Khatsalano in the rain

July 12, 2015September 6, 2015Leave a comment

I remember Khatsahlano last year. It was under the blazing sun, and the whole festival felt like a struggle to stay hydrated. I was super sticky after a day of checking out the performances and moving from vendor to vendor! This year was the exact opposite. The day started off a little gloomy, and then it started to drizzle. Honestly though, it was more enjoyable as an attendee for it to be cool, than super hot in my opinion. A little rain never hurt anyone. Of course, for the vendors (especially all the ones trying to sell drinks), it clearly caused a dip in business. That’s not to say the festival wasn’t busy. Quite the opposite!
There were music performances (duh— that’s what the whole festival is about), performers (Harrison Lee for one, the yoyo master), and lots of vendors. I ended up getting a few things! A cute Princess Leia bookmark, hand painted by Luiza Salazar, a fancy soap with shell-shaped little soaps on it from Sum Inspiration, and cookie butter from Pirate Joe’s. If you’re a Vancouverite, you should know Pirate Joe’s story. Love it!

https://instagram.com/p/5BOL_7zcbf/?taken-by=kalyrical

One interesting stretch of Khatsahlano was the Etsy Marketplace! It’s where they got a bunch of Etsy stores to come alive— taking a break from their online sales to sell things in person. It wasn’t the busiest part of the street party, but it’s interesting.

We then saw a camera crew running around and realized it was Carlos from YTV! He’s been the host of that channel ever since I was just a kid. Saw him again on TV the other day. Kind of surreal seeing him in the flesh.

And that was that. A wet day, but I probably liked it better than if it was a super hot one 🙂

– Karen

Contingent Contemplation: Canada Day

July 8, 2015September 6, 20153 Comments

July 1st has always been a public holiday for me. In Canada, people will wear more red than usual and go downtown to celebrate the three provinces coming together to form the country of Canada. Then, after moving to Hong Kong, July 1st was a day celebrated by all as the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Establishment Day. For Hong Kong, it was the day the British rule stopped in Hong Kong, and they were handed back over to China. But they would also retain their freedom to remain capitalist and not be put under the communist government. “One Country, Two Systems”.

Canada Day used to be special in my family. My mom, dad, sister and I would go downtown to watch the parades, followed by the fireworks. My dad, the stingiest guy on earth would pay for parking downtown. That’s how special that day was. It was a family day. After coming back to Vancouver, it was no longer a family thing. It was more of an “oh look, the fireworks are on TV” thing.

2015 was different. I went downtown bright and early (okay, it was around 1PM) to check out what was going on! I was actually doing something for Canada Day again! For one, I knew that the FIFA Fan Zone was running (it’s ran by the marketing agency I used to work for! Pretty proud), and they’d be giving away free Coke. Away my boyfriend and I went to quench our thirst with promo beverages! People were there watching the England vs Germany game and they were in overtime! Eventually, England won 🙂

We had come just at the right time to take pictures with the actual FIFA Women’s World Cup trophy. It was there for three hours on display to the public! The fan zone was a place for everyone to come together to watch the games, as well as get some free swag from sponsors, and experience some hype around the FIFA games.

Meanwhile, the Convention Centre was bustling with more festivities. There were SO many drink samples (McDonalds, Nestea, some truck promoting milk, this other iced tea brand, Sparkling Ice, and I don’t even think I’ve listed them all), but since it was a sweltering hot day, there were huge lines ups for all of them.

The Olympic Cauldron was lit to celebrate Canada, and there were shows going on around Jack Poole Plaza. We ended up buying snacks and drinks from the nearby food carts. I couldn’t resist the skewers. LOOK AT THEM! As for dinner, we ate at the Spaghetti Factory because the line up was decent (everywhere was a little crazy), but ended up eating through the parade. We were pretty tired, so we didn’t mind.

After dinner, we started getting ready for the parade. It was crazy how many people had spots reserved starting from God knows when. They had blankets, snacks, and some had their own poker games running amongst friends, sitting around to make sure they’d have a good spot to view the fireworks. And of course, leaving was a whole mess altogether. That picture above was the crowds of people rushing to get home.

All in all, this year’s Canada Day was one of the most fulfilling one I’ve had in years 🙂 I was super tired after walking around all day, but it was worth it. I just wish it wasn’t quite so hot!

– Karen

Killing Floor 2 Gameplay: Guts are Awesome

June 30, 2015October 8, 2015Leave a comment

During this year’s Steam summer sale, I surprisingly didn’t get a lot of games. Mostly because I have a long queue of games that I have still yet to play, and that this summer’s free time is significantly less than previous years. I did, however, get Killing Floor 2. And it’s awesome. Gory pics ahead.

If you’ve played the original Killing Floor, a lot of mechanics in 2 will be the same. They still use the arrow guidance system to get you to the trader (except now, the traders are no longer actual human NPCs), you still get to choose your class, and the perks that come with it. But now, it’s so much more satisfying to kill zeds. Be prepared for blood and guts everywhere.

It’s been pretty fun playing 2 player rounds, but playing in bigger groups is better in my opinion. With a bigger group, although it scales to be harder in terms of the monsters you get, you get more sides covered. Also, there’s these really annoying crawlers that forces you to look down at your feet instead of focusing your gun on your usual head level enemies. So every once in a while, you’re realize you’re losing health, and that you have to shoot at that thing at your feet. Really annoying. In a bigger team someone else almost always picks them off you so you don’t have to do that. It’s much easier for them to aim at your feet than for you to switch what you’re looking at to purposely look down.

And OH MY GOSH the stalkers are so annoying. Not even because they’re invisible, but because they feel the need to do crazy kung fu moves in front of you to show off, THEN proceed to bash you on your head.

232090_screenshots_2015-06-22_00001

I may be complaining about these zeds, but honestly I love the game. Don’t get me wrong there. Me hating them makes killing them that much better. Plus, the slow mo shots black and white moments are really cool (but sometimes dumb when it happens at inopportune times and you’re just reloading in slow mo).

This game is early access, but it feels very much complete in terms of gameplay. There’s a few bugs here and there (me, and a teammate from a random game both realized even though we pressed on the button to refill our ammo, our ammo didn’t actually get refilled, so we were screwed for the next wave).

232090_screenshots_2015-06-22_00004

Bad things? Currently, there’s only four campaigns. And one boss, which is that guy up there who’s surviving on pumping Mountain Dew directly into his veins.

– Karen

FIFA Women’s World Cup Canada

June 28, 2015September 6, 20153 Comments

I bought last minute tickets to the FIFA Women’s World Cup game that happened yesterday. Literally last minute, as we closed the Craigslist deal an hour before the game. We still had to print out tickets and get there, so we ended up being late for two minutes or so. We had planned on going, but we wanted to wait till someone was desperate to sell them at a lower price. We got center seats in the end for $100 each, which wasn’t the cheapest, but given the prices we were seeing yesterday, it was pretty good.

Canada was off to a rough start. Englad was aggressive and managed to get two goals in within the first 15 minutes. It was plain to see that the team was a little demoralized, and the crowd was also getting unhappy. Nonetheless, Christine Sinclaire managed to get a goal in at around the 42nd minute. The team livened up again, and smarter plays were made. Sadly, it was the only goal we got and it wasn’t enough to tie us or make us win.
Honestly, I’m still very proud of the team. We came very far— just one game away from the finals 😦 The team did us proud. I’m super happy when I see young girls being inspired by the women’s team, and jumping up and down, trying to get a team member to look their way. The team stayed around after the game, and were very accommodating to fans! We got to snap a few pictures of them, and they even agreed to do selfies!

The turnout was really good and you could see seas of red everywhere. It’s really touching to see everyone congregating to support the girls ❤

One thing I didn’t like was the weather. Sure, there were blue skies and it was summer, but the heat was crazy! On the bus, we sat across from a guy who was literally towel drying himself (not just his face. Anywhere he could reach that could pass as being proper in public) on the bus every 5 minutes, and another guy just sat there dripping sweat. Wearing red also didn’t help cool me down.

Anyone going to the finals? Anyone got free tickets? I’m broke. But I want to go. Quite sad Canada won’t be fighting for the cup, but hey, we got far. Keep on trooping Canada’s women’s team 🙂 Keep inspiring!

– Karen

THREE DOGS IN MY LIFE!!!

June 26, 2015September 6, 201511 Comments

Today, I got ridiculously happy when my boyfriend told me that he’d have two dogs sleeping over. He also has a dog, so there would be THREE dogs in my life today.

I knew I had to go get dog treats for them somewhere. I happened to recall a dog bakery along Main, so I headed there right after work. This place was Three Dog Bakery — WHICH NOW I REALIZE IS SO PERFECT. Because there’s three dogs at our place today. Only now do I realize this. Sigh.

I ended up getting a bunch of goodies. I got three rawhide braids for them (beef flavoured), three donuts, and an extra cookie for my boyfriend’s dog because I heard he was getting a little jealous from all the attention that now went to the two other dogs. I couldn’t have little Rascal feeling left out. The guy who worked there was really nice and also gave us a little baggie of their oven baked treats as a sample 🙂

I cannot believe I wasn’t buying this for myself. There’s no chocolate here, just carob. They look so good!

LOOK AT THEM ENJOYING THEIR TREAT (I didn’t get a picture of them eating the donuts because I was too excited watching them). I have no idea if the treats were any good, but they pretty much gobbled it up. Like the guy at the store’s response of “basically all of them” when I asked which of the treats were fan favourites, I think dogs will eat anything.

Anyway, a little later on, we took them for a walk so they could do their business. Ollie (the brown & black dog) was quite a handful, but she was my responsibility because Tommy (the jet black one) would be too strong if he bolted after something, so my boyfriend took his leash. My boyfriend’s mom took Rascal…and I didn’t want to compete with her because Rascal would get hurt if she walked somedog else.