters.

here's a bit of background; i've been feeling pretty disgruntle about work, and being sick every few weeks sucked. my friend W told me about her upcoming trip to Seattle/Vancouver she had planned with 2 girl friends... i was so excited, sending them info about where to go and eat, and she invited me along... afterall they already planned the trip, the car rental, the hotel - having 1 more along just means they get to split the cost further without having to change any plans. i've never made a frivolous rash decision about a trip - perhaps it was the codeine cough syrup at night and the constant hacking cough i had, and the many days of nyquil-sleep cycles, i decided to buy a plane ticket to go along.

but even as wednesday night approached, i was still sick as a puppy - coughing, coughing and more coughing. i could not last a 10 minute stretch without a coughing fit. i was really close to saying, forget the money spent on plane ticket, i'll just forego and stay home - why put more stress by travelling when sick?!
but in the morning i felt ok, and since i had already spent 2 weeks sick at home, i said screw it, i'll recover in vancouver

the plane ride to seattle was uneventful and quick. i let the 3 girls (W, C, and S) sit together since i didn't know C and S, and i was having coughing fits i figured i should go and spread my germs to others.

but the most memorable moment of the trip at that point has got to be after the plane landed, and we're taxi-ing into the terminal. the Southwest crew came on the intercom and sang. to the barney song originally lyric-ed: "I love you, you love me, we're a happy family..."

rewritten by the crew (feel free to SING-ALONG): "I love you, you love us, we are faster than the bus" *shocked, i almost fell out of my chair. i look around to see if ANYONE ELSE can hear this, maybe my congestion was enhanced by the flight so bad that i am now hearing things in my head*
i mean, they put in effort, because they even managed to work the lyrics "after flying 7 times with us your 8th trip is free"!

West Coast Chronicles : aka What I Did with my Tax Refund

this is just a teaser... an update to say i'm working on it. i came back yesterday from Vancouver/Seattle and went straight to work, then to a finale edition of poker night where the hosting friend is moving to SLC (salt lake city) in 2 weeks.

i had so many thoughts i wanted to blog about for the trip, hopefully it will all stay there... came back to full fledge super crazy busy schedule at work. i am so glad i took the time to go to vancouver, or else i'd be more beaten up in my attitude...

some highlights: barney song, matching pink track jackets, 40 year old father of an 8 year old hitting on me on the plane...