Tango Day!

Watching ppl dance is pretty cool. Tried something new today and went to watch a Tango dance show. Turns out tango is supposedly an older person dance - but it almost felt like art in motion -- so much different than the dancing you see at clubbing...

So the show was one which the main couple dances on stage for two songs, then they rest while the people who are watching get to dance for a little bit. Always wanting to try new things, the dancing guru that I went with showed me a few basic steps and danced with me, and I have to say, it was pretty fun! I was really surprised at her patience though, cuz I was REALLY bad.

The coolest part though was watching her dance... really amazing. She was just flying around the dance floor, and was like an all-star! ...And to think I know her!
I wonder if in one year, I can dance just as well as her...

After that, we went for dinner at the sushi joint at Snoqualmie... they have pretty good sushi there surprisingly.

Vanc Part III: Granville Island and End of Wkend

Getting back to the hotel at 3ish, we slept in and woke up to the NBA playoffs... AND the NHL playoffs.

Having exhausted the 3 drink limit rule, today was a relaxing day where we just enjoyed the hotel TV and the Vanc sun. Went to a hk tea cafe for lunch, then with Vanc tour guide #2 guiding us, went to Granville island for a stroll.

Granville Island
Lots of art galleries there, but I guess they were all closed since it was a Sunday...The main place looks more like a disorganized T&T... walked around a little bit, then went to a restaurant and just snacked. Pushed up dinner early and then went back to the hotel to collect my things.

The drive home was more tiring than I thought... Swear I almost dozed off at one point, but luckily ran into a cop and that woke me up quite a bit.. lol. The coolest part about leaving at night is that I can get past the border really quickly. There was minimal wait - which is AWESOME!

Arriving back at home at 2am, ending a weekend of yet another great time in the land of Vancouver!

Vanc Part II: Shanghai Food and K

Waking up to a headache, went to feed the meter and then hunted down a grocery store for some orange juice. Saw an organic mango lemonade along the way, so picked that up and tried it out. Very refreshing!

After bumming around more for the better part of the morning, met up w/ a few Seattle-lites for a dim sum lunch, then walked to GasTown to take a picture of the famous clocktower. After which, we spent 5 minutes figuring out how to buy a ticket to take the SkyTrain, thinking that we'd see the 'sky'...only to find out that the SkyTrain was underground for the one stop we were going on. Turns out the 'sky' in SkyTrain is only valid for the non downtown pieces of the track -- in downtown, it is actually just a subway. If I only knew this, I would not have bought a ticket (they didn't even check our ticket!)

Returning to the hotel, I took a nap to the sounds of the NBA playoffs, and then for dinner, met up w/ some fellow Canadians from Vanc for Shanghai food. The food was really good at this place, and the little dragon dumplings were really good! Looove little dragon dumplings. Surprisingly, even w/ 9ppl at dinner, the bill came out to be LESS than what we had at Guu the night before between 3 ppl.

With dinner over, we then proceeded with the planned the 'KC' Combo Night - a Vanc tradition :). It was a pretty fun time. Learned some new games, met some new friends, and also got my singing fit! Wouldn't wanna do it every week, but once every month or every other month I'd definitely be up for. After K, headed for the C part of the KC Combo Night. I was up for awhile, then got too greedy... tsk tsk. Oh well, let that be a lesson to never be greedy and be content with small victories.

Another fun filled day and night in the city of Vanc!

Vanc Part I: Guuuuuu and Club

A random spur of the moment decision, and before you know it, I was in Vanc :).

First event of the night was going to Guu. Walking around lost in downtown Vanc, I get a phone call... with the question of if I was wearing a white shirt. Hesitantly I said yes, and then realize that I was being stalked and that someone had spotted me in Vanc. I was being stalked!.. lol...

Anyway, after a quick chat, I found my bearings, and then found Guu. Such a great place for food and seeing fellow rooommate waiting in line, the mini-vacation had started! We start eating and sake-ing... and 5 bottles and a ton of food later, we were ready for the next set of events :)

Stopping by for a quick booze run, we pick up some crown royal, predrink, and after this, Vanc tour guide took us clubbing w/ her friends. It was pretty fun, but soo $$$$$. $20 Cover, and every drink was the price of an AMF, with 1/4 of the alcohol. It was pretty fun -- just like old times! Combined with the sake and predrink, my '3 drink limit' was obliterated by 11pm :(. Maybe I need to add a new caveat that the '3 drink limit' rule does not apply in Vanc :P...

The night ended surprisingly early, stopping briefly by the elevator lobby, had to take care of someone who decided to spray the floor with their dinner (and no, it wasn't me!), and then proceeded to the hotel room to order pizza...

My bed invaded...with my classic pose in place, I sleep on the ottoman and called it a night -- too lazy to get up for the pizza that eventually arrived.

So ends night #1.

Cherry Blossom at U-Wash

Meeting up w/ a new friend for food, then heard about the cherry blossom trees that were at U-Wash.

Pretty Nice!

Weekend of Changes...

Things are finally slowing down at work...

Also, starting this weekend, I will need to find people to eat oysters and random food w/ :(. tsk tsk tsk...

Sleep-in Day

Having slept <5 hours a night for the past 2 weeks, sleep was the only thing on my mind today... What a great coincidence that today there was an office move... what a perfect day!

So after getting home around 1ish, took a quick 4 hr nap. Today was suppose to be an infamous IMO-Trinity combo night. Wasn't feeling too well though (probably from the lack of sleep), so I was going to play it by ear and at least go to IMO for dinner, then on the spot decide if I should soldier on...

Turns out though that today WASN'T an IMO-Trinity combo night, but just a misguided use of the term. The originators of this term both thought when IMO and Trinity were paired up on the same night, this implictly implies that a dinner at IMO followed by predrink at IMO and then a waltz over to Trinity, completed with the optional side-quest of 3am hot dogs or food == the plan... BUT apparently this wasn't the case.

Thinking that I didn't have to make dinner, here I was bumming around until 8pm - the usual time when events get kicked off, I am told tonight is not an IMO-Trinity combo night, but a Trinity night - with IMO thrown in as a tease. To add salt to the wound, we won't have time to even grab a quick bite at IMO (at least that was the plan)... wtf?!?!?!

So all that being said, feeling already pretty crappy physically, and having to make my own dinner now, I ended up chillaxing at home and by 12am, I was safely tucked in to bed! Ahhh.. what a nice bed I had.

Oh.. today I also started my first JA session today (at 7:45am in the morning!...). It was pretty fun, it has been awhile since I last taught anything to more than 5 kids (today there were 24). I think I was actually nervous and slurring alot! Also, I definitely am not a morning person... thinking back, I had felt like crap this morning too...

Culture Day: SAM

Having been a few months, it was time for Culture Day!

A stroll around pike place, grabbed some pastries, then it was off to SAM. They was a collection there today on loan from Yale. The paintings and story behind it was pretty cool. These were paintings related to the US Civil War and being into history, it was pretty cool.

Then went to back to work... tsk tsk... was very unproductive though - made almost 0 progress... Soon this will allll be over... soon... I hope.

Work-IMO-Dice

Had a quick bite today, and as we chatted, got inspired to go to imo...

With a new found motivation, went back to the office and worked till 11pm, then then headed down. Sang a few songs, drank a few bottles of sake, and then went back home and continued more evening activities...

...Before we knew it, it was 5am in the morning...

Work hard.. play hard!.. wuhahaha

Whistler Wkend Part III: Home Time

After passing out at 12am, today the plan was to wake up bright and early to slot in one more morning worth of skiing before heading back down to S.town. I have to say, it was hard trying to get up this morning. Was sooo tempted to just stay in and sleep more. It was pretty funny how ALL of us seemed like we were waiting for just that one person in the group to say "I am going to sleep-in" so that we can all just call it a day. hahaha! But troopers that we were, that didn't happen and so off we went for another day at the slopes.

Sore from the day before, today was not as good a day as the day before for skiing. Yesterday was actually really good, not too cold, new snow and not a lot of people. Today, it was actually above 0 C, and it was drizzly at some points. It looked like some of the higher runs were closed too, and man-made avalanches were happening every so often.

I think we went down 6 or 7 runs and then it was time to head back. Our lunch was good ol' KFC -- where they served poutine and hot wings! With today, this will mark the 4th time in the past 6 days that I have eaten KFC. I feel fat.

After lunch, we continued driving, and stopped by a Timmy's for some timbits and refreshments, and headed to the border.

At the border...
Officer (O): Hi, where you headed.
Us (U): S.town.
O2: Open the side door please (we were in a minivan so they wanted to see the faces)
O: Do you have anything to declare? Food, fruits, vegetables...
U: Nope. None at all.
O: (as the door is opening) ... Uhh... what is that (pointing to the grapes right in front of him as the doors opened)
U: Um... grapes... they are from Costco in Kirkland
O2: (picks it up) Oh! They ARE from Costco.
U: Err.. ya.... (at this point we are all like.. hrmmm.... oops... we are getting probes up our a55es... )
O: You can't take this back in (confiscates grapes) Do you have any other food or fruits or vegetables.
U: Err.. nope.
(O and O2 looks at us again... then lets us off)...

Funny experience thinking back...

Anyway, so we got back at the expected time, and so ends the Whistler weekend.