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.

H was craving Asian food, so for lunch, we trotted over to Chinatown to see what we could find. D was able to take a break from work, and met us at Asian Legend for a quick bite of Shanghai. We were not disappointed, despite the outside of the restaurant looking dingy and the inside looking dimly lit. The washrooms were quite nasty. Typical Chinese restaurant smell and atmosphere, we felt right at home.



We had the hot soy soup (?) with a Chinese donut, the drunken chicken (bottom), XLB (top left), and the dan dan noodle (top right). I think this was probably my favourite drunken chicken EVER, it was so tender and soaked with flavour. I still think about this chicken, even 2 weeks later. The prices were what we were used to, I think for the 3 of us for lunch, it came to about $30 – $40.



Weekend! Some things I want to do this weekend…
-replant my father’s aloe plants
-try some new macarons from Monplaisir
-watch Master of None Season 2
-start a scrapbook of all the wedding invitations I’ve received so far (cliché, I know)
-use the YYoga class that I haven't touched in 3 weeks

No zombie apocalypse yet, but here are two things:

1. I heard about Mealshare a few days ago, and their fundraiser, Tonight for Tomorrow, happening on May 10, 2017. Basically, you eat at one of the participating restaurants, and they’ll donate $1 for each $1 spent to provide food for youth. Simple as that, right? I’m always skeptical about non profits and how much of the proceeds actually go to their cause, but this seems pretty legit. I’ve been to a only a few restaurants on the list for their fundraiser, including Fable Diner: 

This was the milkshake that had Nutella in it. Also contains peanut butter and chocolate syrup. Pretty awesome. Wouldn’t mind coming back to try all the other milkshakes.

To be honest, we came here last October for R’s birthday, and I think I had the eggs benedict. They didn’t really stand out for me, but the milkshakes sure did. C had the toast with all the greens on top. M had some trucker breakfast, with fat pieces of meat and eggs that looked amazing.

Anyways, you need to eat anyways, right, so why not go to one of these restaurants on May 10th?

Support Mealshare by signing their petition to let them know you’ll be attending: http://www.mealshare.ca/en/tonight-for-tomorrow/



Other restaurants I’ve been to on Mealshare’s Tonight for Tomorrow participants list:
Sai Woo
Tuc

2. Ran the Sun Run this year, and finished it in 1hr7min, which means I knocked off a minute from last year, but I’m still so slow. I usually motivate myself by imaging zombies chasing after me, and wondering whether I’d actually survive because everybody else is so fast. I also focus on the bananas and chocolate milk at BC Place afterwards, but THIS YEAR WAS A DEVASTATING DISAPPOINTMENT. Where was the chocolate milk?!?!?!?!??!?!?!?!

PS - I’m outta here Vancouver! No posts for the next week because I’ll be in Toronto then the Cayman Islands. Find me on Instagram!

7:11AM – Wake up, check Instagram… Right. Earth Day today. H just got off work, but doesn’t pick up his phone when I call… Sometimes. Anyways.

7:19AM – H calls me back! I get out of bed, and get coffee #1 from the Nespresso machine.

8:00AM – Girlboss marathon starts.

9:37AM – Crap, going to have to drive fast to get to Yyoga.

11:27AM – Best yoga place ever – clean and lots of hot water. Unlike at home, where my boiler is slowly failing. Back to Girlboss.

1:20PM – The bus will be here soon, but… I’ll just skip through this last episode…

1:30PM - Gotta get to Nemesis!

2:00PM – Another Translink fail. What happened to the Skytrain today?

2:15PM – @Nemesis:

I had the heirloom grits…

and a latte with whole milk, because they don’t have 2% or skim…

I guess they control calories through smaller food portions. I mean, it was great and all, very fresh, loved the mint and so much flavor in each bite, but the whole thing cost $17. Not sure if I can come back. I tried a bit of their tomato jam, which looked very unappetizing by the way. M seemed to like her coffee and bacon scone. C had a cappuccino, which I think I should’ve ordered to avoid all the fatty milk. Overall, I wouldn’t go out of my way to come back, because there are a few other (better?) brunch and coffee shops in the neighborhood. Perhaps I had set my standards too high, because the reviews have been so good.

Went up to visit C’s brother’s apartment, and what a view! Another pro of living in a downtown apartment.

Still not sure what my role is in this mission to save the world from overheating. It’s hard to boycott all the things that are slowly killing the planet, because it’s just so convenient to not be conscientious about it. We’re all here for such a short time, and it would be so easy to just ignore all the devastating storms occurring around the world, the floods, the hurricanes. I shouldn’t suffer all this stress over something I can’t control, but I always tend to stress about the uncontrollable. I’ve heard that we can all do our fair share, and our small contribution will be a part of the world wide movement. Not sure about that because the large oil corporations and the governments seem pretty manipulative… Maybe one day, we will think of using coal and fracking the same way as smoking cigarettes.

Maybe it’s time to donate some money to help out organizations who are fighting climate change. Leo Dicaprio seems to support a few different ones.

#earthday

A post shared by VICELAND (@viceland) on Apr 22, 2017 at 9:34am PDT

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. 

Met up with some pals for brunch at 33 Acres and had some coffee…

…and some beer batter waffles topped with ham infused butter…

…and I think I really liked it. Strong coffee, perfectly poached eggs (the others had this), and just a great atmosphere. It’s such a busy place at around 11AM though, I’m not sure if I’d go back on a Sunday Brunchday.

Being busy is being lucky, says my mother. Being busy is a disease, says the Internet. I personally like to keep busy, I have plans to make plans… The coming year should be a busy one, with lots of plans to travel, explore, and develop those skills I already got. I recently (yesterday) purchased Your Chinese Horoscope 2017 by Neil Somerville, and I’m so excited to read it. The rest of this darn Monkey year is just dragging on and on! 10 more days till we reach the end of this torturous year…