Canada's Golden!

After finding out Canada beat Slovakia on Friday, Sunday was the USA vs. Canada final. Deciding to cheer my country on, I drove up at 7am so that I would make it to a bar at 12pm to watch the finals USA vs. Canada in the motherland. Even skipped birthday outings to make sure I wake up on time!

Getting to Vancouver at about 9am, it was pretty early for me. But I was pretty excited. So as we drove towards the place we were meeting up at, it was interesting to see that:
- at 9:00am, not many people were on the streets
- at 9:30am, few people wearing red started showing up at the streets
- at 10:00am, people were already lining up to get into bars...

What a sight! So driving to the bar where we'd meet my fellow tourguide, we get there and there's already a line... a really long line of 100+ at least trying to get in. Waited an hour and a half to get in, but it was pretty worth it because there was an insane amount of big screen TVs. Everywhere we'd turn, there'd be a TV. So at this bar we watch the game unfold. It was a fun time at the bar. There was one american fan - who really stood out among the sea of red and white.
Had 5 pitchers? of beer between the 4 of us - fun times all around. It was a nail-biting, but at the end, we saw Crosby score that one decisive goal, giving Team Canada the win!!!!

Tons of honking and yelling, we get to the sky train terminal to swing by downtown. The atomsphere in downtown and everywhere was intense. Tons of honking, high-fiving - Skytrain had carts singing the national anthem and chanting ole ole ole and we are the champion. Downtown was just awesome - tons of people walking around, streets were closed - people in cars high-fiving people walking by. It was a great decision to come up for the final game.

After a few hours of walking around, all tired out, went back up to Richmond to try to have some lil dragon dumplings. Only to find out all the usual places I know were full. So ended up at a Boston Pizza (another great classic place), ate and then drove back.

All tired from waking up early and cheering away, slept pretty early. Goooo Ca-na-da! Yeeeee-ah!

Also found out that Vanc seemed like it was closer - I wonder if they redid some roads - only took a little bit more than 2 hours to get from point A to point B - interesting considering that I was only 4 miles over the speed limit for most of the trip... Hrmm...

Culture Day - Going to a Symphony

Tonight, grabbed a quick bite in I-district and then went to listen to some live music. As part of culture day, we went to see a symphony.

The highlight though was taking the light rail and the bus system here. The light rail station looks like a miniature subway station! The funniest thing I thought was that the dropoff was really shallow.

Seattle is finally becoming a city!

What happened to my freezer?...

Getting home after work, I decided to finally open up the freezer to use the ground beef that's been in there for 2 weeks+. A little rice, some tomatoes + beef, looking forward to a nice meal.

Getting home, try to open up the freezer, only to find the door stuck!? There goes my grand plan... Trying to get it to open .. turn down the freezer temperature, trying to pry it open, looking online for other great tips... half an hour later, I give up and figure I would just call the help number the next day.

Carrying on and making some quick pasta, watched a little TVB, and then voila, freezer opens up again. Guess all it took was to watch some TVB... lol

Interesting thought though, what would happen if the freezer does freeze over. Would a person have to drain the fridge? Hrm...

Wine, Macaraoni and Cheese

Note to self:

On its own...
Wine - good
Cheese and Macaroni - good

Together in one pot... Not so good.

Courtesy Warning for Running a Red Light...

Apparently a couple weeks ago, a camera decided to snap a few photos of my car.

The system looks pretty cool though. Before and after pic, and the license plate. Pretty neat.

But I think the system forgot to account for the law that you can make a right on red... good thing it was just a warning!

My First Lecture in 2.5 years...

Result: same as 2.5 years ago.

Knocked out within 10 minutes... ... ...aiiiiiiii... hope the camera didn't catch me in the act

After making all that effort to get there too...
Next time, next time I will last the whole lecture!

Random Solicitation Day

So as my first assignment, I had to make a little design and paper, and then get user feedback on it. The requirement was that these users had to be strangers to me, and so our prof suggested we go to a coffee shop and ask people.

So today, I went about doing this. Originally I had lined up a scribe for this activity, but they decided to bail last minute. But needing to get a job done, I grabbed my gear, and went.

Went to the library, Starbucks, and a bbtea shop...

Result: Success! Was alot easier than I thought it'd be. Though I did get one 'No' when I solicited a person, 3/4 ain't too bad. It's all about watching facial expressions and gauging their level of boredness with their current task. hahahaha.

I think with this course, I probably have to do this again in the near future. So my random adventures continues... ... ...

And So It Begins.... 6 hours of reading later.... still reading

Life of a student:
1) Procrastination and more procrastination... ... ...
2) Reading reading reading...

The good thing though - at least most of the content so far is semi-interesting.

Reading continues ...

Mson's Bus Adventure + Revisiting the Academic Life

Arriving back last night after a 2 hour flight delay, today I officially restarted my academic life, pursuing a Master's degree. The course seems pretty interesting, but getting to the class today itself was more interesting...

The sequence of events
Knowing that the traffic will be crappy, I decided to try out the bus system for the first time. Printed out some bus routes and all, I went about to the bus station. As I park, I see the bus number I want to go on just arriving, so I started walking towards it, only to see it drive away. $#*()&#$... ga... But tis ok, since it comes every 15 minutes anyway. Here I stand, thinking how lucky I am that the bus drove by, because now I know where the bus station was (the bus station was actually right along the highway - cool eh?)

So bus comes, I get on, only after 30 seconds in it did I realize that I got on the right bus number.... but wrong direction! lol. So yes, I just wasted almost 15 minutes of my life waiting for a bus that I shouldn't even be on - suddenly I don't feel so lucky anymore... ... ...

Getting off at the next stop, I go back to the correct bus station in the right direction, and off I go! The bus ride itself, once I am on it, was pretty smooth. I get off a the right location, and having missed the original connecting bus, with 15 minutes left before class started, I soldiered it up and walked towards the building.

Getting to the building 2 minutes late, here I thought 'awesome, I am here'. So I go into the room I thought the lecture was at, sat down quietly to not disturb the class. Noticed a few things here...
1) Really nice lecture room and not the usual dungeon or crabby tables -- didn't think much of it... guess UWash is well funded
2) The table by the door had a bunch of something about 'law' on it -- probably some class before left them there
3) Prof not making sense -- happens all the time right?
4) Alot of females in the class ?!?!
Hrm.. as I confirmed point #4 after putting on my glasses, I then double checked the lecture room that I was suppose to be in.. And lo and behold, I was in the wrong lecture room! Confirming w/ the nice lady next to me that I was indeed in the wrong class, I then hunted down the room I was suppose to be in.
(FYI: The class turned out to be Environmental Law - seemed like an interesting class)

So with that, I finally arrive... 15 minutes late to my first lecture in 2.5 years.

The return trip was much less eventful. Overall, the bus experience wasn't really too bad. Would probably not mind doing it again if I had to.

Xmas Holidays in a Nutshell

Back after almost 3 weeks. The past 3 weeks was pretty nice. Ate lots, drank lots, saw some people that I haven't seen for years! Took a more relaxed approach this time around, and tried to find some time for myself and stay home more. Turned out nicely because I wasn't as exhausted as I usually am after trying to do EVERYTHING while I am back :D AND I was able to swing by the AGO!

As always, every time I return to TO, things always seem a little bit different than the last time. This time was no different.
The feeling this time I guess can be described as 'distant'. Not distant in the sense that the people I know and I have started to feel distant, but more that it doesn't seem like I am part of the city anymore. But I guess that's with good reason, since I am really only back there 30 days at the most a year.

Come to think, in another couple years, things will have changed quite a bit more, people will shuffle around more, lives will have continued to move on, and what I remember and cherished of TO will start become a sweet memory.

Well, I guess vacations are always nice :).