Would you put placenta on your face? Koreans are #1 at skincare. Berrisom Raccoon Mask. 


Nothing too special about it, another sheet mask. I got this for Christmas. Needed extra moisture this weekend, so I slapped this on after a night of food and drinks at my house, where we gabbed about The Lathe of Heaven (strange book, and I think that after reading this book, I now understand that the world will always be in conflict because new problems will always arise to take the place of the resolved ones) and work (unforeseen changes). I don’t know about the others, but I feel like I’m always on edge now. Who’s to say I’ll still have a job in another year? Where’s the job security in this world?!?! H is right though – things happen for a reason and if I’m not meant to be here, it’s because there’s somewhere else I should be.

While I was in San Francisco, G also took me to the Latin America Club, where we caught up on life and I learned about the cost of living in San Francisco (over $2000 to live in a studio?!). They got some STRONG margaritas. I’m talking over 9000 strong. Stronger than the Hulk. Maybe as strong as the black coffee I have every morning. We couldn’t finish them, my fingers were tingling.

Before / After

 


Visited the Sephora in downtown San Francisco, hoping to find the belif eye cream, but it cost too much for my budget ($48USD to CAD is $68!!!), so I just asked for a sample. I tried it this morning, and it feels good so I might go back for more, but I did pick this up instead (among other things):

Egg Mousse Pack by Too Cool for School:

My skin’s not feeling so great, but this brightened and smoothed it out a bit. Felt very soothing, and only requires 5 minutes. I won’t bother taking a before and after, because my camera quality isn’t great and you won’t see any difference anyways. Boo. It’s pretty good for $20USD, so I’d probably get this again.

Today was a good day, despite some tremendous changes at work. Please try not to worry…

This was my first time traveling (half) alone. Half because I hung out with G a lot on the last day, and my coworkers were all there the rest of the week. I don’t know if I learned much more about myself than I already knew, I hang out alone quite a lot and I’m comfortable wandering the streets on my own. I certainly tried a lot of new things.

I lugged my personal travel mug all the way from Vancouver to San Francisco to prevent using disposable cups, and it worked pretty well. I saved 6 cups, and only used the ONE disposable cup for coffee at Ritual and ONE plastic cup for coffee at a place on Haightes Street on the last day of the trip.

I got tired of Starbucks for coffee pretty early on in the trip (after 1 day), so I looked up a few places, talked to a few people… Ended up at Blue Bottle Coffee:





All I ordered was the Americano, so it wasn’t really worth any photos. D got the breakfast sandwich, which was made with the BEST BACON EVER. I gotta say, San Francisco has proven to be very good with their meats (prime rib, for example). I had the Hot Oatmeal, which was made with steel cut oats and fruit jam on Day 1…


…and the chia seed pudding on Day 2 (made with shredded coconut, orange zest, nuts, and lots of other seeds):

Today, I had dinner with H and his family/friends, and instead of using plates like normal people for cake, they decide to wrap it with saran wrap to avoid having to wash the extra set of plates for 14 people. Highly upsetting behavior… I can see how they would think it actually saves time/resources because of the water and soap used, but saran wrap is a plastic that can only be thrown away in the garbage can and sent to the garbage dump/incinerator. I hope H understands why I was so upset. That amount of saran wrap was the equivalent of the 6 disposable cups that I didn’t use this whole week. Getting closer to Zero Waste is not going to be easy, and I can see a lot of tears ahead.

It was a busy week and I could not blog everyday, but H has requested I do a post so here it is.

On Wednesday, I went out with the coworkers to House of Prime Rib where the prime rib just melts on your tongue and it's so flavourful but not too salty. (The alcohol probably made it taste better too.) $43 USD gets you 6 ounces of this magical melting beef, corn bread, a salad (the serving of the salad was like a show where the server spins the huge salad bowl and pours on the sauce from a meter above it), mashed or baked potato (I had mashed), and creamed spinach.

I would come back, and make sure to get a reservation 2 or 3 months in advance.

So good. The perfect way to end a whole day spent on your feet, talking to people who use too many 4 syllable scientific words ("I would like to use this camera to build my hyperspectrometer and maybe record the photons splitting in my laser lab",  for example).

The next night was the last night of the show and we went for a drive around the city. Ended up getting a great view of the Golden Gate bridge and surrounding San Francisco / Bay area.

Staying with G tonight to save 300$ on hotel fees! Excited for tomorrow, I am.

I am at SFO!

My room at Hotel Nikko.

This will be a quick post, because I'm doing it on my phone, and I should probably sleep now so that I'll wake up on time tomorrow. The laptop lags like crrrrazy.

Used the Sephora 2016 birthday gift, which was a Fresh Soy face cleanser and the Rose Face Mask. The cleanser actually removes all the eye makeup too. The mask has pieces of rose in it, and smells pretty.

I like it, but I haven't decided whether I'd use it again. I'll keep using it for the rest of the time that I'm here.

Again, I'm glad the Internet exists and that it's easy to call through wifi.

Took a day off to pick up H. Spent the morning running errands and doing work at home, but P reminded me that it's my day off, and I should go have fun. So, I went out to try coffee at Earnest Ice Cream:

$6.75. Ice cream and coffee should be a match made in heaven, but I did not enjoy it very much. Maybe I should’ve gone for the regular vanilla flavoured ice cream in the affogato, instead of whiskey hazelnut. It was too bitter.



He’s home! Life will go back to normal now, whatever that means!

C: So H is coming back tomorrow right? You’re gonna pick him up?
Me: Yep. *focused on work*
C: What time is he back?
L: 1:45… *still focused on work*
C: Are you excited?
Me: *turns towards him* YEP! *back to work*
C: Wow your whole face just lit up.
Replay of my face:


Guess what’s in the teacup?


Check out my stack of books. Shout out to the bucket bag in the corner that I picked up from Plenty for $40CAD this Boxing Day:

Tomorrow couldn’t come faster.

Coffee before anything, and beer anytime.



Coffee Beer from Whistler Brewing! This is a limited edition beer that we picked up this summer on a random drive up north. It was not bad. I’d get it again, but too bad they don’t sell it anymore (that I know of). 5.5%. Dark.

I was dropping V off at the skytrain, and just chatting about life. She actually took a cab to work once, and it cost $50. FIFTY DOLLARS!!!! I would go all the way to her house, which is about 10km away from my house, and then go to work, which is another 20km, just to save her that $50. She better not do it again. I will be very upset.
TWO more days!!!!! And life keeps chaaaaanging…

Today, I used an Asian mask. Strawberry Yogurt Mask (Oil Control Balancing).


You can see all the ingredients above.

Pros:
-smells good
-don’t have to wash off

Cons:
-drips a bit, so can still be a bit messy

This was a birthday gift, so I didn’t have to buy it. I wouldn’t buy it for myself, don’t really like the feeling of the cloth. It’s very thick and rough feeling, but I would use it if somebody gave it to me!

Feels good to use a mask before leaving the house for a stressful meeting. I think it turned out well today! Changes. So many changes.

Woke up at 7:30AM today. I can’t sleep in. So grouchy… Nespresso in a Starbucks reusable cup.


Actually had quite a busy day, so it was a good thing I rolled out of bed early.

Went to Bikram. Traveled downtown for a Zero Waste workshop (more on this later). Went to a friend’s place for nachos (click here for You Suck At Cooking’s demonstration of how to make macho nachos) and of course, to watch the Superbowl:

C had these little beers from Asahi, super cute size, but not really satisfying. Finished them in 1 gulp… I guess they’re perfect for the Japanese people who can’t really tolerate alcohol:

This was surprisingly satisfying though:

Queen Bey, Chris Marten, and Bruno Mars performing at the halftime in a very colourful, rainbow themed field. Is this because they legalized gay marriage in the past year? Side note - thanks Chris Martin, for opening for Beyonce.

4 more days. H likes to tag me in his photos, then hashtag #imissyou and #iloveu, wich my friends find “extremely surprising. We’ll never know when we’ll run out of time!
#likei’mgonnaloseyou

Sephora Rose Sleeping mask. Ultra moisturizing and brightening!

Note to self: This works well, and I would use it again. However, it was not as spectacular as the Lotus or the Green Tea, so don’t buy this again, just use it if you have it.

This week has been long. Next week will be only 3 days of work, then the week after is San Francisco!

P walks by Miss Saigon Bistro pretty often, and was attracted by the cute red chairs in the restaurant, so she convinced me and A to try it out. It didn’t take a lot of convincing for me, I LOVE PHO.

I always get the BBH (bun bo hue):

We over ordered cold cut banh mi, spring rolls, and the noodles came with individual servings of bean sprouts:

THIS WAS AMAZING.

The owner was chatting with us because we were the only customers. He told us all the ingredients are delivered from the little grocery store (Dong Thanh?) on Knight and Kingsway, where his wife bakes the bread and makes all the meat.
We were not disgusted by this.


This rainy weather is just so draining. H is enjoying the weather in HK.

It’s so hard to focus when the phone keeps ringing, the dude next to make is hacking up a lung (good on him for showing up to work though and not loading more work on us), and shit keeps going down. Everytime an interruption occurs, it takes a few minutes to collect all your previous thoughts and get back to what you were doing. I started talking really fast towards the end of the day to save time. Sorry, customers.



H says that he got the 5gb data plan in HK just for me. (Sure, sure.)
I’m too tired to write anything useful, but we did go to Miss Saigon Vietnamese Bistro on Kingsway today. I stuffed my face.

And that’s all I’m going to say for now.

To go with the animal theme, THIS IS LILY.

Throw Back Tuesday to last summer/fall. I stopped at Lucky’s Doughnuts for some of the best doughnuts in town, before going to H’s house, where he made fresh coffee with [a chunk of] coconut butter. Breakfast dates are some of the best ways to start off the day. I love coming in early when there’s nobody here yet, but usually it’s pretty crowded and there are no seats.

Long John with Cream Filling:

I think this was a French Crueller:

I don’t remember the prices, but I think it’s about $5 for a coffee + donut. You pay for what you get. The doughnuts are just the right amount of sweetness, doesn’t leave you feeling too heavy and oily. Wash it all down with some serious hit you right in the face strength coffee.



This is one of the first places where H and I first hung out. 9 more days - we're in the single digits!