Lost the drone, but I tried so hard to keep my spirits up. One of the best ways to do this was to go for beers at the Cumberland Brewing Co.:

We each had a flight of their fresh beer, from the Fog (Foo?) to their darkest stout. I usually like dark beers best, but their IPA was gold. Their stout was just average, but C2 really liked it. Everybody certainly does have different tastes for beer!



I think Cumberland was interesting, but I was ready to head home and really lick my wounds.
The next day…

Go back to:
Cumberland, Day 1, Part 1
Cumberland, Day 1, Part 2
Cumberland, Day 2, Part 1
Cumberland, Day 2, Part 2
Cumberland, Day 2, Part 3

Went out for a coffee and some alone time at The Drive Coffee Bar:

This place wasn’t too busy at around noon today, with 2 baristas. They have good strong coffee. I had the iced lavender latte, sat on their little patio, and researched places to go in Taiwan. I liked that it was quiet and peaceful, despite being on a busy street and I will be back to try other coffees (or maybe a beer). 

  

I’m glad I have these hobbies to keep me busy while H is out of town. Here was coffee number 1 from earlier today, and my new baby plants from the Prickly Pear sale:

Plants from Prickly Pear, around $9.
Terrarium from garage sale, $2.
Coffee from Nespresso, around $0.75. Lol.

I’m trying to budget so I can get my drone this month on Amazon Prime Day.

One of the meals we had with D&T were at Lamesa Filipino Kitchen:



Lamesa means table, so the full name means… table filipino kitchen? Anyways. They served some pretty tasty food with romantic lighting, moody ambiance. We had this coconut fried polenta as a garnish for their fish (above, the polenta is that rectangular prism supporting the fish), and I fell in love with the restaurant then. I wish we could’ve just ordered that on its own.



We also had this pork (above), and it was just OK. Chinese pork siu yok is better, just because it’s oiler and juicier. We ended the meal with the ube dessert at the top of the page, which was quite refreshing.

I miss traveling, and it’s only been a week and a half since Sunshine Coast. November will be Hong Kong and Taiwan! If only I had more time and money to travel. I’m already maximizing as much as possible on my measly 15 vacation days, and buying only the essentials to keep me presentable in public. I’ve cut down on the alcohol, the eating out… Can’t cut down on coffee though. How do I travel more, like this guy says we should:

The air in the office makes us dizzy.

According to Google, Sam’s Quality Jerk & More! is the place to get the very best jerk chicken on the island. H found this, and after our little foray around Cabana Bay, we were ready for food. Maybe we weren’t quite ready to be greeted by the piles of meat at the entrance of the shop:







Piles of very fresh meat, and extremely spicy jerk sauce (be careful with this sauce). I was very excited for an affordable meal that would actually be filling. We also came back again on the morning of Day 4, simply because it was so irresistible. They open in the morning at 7AM for breakfast usually, except Sunday, when they’re closed all day on. Why, you might wonder? 

H asked one of the cooks, “Are you guys open tomorrow?” (GCM Day 2 for us was on a Saturday).

The man chopping the meat chuckled, “No man, CHURCH!”

Imagine a Jamaican accent.

CLICK HERE FOR JERK CHICKEN TOURS PART ONE.

Another busy weekend.

Went to the Monplaisir macaron sampling event with B on Saturday. Bumped into J from work with her kids and husband there (still amazes me that she can bring her 2 kids around everywhere and be as cool as a cuke!). We spent a few minutes learning about their all natural macarons. No preservatives! No artificial flavoring! They’re mainly available in Calgary, where they have their headquarters, but I am ready to buy more when they come to Vancouver.  I tried the margarita one, and actually tasted the shot of tequila. There were a bunch of flavors that I’d be really curious to try (champagne?). We also had a few to take home. Perks. Woot.

So we took the macarons to Prado in Gastown, for coffee to balance out the sweetness and to grab a quick bite:

This was the cappuccino (with Monplaisir’s honey lavendar macaron, we couldn’t wait to take a bite of it…). We also shared their feature sandwich (ham, cheese, pesto, cranberry bread). B was surprised that a cappuccino could be so smooth, and I was impressed by the stringy cheese in their sandwich. I had the macchiato. Did I really need the extra caffeine? Yes, because H woke me up at 5:30AM.

I left the extras in the fridge, and ate them today with a regular Nespresso shot:

I need a kick in the butt to hurry up and post about the trip to the Cayman Islands before the rest of life kicks in. Weekend 69 and 70 are currently missing because a lot of wedding stuff happened. Pretty sure it would’ve been helpful if I had a laptop to document on the spot, so I’m now on the hunt for a good one. Recommendations welcome.

Sometimes, a fancy pizza is what the day calls for:

H and I ordered the Princess pizza, which was the best price out of the seafood options at $35 each. Shrimp and prawns were so crisp and fresh, perfectly cooked. Topped with some pretty fresh arugula and smoked salmon:

There’s a room next to the restaurant with counters and some bar stools. Not sure if it’s a public place, but we brought the pizza there to eat it while it’s fresh.

Cannot wait for next week, SO TIRED. I’m sure I’ve made lots of mistakes, some waiting to be discovered while my brain is on vacation somewhere. Hopefully I’ve solved my fair share, and prevented enough to balance out the ones I’ve created. 

After 10 minutes of driving from the beach (it probably wouldn’t take more than an hour to drive around the entire island), we reached Vesuvius. We didn’t know the name of the restaurant, but from the institutions in the “town”, Seaside Restaurant was probably the only place to grab a bite. Oysters, fish and chips (halibut), and clam chowder:



Tasted extra good, after all the fails with the clams. The chowder had huge chunks of clam, the fish was fresh and had good meat to batter ratio, and we were ready to keep going. For a little place on a tiny island, the food was better than good. If they set up shop on the mainland, I might go again, but it’s still not worth the 3 hour ferry ride.



1:00PM: Mt. Erskine

Trail is a bit steep, but the fairy doors are worth it.

More info on this trail: https://saltspringmarket.com/hiking-on-salt-spring-island/mt-erskine-from-juniper/

Side note: S8 came out today. I dropped my S7 from the seat of H’s 4Runner (now known as Big Bertha), while I was getting out of the car, and it tumbled to hard cement ground. A couple side scratches, no cracks. Faith restored in Samsung.


Return to Day 1 on Salt Spring
Go to Day 2 on Salt Spring

At Le Marché St. George, one of my favourite nooks in Vancouver, with a good friend, enjoying the sunshine this weekend before heading off to the Eastside Flea Market. I got a Rose Mocha and a French onion soup, and the croissant is C’s. I can’t wait to come back, every single time. They pay attention to all the details! The only thing we didn’t do was bike; it would’ve been a complete Vancouver-style weekend.



Looked back on some old photographs, which brought back some good and bad memories. I’ve been thinking about what I’ve learned since (love, work, family), and when the switch was flipped from “child” to “adult”. The past was fun, but I’m more excited to keep moving forward.

Last day, rather early start, wandered into Mazarine Coffee for breakfast around 8AM:

I had found this place just by searching Google for coffee near me at the beginning of this trip, and I had wanted to go since the very first day, but circumstances brought me to Starbucks for efficiency’s sake. Eggs were done perfectly, just cooked, so softly poached with a light layer of sprouts and cracked pepper on top for flavours. I would come back in a heartbeat. Coffee was strong too. I think my barista was in training – the latte art got mushed up a bit. Not sure if that affected the flavour…

After breakfast, I had originally planned to finish watching Harry Potter, which was showing on the television, but after careful consideration and D’s reminder, I booked it to the airport to see if I could get on an earlier flight. Weather was being unpredictable in Vancouver…

Ended up spending about $150USD to switch my seat. There was even enough time to go to the Duty Free to pick up a bottle of Johnny Walker, a box of See’s candy, and this Laneige BB Cushion that has been out of stock EVERYWHERE for the past half year. I am just glad it’s back in my life. Still can’t find it on the Sephora website for Canada.

Laneige medium shade, and Nespresso as I get ready today.

I’m glad I cut my day short in SF because I made it back safe and sound, no delays. Whether it’s business or personal, it is sometimes for the best to just cut your losses, take what you have gained, and make the most of the situation. How do you determine at that you’ve given it your best? At what point do you walk away from the deal or the relationship?

Busy days and tough decisions ahead.

Here are the links to all the days from this trip:
Day 1
Day 2.. and sort of 3
Day 4 - Part 1
Day 4 - Part 2
Day 5 

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!

By the time we drove over the Astoria bridge, and arrived at Coast River Inn, it was already pretty late. They say there’s wifi, but it’s so slow that there’s basically no wifi. We ended up watching the news (protests and riots in Portland downtown) and then hit the sack.
THE NEXT DAY… we walked around Seaside, looking for coffee and donuts. We found Liberty Cafe (beans from the Sleeping Monk at Cannon Beach), within walking distance of where we were staying, then we found THIS:

I almost ate the whole thing and forgot to share with H. There were chunks of bacon over a very fresh and fluffy donut base, topped with a maple frosting. Make sure you go to Dundee’s Donuts if you’re in the area.

We walked around a bit more and enjoyed our sugar + caffeine high, and luckily, the weather held up so that we could discover the breathtaking, natural beauty of the coast:

Very windy, but people still out and about.

Tourist town.

It would be so nice here in the summer when it’s warmer and the wind doesn’t try to bite your face off.

CLICK HERE TO GO BACK TO DAY 1

49th Parallel has these scrumptious Halloween Special donuts, stuffed with pumpkin puree, with a pumpkin glaze and chocolate icing. The stem… IS AN ALMOND!!!! Creativity a its best. Coffee, as always, was on par. Might not be too late yet to get one today.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN.

Still working on this same book, which is really making me doubt my choices and decisions.

Steps to a successful hike:

1. Hearty breakfast of fats and sugars:

Chicken Omelette, French Toast, Milk Tea for caffeine

Satay Beef with Instant Noodle (+$0.50 only to switch nooodle), Milk Tea for size

Two of these meals cost $15, INCLUDING TAX. You pay for what you get, but the food wasn’t disgusting, and everything was fairly clean, RECOMMEND FO SHO.

2. Pick up your friend from the hood, who doesn’t hike, and tell her it’s quick and easy, omitting to mention the time advised from the Interweb.

3. Discover colours amid the grey that is Vancouver:

4. LOST. Went around in a loop for a good 30 minutes.

5. Discover a beautiful sunset before getting back to the car: 

I’d do this again, but maybe with runners instead of rain boots.

More info on this trail here:

https://www.vancouvertrails.com/trails/burnaby-lake/

http://vancouverhiatus.com/hiking/burnaby-lake.html

https://www.burnaby.ca/Things-To-Do/Explore-Outdoors/Nature-Trails-And-Walks.html

The weekend is coming to an end, and I’m still thinking about my options right now. What do I want to take on next? Is school really a good idea, or should I just keep on cruising along for the rest of this year? I hear that 30’s will be some of the best years, and I’m almost there. Everything seems like it’s already decided though, especially with a mortgage to take on just before I hit 30. Hustle harder, enjoy the process, and just be patient, I suppose I’ll get there eventually.

As Snoop Dogg said to Martha Stewart and Ellen Degeneres – “TO SUCCESS AND NOTHING LESS” (2:40)

Last day of the market went smoothly. Yolk’s was on site, so I had one last eggs bennie with the portobello mushrooms and roast garlic potatos. Spicy ketchup, goat cheese. YUM. (GO HERE FOR PREVIOUS POST ABOUT YOLK’S AT THE MARKET).

These guys were here too, and I hear they’re really yummy, but I never get a chance to go because the line is depressing:

Then, I found this:

Apparently they’re popping up everywhere in the Lower Mainland, and they’re beyond deadly. Don’t go picking them up from the side of the street and stuffing your face.

What am I going to do with my spare time?