Category: Blog

Reading break at Portland! Friends, dining, shopping- the perfect trio!

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Reading break has officially started! But it felt like it had begun two days ago! My friends and I went on a road trip to Oregon basically right after school ended on Friday. It was a tough ride since the drive took at least 5 hours to get there, but it was worth it! Poor William (our friend who drove)! He had to pick up the car AND drive us there! But, we had a shotgun system where we rotated people who sat in shotgun so that they can keep Will company– even if everyone else was sleeping.

What kind of sucked was that I was a bit sick during the trip. Through my lack of sleep and unhealthy lifestyle choices during midterm exam weeks, I managed to get sick. Joy oh joy. My voice is currently gone from all the talking I tried to do with my sore throat during the trip!

Back to the road trip story… We all woke up at around 4am on Saturday and everyone was picked up at their house at around 5am. You can clearly observe that everyone in the car lacked sleep and all eyes were promptly closed around an hour into the drive. I had shotgun responsibilities first so I fiddled around with the music and talked to William while he drove. Honestly, I have not seen Will for a while and I wanted to catch up, but my lack of voice and my throat kind of hindered my efforts! 😦

We stopped by a McDonalds’ on the way, just like we did last time. Connie, Will and I headed over to Hagens to look for fruits or veggies to munch on…sadly we were sidetracked by the bulk section of the store. SO. MUCH. STUFF. Connie bought us all chocolate covered gummy bears, chocolate covered coffee beans and chocolate covered almonds!! Yum 🙂 Afterwards, we went back on the road and continued our drive.

After arriving at Portland, we parked and decided to hunt for their famous street vendors! It took us a bit before we found them…and it was amazing. There were so many to choose from, and I settled on a pulled pork sandwich meal! I have been craving pulled pork for a bit and Portland did not disappoint! I really wish Vancouver had something like this! I mean, it takes up so little room for these vendors and their trucks! Allowing a bunch of them to congregate around a parking lot would be a good use of space and a good source of employment. Anyway, after our tummies were full and our fingers were frozen from the cold, we headed over to our motel. We left again pretty soon after that to do some outlet shopping. We went to SO many different places to shop! So happy! But, my shopping expeditions did not go as well as I planned and I did not get as much as I thought I was going to. 😦

Us and our street food!

At night, we drove by a McDonalds’ to steal their free wi-fi so we could search up good eating joints around town. We finally settled on Le Bistro Montage, which had high ratings from everyone online. We arrived at the restaurant and we thought it looked very sketchy. It was kind of under a bridge, where it was really dark and creepy. It was around the industrial part of town and there was no other restaurants nearby…just the one. BUT, when we arrived, we put down our names for a table and was told that the wait would be one and a half hours! That made us curious as to what restaurant would require that long a wait! The actual wait took around two hours, and by then, we were ready to eat whatever was thrown at us.

Le Bistro Montage’s menu

The place had a nice vibe to it, though it was really dark. There were huge paintings decorating the walls, as well as little trinkets such as a skull of some sort of animal, and a dried puffer fish– things of the like. We all sat down and was ready to order within minutes. I got the buttermilk chicken with garlic mashed potatoes! It was served with veggies and corn bread! Delish! I also ordered a POG juice, which was as combination of passionfruit, orange and guava juice! I am so glad I tried it because I loved it! Wish they had it in Canada..or do they already have it?? Will do some juice hunting. Some of us also ordered oyster shooters, which were so delicious I went and ordered another one. Overall, the place was pretty awesome asides from the wait. I would definitely recommend it as it was not an expensive meal, and it provided a unique dining experience. Oh, and if you have food left, definitely ask them to help you wrap it up! They do the funkiest foil art for you! Connie took some of her Jambalaya to go and they came back with a scorpion-shaped package!

Buttermilk friend chicken and garlic mashed potatoes!

So delicious!

Scorpion shaped takeout!

Later at night we visited a Wal-Mart, where Connie and I freaked out about how big everything was! Big bags of candy? Hell yes! We all started grocery shopping and returned to our motel well after midnight. One thing I dislike about Portland? How far everything is from each other! I cannot imagine what it would be like to commute around that city…honestly, I am pretty sure everyone has to drive. Being from Vancouver, everything is pretty well connected, so it was hard to have to cross a million bridges to get to a certain part of town.

After spending a good chunk of time playing “The Game of Life” (we lost miserably. We as in Connie, Monica and I), we then returned to our respective rooms for a good nights sleep. Which was not that good because I woke up freezing since apparently we forgot to turn up the heat. We are so smart.

The next day consisted of a LOT of shopping. We tried to make use of Portland’s tax-free system, and then we headed over to Westfield Southcenter Mall for lunch at Jollibee. I was kind of excited because back in Hong Kong, so many of my friends ate at Jollibee! It was my first time eating a meal at Jollibee and I thought it was delicious! Sure it was kind of greasy and unhealthy, but delicious all the same! Us girls also split a halo halo, a popular Filipino dessert! It was also my first time trying that and it was DELICIOUS! If I was not getting so cold from the drink, I would of had more!

Halo halo!

Again, I am skipping the details of our shopping expeditions and moving on to dinner. We ate at Olive Garden! It was my first time in that American chain, but I am amazed by all the bottomless dishes! They refilled practically everything! Monica, Josh and I were still pretty full from lunch so we decided to each get an appetizer and share. I got a Smoked Mozzarella Fonduta, Monica got a Italian Sampler, and Josh got a flatbread, though I forgot which one. We ended up not even finishing our three appetizers because it was so filling and big!

At Olive Garden

Afterwards, we spent a good portion of time fooling around in the parking lot and rearranging our shopping bags and luggage. At some point, we accidentally set off a car alarm when we were messing around with breadsticks. Do not ask.

I am so happy that my reading break is off to such a great start! Friends, dining and shopping– the perfect trio! Hopefully I will also have more time to blog amongst other things! 🙂

What I’ve learned this week

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1) How to play mahjong

2) I cannot eat as much as I think I can

3) Santa Claus is Canadian

4) The idea of watching movies alone

So starting off with number 1, I finally learned how to play mahjong! Okay, so I am not at the level where you can play the version where you tally up the points, and you play certain different combinations, but I learned how to play the regular matching three up one! Honestly, in my 18 years of life, although I have watched my parents and many aunts and uncles around me play mahjong, I have never thought about learning it. However, now that I have, I cannot believe I never did! It is actually very fun, and I feel more connected to my Asian heritage. Okay, maybe not so much the whole connected thing, but it was still fun! Funny (or not so) thing is that we play at the UBC library. I think half the people wanted to kill us at Irving K. Barber and the other half wanted to join us. Okay, before you start tutting at me, you have got to realize that Irving is infamous for being the library you to go when you do not want to study. It is the nosiest library in the whole of UBC. At one point, some random guy came up and asked if he can join us for a round. Of course we agreed, but he had to leave before we finished our own round. 😦 Overall, I would say it felt like I have acquired another life skill.

Mahjong at the library...I won three times in a row!

Now to number 2…it all began (and ended) at Anton’s. So after everyone’s classes ended today, us hungry university kids were starving and William, one of my friends, said he knew a place. We all listened as he described how although it is like $20 a plate, the spaghetti portions were huge and you win a prize if you actually end up finishing it. Being who we were, we were like

It turns out that this place was Anton’s Pasta Bar, on Hastings and between Carleton and Madion. We got there and I was so hungry I declared I could eat half a cow. My friend said she was so hungry she would resort to cannibalism (*cough* Monica). There was a line, as my friend had warned, since it was such a popular joint. After sitting down, we basically took ten minutes before quickly flagging down the waitress so we could order. Looking around the restaurant, I saw everyone asking for a box to take away their leftovers. I was criticizing how people could not even eat one-third of their plate of spaghetti. WEAK! When our food came, we all dug in. Although there was five of us, we ate in silence for 10-15 minutes. That is how hungry and into our food we were. I got the Spinach Fettuccine Alla Fillippo, which was basically a white sauce spaghetti with spinach and chicken. Delicious! Charlie also got a white sauce spaghetti (the Fettuccine Alfredo), while Monica and Kody got the Fettuccine Creola. William was the only one who got something really different, the Tortellini Alla Panna. After a while I realized that this was an endless battle. In the end I think I ate 1/3 of my plate max. Kind of sad when you walked in with such high expectations of yourself. And I wanted the prize too (a pen). Sucked watching some table behind us claim a pen. Anyways, defeat aside, that restaurant was delicious! Probably not the place you would take someone on a date, due to having to pig out and dig through a heaping plate of pasta, but a great place with a cheerful environment for hanging out with friends.

Anton's Past Bar storefront featuring Valentine's Day

Our spaghetti 🙂

A feast! Challenge accepted!

Before challenge...

Challenge failed...though you have got to admit, I did plough through a lot!

And we shamefully walked away with half our plates in these containers...

Point number 3 came up as we were waiting for our takeout boxes at Anton’s. We narrowed down Santa Claus’s nationality as either Russian, American (from USA) or Canadian. We all started arguing our points and the argument went on from there. My friend and I argued that since he wears white and red, is super nice, and our coin (the quarters) has a picture of a caribou, which is the same as a reindeer, Santa Claus is Canadian. No one seemed to have as much evidence as we did so we kind of left that there. 🙂

Lastly, I was having a conversation with my mom the other day, complaining how I do not think I know anyone who would be willing to watch “The Artist” with me, though I desperately want to! All my friends definitely do not seem like the type to be into that type of movie…so I was stuck in a dead end. I jokingly said “I might as well go to the cinemas by myself.” My mom then told me that watching a movie by yourself is a whole new experience. When I thought about it, I realized how true that was. You do not have to censor your feelings and you can fully concentrate on the film! I really am thinking of trying it out one day, just to see how I like it. Who knows? It may even become a thing I do! Honestly, after consideration, I would most probably want to watch those cry-your-eyes-out movies alone because it gets so hard to control your tears when you are into the movie.

So for now, that is what I have learned this week! 🙂 Have a great weekend everyone!

-Karen

Vancouver nights in the fog

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Today was extraordinarily foggy, and I mean seriously foggy. It started off as a beautiful day when I left the house this afternoon, but as the day progressed, you could notice that you could not see very far into the distance. I thought it would be interesting to have some photos taken. However my camera would not capture the fog…unless if someone else was in the picture 🙂 And yes that figure in the pictures is me– I was not stalking someone on the streets so I get get a picture of the foggy surroundings. My sister held the camera. I thought these came out eerie, but peaceful at the same time…

[cue music]  Strangers in the night…. 

Moon vs. street light

On a slightly different topic, there was a little old lady busking for change at the bus stop. Although it was freezing cold tonight, she was there with her mic hooked up onto an amplifier with music playing in the background. She sang songs for everyone waiting for their buses. I thought it was nice and when I went up to her, I realized she was busking for a cause. She was helping raise money for kids in Kenya who had HIV. This whole scene was just so nice and I watched as others also dropped in their coins after mine. What a beautiful way to round off a day. 🙂

Busking for 'change'!

Releasing my inner geek!

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Just kidding, I do not think I am that big a geek. But I have my moments.

Anyway, my friends and I recently ordered a bunch of stuff from thinkgeek.com! I was super excited when the package arrived this morning because I have been wanting to get ahold of my…. LIGHTSABER CHOPSTICKS! I have been wanting these forever (well, a while anyway) but it took me a while to find them. I also got a lightsaber laser pointer, because you never know when that may come in handy.
It annoys me how my friend got a watch on the site for like $15 and my chopsticks were $13. But oh well! I will feel like Jedi while I eat dinner every night! Another complaint? Shipping fees to Canada. It always costs so dang much.

Extreme monkey-powered awesomeness enclosed 🙂

Goodies ^.^

Lightsaber chopsticks!!!!!!

Since we are on the topic, HBO released another Game of Thrones teaser! Cannot wait! My friends and I were thinking of doing a themed night for the premier! 🙂 I am currently on the fourth book and I am so slow… One of my new year’s resolutions was to stop feeling so guilty every time I pick up a novel instead of a textbook, and I have been doing pretty well. But it is still very hard to squeeze out time for reading. 😦 It also does not help that A Feast for Crows lack a lot of the characters I am used to from the previous books. But then again we get to see what is going on in Sunspear!

Moving on to a slightly less cheery note….
So the past few weeks has been pretty good work load wise, but I am NOT looking forward to the next two-three weeks. I am swamped with midterms, term papers and presentations! I found out I will be having my macro economics midterm, Chinese midterm and an in-class english essay all one the same day. Wonderful. But I have to say, this is already significantly better than last term. If only I have the self control and motivation to actually get my butt to work and start doing everything now I know my life will be a lot better off when the time comes. Sadly, I work best under pressure and although I am expecting stress, it just is not close enough yet to kick me into hyper work mode! I got to look into that and find ways to see how I can get over that whole only-working-under-pressure thing.

Ending this post off, has anyone SEEN the weather in Vancouver? It is beautiful! Not too cold, not too hot– in other words, perfect! So excited for spring!

-Karen

I really wish it snowed during Christmas instead..

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So if you are a Vancouverite, you have probably recently had to trudge through the snow like me. I wish it snowed back in December! I wonder if I have actually ever had a white Christmas…for all I know, I may have, but was to young to remember!

When I was younger, I loved the snow! And since coming back to Canada, I have not really seen snow that lasted for what was probably more than one day. For the past two years Vancouver was not high on the snow factor. I heard that the year before I came back, there was a huge snowstorm…kind of wish I was there to see it! But at the same time, the chilling winds that I am experience now is quite enough for me to retract that. It actually makes my eyes tear up from the cold when I walk between classes…it also does not help that my classes are a kilometre away from each other. I am truly amazed when I hitch my morning car rides from my dad and see bikers biking on the highway-like road towards UBC. *applause* Seriously!

So while I was going home yesterday, I was rushing to get back into the warm confines of my room and was walking pretty fast once I got off the bus. However, I saw something in the snow that made me smile: doggie paw prints! I actually gave a chuckle…so then I decided to take out my phone and take a picture of it. It really must have had some effect on me because I took off my mittens and let my hands endure the cold! I really wanted to capture the tracks. So I kept my eyes peeled at I walked the rest of the way home. Then I saw some bird tracks! These were adorable because there were little drag marks! I had no idea why that was so, but my mom told me it was cause the birds were short and their bellies dragged on the grounds as they walked through the snow. I do not know whether I should believe her or not because she tends to make up stuff to sound smart.

Paw prints everywhere 🙂 So cute!

Bird tracks with little drag marks!

I caught other interesting photos on my iPhone the rest of the way and at one point I found some fresh, untouched snow. I couldn’t resist so I left my own prints in the snow and took a picture of that too. Yeah, I know it is horrible to mess up the unmarked snow, especially when it was not yours to walk all over…but I was jealous of birds and dogs preserving their prints in the now! =P Then I came across another patch of clean snow so I wrote my name in it. Big mistake though because my fingers were cold to begin with. Digging them into the snow did not help. My fingers were so cold and went by the time I was done that my iPhone could not sense my fingers on the screen. =.=

My boot prints 🙂

Bad idea...

But anyway, I think it was a nice experience and when I finally got home, it got me thinking. I realized that although at times it may seem like things suck, but there is always something there to lift your mood–as long as you look for it and let it! So get out there and keep looking! Or if you have already found it, then relish in it! 🙂

-Karen