This is going to be a slow new years eve. I feel the urge to stay in, be an introvert, and mourn the end of another year. I always feel like I haven’t done enough. What have I accomplished?

What did you manifest this year? – Aaliyah @YYOGA

Let’s start with yesterday, New Year’s Eve eve:

I made breakfast.

I went skiing. P had a leak in his front tire, something punctured it, so he didn’t get to go, and ended up being our driver. Thanks dude.

I ate some more at Kyo, but it was a disappointing meal. Top left: beef teriyaki. Top right: Aburi (not really though?)

I think I know what aburi sushi should taste like, as I’ve had some great ones before around Vancouver. I came to Kyo last year, and it blew my mind that they offered such aburi for $30 a person, all you can eat. It obviously wasn’t going to be as good as the ones offered by “authentic” Japanese restaurants, (based on my little experience with Miku, Victoria Sushi, Kishimoto), but I was able to distinguish it from regular sushi. This time around, it looked like they just torched some regular sushi and put on a line of sauce. Their cooked food was disgusting as well, with the most memorable being the beef teriyaki. We were all shocked at how it looked like it might have been boiled, or microwaved, and it was still cold. The menu had some changes too, and didn’t have the same options that would spark joy (prawn tempura? udon?). There are other things I could rant on about... But moving on. 

Never going back.

I went to a onesie Christmas party, but was too tired and ended up leaving early. Too old for this.

Thinking back through the rest of the year, it’s hard to think of things that I’ve accomplished, off the top of my head. The same applies though to the opposite – what did I do that I wasn’t satisfied with?

Winter holidays wouldn’t really be complete without Boxing Day shopping, dim sum, and a trip to the mountains. We did our shopping online at Air Canada (looking forward to travels in the new year!), taking advantage of the 15% deal (code GIFT2016), and we had our dim sum on Boxing Day with T, who was back from Edmonton, M, J&K, who were back from Calgary. We made it up to Cypress today, with M, who was back from Waterloo:

We made some new friends with the Grey Jay residents of Hollyburn:

After an hour on our rented snowshoes (much too short but we had other plans), we went to Boiling Point in Burnaby for lunch with M, M, and C. H and i will be back to snowshoe more. We will also be back to Boiling Point to try all the other soups (#goals2017?). Lunch is a better deal than dinner, you get a cold tea to go with the meal, and it’s $1 less.

More links to information on Hollyburn:

https://www.vancouvertrails.com/trails/hollyburn-mountain/

http://vancouverhiatus.com/hiking/hollyburn-mountain.html

https://www.outdoorvancouver.ca/hollyburn-mountain-snowshoe-trail/

http://www.cypressmountain.com/snowshoetours/

Snowshoe rentals and ticket to access trails for 2 people were about $55. I now have heart burn because of too much food in the past 4 days, and not enough exercise. It's so nice to have everybody back in Vancouver. 

MERRY CHRISTMAS, THANKS EVERYBODY FOR THE WONDERFUL MEMORIES AND PRESENTS THIS WEEKEND. LOOKING FORWARD TO CRAMMING MORE JOY AND LAUGHS INTO THE NEXT 4 DAYS BEFORE 2017.

Read more about how I spent Christmas this year:
http://luwesa.blogspot.ca/2016/12/jolly.html
http://luwesa.blogspot.ca/2016/12/magical.html

These pancakes were not though. Went across the street this morning in search of a hearty breakfast to help me get through Christmas day. Ended up here at Ricky’s for some eggs:

My meal on the bottom - pancakes tasted cardboard, the sausages had a strange aftertaste. The White Spot buttermilk pancakes are so much fluffier and have so much more sweetness and flavour.
H’s meal on the top – chorizo was OK, corn bread was disgustingly salty, as was the eggs benedict hollandaise sauce.

Coffee tasted like water.

I don’t think I’ll come back… Sorry, kind ladies who served us.



H’s Chinese beads bracelet had been on his bathroom floor for at least 2 weeks, and I had noticed that it was there, but never bothered to pick it up because I thought that if I moved his belongings, he would get confused about it. Sometimes, he leaves things on the ground in plain sight. Today though, I had to pick it up, because it was in the way of closing the door. I left it on the bathroom counter, next to the sink. 30 minutes later, at Ricky’s, right after we sat down and had ordered the coffee, the bracelet was staring me straight in the face, on H’s wrist! He either finally realized he owned something like it, or he was just too lazy all along to bend down and pick it up. You be the judge.

We got back to my house, after grabbing last minute groceries, wrapped presents, and now I must rush off to the parties. Merry Christmas. Happy Festivus.

Met up with M to do some last minute Christmas shopping and catch up since she’d just come back from Ireland. She’s staying in Surrey right now, and I really would not venture out for very many people, but she’s a special one and brings much joy to my life so I agreed to pick her up to go to Guildford Mall.  The hunger hit us after having only a Nespresso shot earlier on. I mentioned pho to her, and she knew immediately which place to bring me to. It was the same that J, another Surrey native, had recommended earlier on that week. Is it because Pho Tam might be the only safe place for pho in Surrey? I had to find out if it lived up to the hype.

I had the Special A – any large beef noodle with a spring roll for TEN DOLLARS. How can you go wrong?! Look at all the beef. It was steaming hot, and the spring roll was fresh and crispy. Stomach’s growling now, just thinking about it. I’m sort of curious about the rest of Surrey now… What else is in this supposedly dark, dangerous land?

Parking lot in front of the place is teeny tiny. Be careful! (Always be careful in Surrey.)

Steamworks for A and G’s going away dinner afterwards. Breakfast and extremely last minute Christmas shopping/Boxing Day shopping (the sales have started already…) this morning. The schedule for the rest of this week is packed with eating. I’m planning for January to be a recovery month.

This weekend was just the beginning of all the celebrations and parties and FOOD…

Started off with a work Christmas party, then a party at H’s best friend’s house, then a dinner with my very Chinese family. Snuck in some time during the snow storm today to yoga and then make up for the lost calories with this creation from Lucky’s:

Mont blanc donut – chestnut poop thing on top, sprinkled with sugar and festive gold flakes.

Orange filling. Not really into orange flavored things, but this was really popular with H’s parents.

I would like to try out the rest of the holiday flavours.

Also just wanted to document the work Christmas party at the Vancouver Convention Centre. The food did not disappoint (please see below). Sorry for the crap photos, I was sort of buzzered, even though we only had 3 drink tickets each (open bar all previous years, but 3 drinks is really more than enough).



Won a Biolite… H is such a lucky fella. We won the extra prize draw tickets, and then we won the Biolite. Still haven’t used the pizza oven from last year, but really looking forward to trying it.

Snow sucks. Being sick sucks. Merry Christmas (probably won’t be).

It’s been a while since H has been this sick, and I guess it really hit him hard for 2 days straight. He missed a shift at work, he stayed in bed for 1.5 days (where the 0.5 went towards going for dim sum across the street from him), and he is still coughing and sniffling. I guess he breathed on me or something on Friday, because I started feeling the headaches and chills on Saturday. Almost missed a powder day on Sunday, but woke up after a dose of Neocitran and 13 hours sleep to make it into P’s car for this:

It wasn’t my best day, it was certainly hard to breathe and get circulation to my legs for them to work proper-like. We went up the t-bar to do the glacier bowl on Blackcomb… I was not prepared for the low viz pow that would hit us right in the face. Not bad though. Then, moguls left right and centre, and my cardio was shot because of the flu/cold that I thought I’d slept off the night before. It just hurt so much to breathe in that –10/-15°C air… Still felt amazing, adrenaline rush.

Any day on the mountain is an awesome day. I still swear by this.

I’m looking forward to going up more often, maybe in the new year, because looking at the calendar for the rest of this month, I think things will get too busy too fast.

I just took another pack of Neocitran... Goodnight, world.

Wow, what a different city Vancouver becomes when the snow hits. Before the shit show of traffic jams, gridlock, and car accidents, R, C, and I got a chance to visit the newly opened Aer Cafe along Hastings:

Grilled cheese and latte, and a snippet of the cortado. C and I spent a full minute asking what this is… C – “what’s a coratdo?” me – “i don’t know, what IS a cortado?” C – “Not sure, it’s on the menu. What is it?” // It’s good. Just drink it.

R’s order - Avocado on toast with poach eggs and salsa.

So the grilled cheese was spectacular, with lots of stringy cheese bits and perfectly done onions and mushrooms. Very crispy. C found a small square of aluminum still stuck to her bread. R’s eggs were too raw for her liking, so they just stuck it in the microwave for her. I found the coffee a bit weak, which may be due to my insane addiction to coffee and tolerance to the little molecules. Overall, a cute little joint that I’d come back to for a quick bite. Especially as Platform 7, just one street East, does not really serve grilled cheese.

Cute little nooks everywhere for studying and reading, between 7AM to 7PM:

It was such an awesome weekend, Monday just came as a shock.

The people I live with have a huge influence on my mood, and after an argument, I can be uncommunicative for days, weeks, months… Not just with the root cause, but with EVERYBODY. It’s like the world is against me, when my home is not calm. I’m not sure how other people do it. Move out, I guess?

H and I had dinner with his mother the other night, and because she’s super low maintenance, which is awesome, we went for some good, cheap Chinese food in this hidden gem in Richmond, Double Double Restaurant:

Pepper and pig intestine soup. A perfect level of spicy to warm up the tummy on these cold winter nights.

Sweet Chinese donut (“cow tongue so”) – so crispy and fresh and soft and omg, mouth happiness.

On the side: choi sum & sticky rice, vegetarian because H’s mom doesn’t eat meat.

Chinese donut in rice roll with the sauces for the dipping. Again, so fresh and crispy. It was 8PM and they STILL had it this fresh. A lot of places will have them fried up in the morning and sitting around all day until they’re soggy or really chewy. This tasted like it was freshly done.

How is it that I’ve never heard of this place before? Maybe because the name is sorta wack. I’ll be back before you can say… “2016 was rough”.

On a brighter note, Claire Marshall is doing VLOGMAS! How I love her videos, brightens up the season. She’s a true inspiration, role model, and overall creative genius. Watch her vlogs.

Let’s make some more memories before the end of the year.

J, P, S, and I came to the House of Dosas for a catch up dinner on a random weekday, after maybe a year of not seeing each other together. We ordered an appetizer and we each got our own dosa. What is a dosa? My description would be a thick, crispy crepe-like wrap filled with potatoes and meat.

Paneer 65

Paper Masala with the meat filling

The brutal truth is I didn’t like it. Maybe it’s not my type of food, maybe it was because the food was cold, or maybe I just thought the curry soup/dip in the metal tin on the 2nd picture above was way too salty (kidneys are precious). Maybe my tongue just doesn’t have taste buds for the spices in the dosa filling, but I thought it was extremely bland. The service was average, there’s a really nice lady there but the rest of the guys weren’t too useful, it seemed.

I have had a lot of time alone to think about things this past week… What do I want to do next? What do I want to continue doing? What do I think should change? H is busy with work, and his high stress job is rubbing off on me a bit, and stressing me out too, so I am very sorry in advance for snapping at anyone. It was nice to escape for a bit to Rice Lake on Sunday morning though, during the lull in the storm:

It’s very easy to get to, just off the highway, and straight down Lillooet road until you hit the parking lot at the hut. The fishermen were out already and it was just a breath of peaceful.

More about Rice Lake here:
https://www.vancouvertrails.com/trails/rice-lake/
http://vancouverhiatus.com/hiking/rice-lake.html
https://www.outdoorvancouver.ca/featured-trail-rice-lake/


You cannot control the wind, but you can direct the sail.

Started reading this new gem at The Federal Store:

The café is a new one that was opened very recently (maybe 2 or 3 weeks ago). The owners apparently fixed up the place all on their lonesome, and it looks great. Super clean lighting with a nice selection of munchies that you’d find at a general store. Great coffee (beans from Bows & Arrows) that I would come back for, especially as it’s along a very popular bike route at 10th and Quebec.

This Changes Everything. It’s been a minute since I’ve read a book that has this type of information, so progress is slow and not very steady. I should really prioritize reading (ugly people need to read more, or so I’ve heard). A very friendly patron at the shop mentioned that Naomi Klein has another book about branding and logos… I’ll have to check it out after this.

The final day of this trip was intended for the drive home. We went straight from Hood River to Feast, which we’d heard about from P, who’d heard about it from V. 

This place is amazing. The photos don’t do it justice, and there was so much food, I couldn’t try everything.

The food wasn’t perfect, as you can tell from the rib that had all the extra gunk left on it. Still, I’d definitely come back for the sheer volume and variety. You can make your own soup noodle! There’s a stir fry station! There are delicious mussels, clams, crab, cray fish, LOTS Of cocktail shrimp… And we were only there for lunch ($14)! Dinner would be a whole new ball game!

H didn’t want to leave, but everything good or bad must come to an end. Back to good old Vancouver…

CLICK HERE TO GO BACK TO DAY 1

After a full day of shopping, we were pooped and did not want to go through downtown Portland, in case of protests, even though they were mostly peaceful in that area. We ended up driving back east to Hood River, and decided to grab a quick pizza to go from Pietro’s Pizza. There was a full arcade from the 80’s or 90’s with a claw game, racing games, ball toss games... H and I were a bit too exhausted from the stress of driving to really care, but it was definitely a good way to keep guests entertained while the food was in the oven.

The place was pretty empty, but what do you expect for a Monday night? Foot ball was on. There was a family with a toddler girl, who was screaming her head off, and another young couple who looked like they were also from out of town. With the help of one of the ladies there, we only took 5 minutes to order off their extensive menu. I apologize for not remembering what we had, but it was half of something with Canadian bacon, and half of something with Alfredo sauce. While the pizza was cooking and in our haze of fatigue, we ended up winning an adorable penguin stuffy from the claw game! It was extremely huggable.

We ended up giving it to the little girl, who immediately gave it a biiiiiig squeeze and stopped making that horrible sound. Adorable. Hope she has a bright future ahead of her.




The next day the rain cleared up a bit before we hit the road, so we had a chance to walk around Westcliff Lodge:



Nice little place to stay. People here are warm and friendly, everything is clean. I’d come back in a heartbeat, there’s so much to explore around here!

WAKE UP IN THE MORNING, FEELING LIKE… not shopping.

The day was ruined by rain. I had originally hoped to hike a bit more in the Mount Hood area, but we ended up driving down to the outlets instead (le sigh). And we ate, of course.

Before that, we had to find some food to fuel the hard work that is shopping. It was past 10AM by the time we reached Portland, and H was HANGRY. How could I tell? He stopped talking. He stopped smiling. He scared a random pedestrian while storming down the street, on the hunt for food. He’s pretty scary looking when he doesn’t smile (it’s the beard).

Comfort food for breakfast at Bijou (right next Stumptown Coffee, 1 street away from Voodoo Donuts).

Left: Biscuit with ham and sausage gravy. Egg in the middle of it all.

Right: Korean pork on rice. Egg on top. Kimchi somewhere.

There was a hair in the rice.

It was still good and we were hungry so we finished it. No shame. After wolfing this down, we hit the road and made it to Woodburn, where we shopped and shopped.

..and shopped. Dinner was interesting too. More on this tomorrow.

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Breakfast at Milo City Cafe:

Top plate: Salmon hash with sourdough and scrambled eggs

Bottom plate: Sourdough, Italian sausage, scrambled eggs, hashbrowns

In the middle of it all: COFFEE

Extremely friendly service and loads of comfort food. Go if you’re staying at the Hilton.

We started early so we could go farther. We were out of Portland before 9AM. I had so many hopes for the outdoors scene in this hood, but wet weather and lack of vehicle hat can drive over everything dampened my hopes just a bit. I wanted to visit either Lost Lake or Mirror Lake, but we made it to neither lakes… We drove through part of Mount Hood National Park, made it to Government Camp, but we really didn’t go too far because of forest service roads that my poor baby wouldn’t be able to handle. We stopped here:

Parked close to this view, where there were a few trailheads. H and I stood around, trying to decide which path to take, until 2 girls came out of the bush. They were super friendly and helpful, so we ended up going along what I believe is Buck Peak Trail. We
saw this:



Not sure if that was supposed to be the end point with the “good views of the mountain” that the girls told us about (I don’t think it was), but it was also getting dark and we still had a ways to go to get to Mt Hood. Back to the car.



No lakes today. Instead, we found the waterfalls along the Columbia Gorge!

Multnomah

 Horse Tail

Would’ve been more breathtaking if we were not already exhausted from the day’s travels and if there weren’t busloads of tourists roaming around. It’s all about perspective.

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