::night snowboarding at grouse mountain::
all of us - in the seabus, which took us to north vancouver! it was my first time on the seabus (which is a public transport btw) that, as its name suggests, brings people across the river burrard inlet (which separates north van and van itself).
the skylift to grouse mountain!
all of us excitedly awaiting the skylift to bring us up to grouse mountain:)
we couldnt pick a better time to take the skylift - just in time to watch the sunset:)
after the sunset - the beautiful scenery from grouse!
the girls - all geared up for action!! much thanks to karen and saori who both had so much patience to teach me snowboarding from the basics - i didnt manage to attend any proper lesson though - coz we went up too late and there's only 1 lesson at noon every weekday:/
saori and i lying on the snowbed - i was so exhausted that i could barely move - for a while!! haha. i havent done this much exercise since i came to van!! i made the mistake of wearing too many layers (which is why i look so puffed up) though - it felt so hot after awhile and i think it made me more clumsy too:(
this was the main reason why we came to grouse mountain - the spectacular scenery from the top, overlooking the whole of van. this picture doesnt do it justice at all! it was absolutely breath-taking:)
we had dinner at a cafe atop grouse mountain! we were all famished after snowboarding for 2+ hours. i had fish & chips:) it was not bad, albeit a little too oily:/
ooh.. gil and the apple of his eye - our dear saori:) no wonder he's looking so happy! heh.
my 1st green run!! the green runs are the easiest but i managed to scale it about 3+ hours after learning how to snowboard - so i was quite pleased with myself:) haha. but of course, i fell down quite a number of times, coming back badly aching and bruised as a result. but it was worth it:)
me and gihong (whose face is covered by a ski mask) - much thanks to him for his patience when teaching me snowboarding, and also for taking care of me while i snowboarded:) i felt very bad coz he went really slow just to be nearby - always making sure i didnt venture into dangerous areas or got into any trouble!
me with the snowboard!
leaving grouse - homeward bound!!
the girls - on the way home, totally exhausted but very satisfied:) im already looking forward to the next snowboarding trip!!
11:59 PM
on thurday, i met up with nicole for dinner at yaohan centre. nicole had a craving for asian food so i brought her there coz i heard that the asian food there's really good and reasonable:)
nicole and i - on the bus. it was quite an eventful and long journey there. we must have been too engrossed chatting on bus - that was why we stopped at the wrong busstop and walked in the wrong direction, before we took a bus back to the right busstop. haha. this would not be a surprise to those who know how bad my sense of direction is.
but we made it there - a horrifying 1.5 hours later!! by that time, we were famished!! but we still had the energy to take photos from the outside. haha. seeing the yaohan signboard brought back a lot of memories. when i was younger, i used to frequent the yaohan branch at thomson plaza with my paternal grandparents, who both somehow loved going there alot:) there are now no more yaohan branches in sg already..
nicole and i - all ready to dig in, and happy that our long trip was worth it:)
i introduced nicole to our local specialty - hainanese chicken rice:) it was quite tasty but i found the rice a bit too oily though. i think the one karen had at primataste was better! but i was glad nicole enjoyed it:) oh yes, she really knows how to use the chopstick!! she was taught by a family friend back home in switzerland.
i decided to have a pork liver and century egg congee! yummy:) i really miss the congees at crystaljade back home! it was nice to have something piping hot when it was so cold outside! it was fun catching up with nicole:) and it was interesting how we exchanged lots of anecdotes on the idiosyncrasies of the people in our own country too!!11:28 PM
Friday, January 26, 2007
karen and i had a sudden craving for singaporean foodfare and we were intending to go to the much acclaimed bananaleaf malaysian restaurant. but when we got there at about 2:30pm, we were mighty disappointed to find the place already close:( its opening hours for lunch was only from 11:00am to 2:30pm. madness - the restaurant must be doing really well - such that it can afford to be so relaxed. bah.
but look what karen and i found? PRIMATASTE!! yayy. back home, i usually frequent the branch at centrepoint with my family:) much to our delight, karen and i were able to satisfy our cravings afterall!!
being the photowhores that we are, karen and i started taking photos from outside the restaurant. we later asked this guy who was standing nearby to take a photo for us. he looked at us in a very strange manner and later, we found out that he was the boss of primataste!! omg we were both very shocked and embarrassed. haha. but he was very nice about it - and he even served us personally and asked us what other singaporean food we would like to have but werent on the menu. the selection of food was quite wide so we couldnt think of anything else to add, at that point. anyway this vancouver outlet of primataste is the 1st branch in canada!
here's the picture that the boss of primataste took for us - outside his restaurant!
karen and i were famished!! look how hungry we were..
karen and her yummy hainanese chicken rice!
me and my delectable chicken laksa! i was trying to look greedy/hungry but i think i look more shocked than anything :/
here's a closer look at our lunch - looks good eh? now we know where to go when we have cravings for singaporean food:)
the ambience was great and the set up of the place looked really classy! luckily that wasnt reflected in their menu;)
us at our table! we got a nice comfy table:)
the uber modern bar area - this so doesnt look like the primataste outlet back home!
i really enjoyed the lunch and heart-to-heart talk with you babe:) hope you are feeling better soon and may God chase all your nightmares away! i will continue to keep you in my prayers:) huggs!!
karen and i on the bus - tired but satisfied:) haha. we managed to do some shopping in downtown before we headed back home! some temptations in life are just irresistable;)
::dinner at bora's::
on wednesday night, dear bora invited me over for dinner at her place:)
here's how bora cooks her rice - with black beans, which is traditional korean style:) it was really tasty btw!
much much thanks to bora who prepared a 3-course meal for me:) we had salad, miso soup, korean rice and bulgogi (korean stewed beef). i really enjoyed the dinner - especially the very delicious bulgogi:) it felt as though i just had dinner at a restaurant;) heh. oh yes, we had fruits and I brought cookies (why is this not surprising?) for dessert too!
what was best about the dinner was the very good long chat i had with bora that night:) i got to know her much better and found out how life in korea is really like - beyond all the stereotypical korean dramas. haha. it's such a blessing to have gotten to know her through ivcf in ubc:) it always seems so easy to confide in bora and we can really talk about anything under the sun:) thank God for bora!1:15 PM
Sunday, January 21, 2007
last friday, i went for an ifg gathering at dorcas' house. i had a hard time making my way there - due to some miscommunication with michelle (a sporean who's a mgs teacher back home and is currently doing her masters in science education at ubc). it really didnt help that it was so cold - while i had to wait alone in the dimly lit busstop because i missed the stop:( it was quite scary. but much thanks to the other half's mum who got me a hand-held alarm, which i was holding all that while! i didnt know it would be that useful:)
all was worth it when i finally reached the place! i met a lot of international students and friends there and i enjoyed getting to know them and our interaction too:) it was quite an exotic bunch of people - from argentina, japan, korea, brazil, germany and america. it was inevitable and really no surprise that our conversations included discussions on soccer, maradona and world cups. haha. it was my 1st time joining this group gathering and it turned out much better than i expected! even though the biblestudy covered very basic biblical ideas like how God created man, i benefited from the discussion too! in genesis 2:21-22, God "took one of Adam's ribs and closed up the place from which He had taken it. then the Lord God made a woman from the rib". i just found out that it has been scientifically/biologically proven that men do have 1 lesser rib-bone as compared to women! it's not that i didnt think that it would be true, but i am just amazed that it has actually been scientifically proven!
frankly, after coming back to van, i felt God's calling for me to help out in this initiative. seeing how smoothly everything went (save for my initial misadventure) and when michelle told me that God had sent me to help them after gil left, it was then that everything seemed to fall into place. her encouraging words really meant a lot to me:)
::ivcf-ifg reunion potluck::
last saturday, i went with hiroko and saori for the reunion potluck organized by ivcf-ifg at the international house. saori and i had gone for the previous one that was held last october. it was great to see everyone after so long - to getting to know more international students too:) but no thanks to my taiwanese friend michael, who very honestly told me that i had gained weight from the last time we met:( boohoo. anyway hiroko and saori came over to my place and we cooked japanese pork curry for the potluck! we also brought chewy (and of course yummy) chocolate chip cookies!
the 3 of us busy cooking and preparing the dish in my kitchen! the aroma of the jap curry was so tantalizing that we all got very very hungry. saori was caught in the act - of munching on my yanyan biscuits:) heh.
us at our table - we look very happy coz we finally got our food!! our table was the last in order to get our main course from the buffet table. that explained why by the time we got there, there were no more pork in our jap curry:( 
although the variety of food was significantly lesser and less exotic as compared to the last reunion potluck, there was still quite a spread and the food was still very good:)
in compensation for being last in line to getting our main course, our table was the first to get our desserts:) yayy! oh yes, before we started on the desserts, the january babies (including saori and your truly) were also invited to cut a cake and everyone sang the bday song for us! it was such a sweet gesture! (p.s: in case you are wondering, this plate of desserts was shared by the 3 of us - i didnt finish everything by myself - although that would not be a surprise actually. haha)
our table - i enjoyed meeting new people at our table! it was great that janet (sitting opposite saori) came to sit with us too! it was good catching up with her. i missed her!9:27 PM
Saturday, January 20, 2007
anyway for the past week, here's what i have been doing..
::meeting/catching up with friends::
met up with mich! we shared the sinfully delicious almond mocha gelato and a slice of chocolate decadence cake, and enjoyed a good long chat at death by chocolates - a well-known specialty dessert cafe in van. thanks for the treat babe:) we both agreed that the cheesecakes at true confections are better though! i havent uploaded the photos we took that day so here's one taken of us at true confections last semester before i left for home!
met up with ming and sulynn at tim hortons. it was nice catching up with them! much thanks to ming who lent me the dvd capturing dear schumi's last f1 race last year - which i unfortunately didnt get to watch coz i didnt have the tv in my apartment.
here's what i've missed so badly when i was back in singapore! haha. tim hortons' double chocolate donut:) finally satisfied my craving! yum.
met up with adelle for lunch at cafe crepe! this picture wasn't too well taken coz we took it ourselves. haha. anyways we had a good time chatting over our delicious crepes:) she went to the east coast over last year's reading break, so i was getting all the tips on where to go/eat in the different places there! adelle's favourite pastime is enjoying good food; so it was quite hilarious seeing her gushing over all the various specialty food in these places. haha.
adelle had a sweet tooth that day and she ordered nutella banana crepe (sounds fancy eh?) and i had the classic ham and cheese crepe! yummy:) the servings don't look big but they are very filling indeed.
::lslap & an upcoming trial::
lslap started this week and it was a busy day at the clinic for me. i took up 3 cases, one of which was a matter due to go on trial. this matter involved spousal abuse case again! and yet again, i will be defending the husband (i.e. the alleged wife-beater). sigh. it's quite a complicated story but in a nutshell, from what my client told me, he didnt assault his wife at all! in fact, his wife was the one who came after him with a chopper and all he wanted to do was to take the chopper away from her. perhaps she got injured in the struggle. quite drama eh? so this time, my client's not pleading guilty so it would be a full-blown trial. meaning that there would be a formal opening statement, examination, cross-examination and etc. that also means that more preparation would have to be done. bah. but it should be an interesting experience:)9:01 AM
Monday, January 15, 2007
the weather in vancouver over the past few days has been crazily freezing. but what is making adjustment to life back in vancouver harder, is the absence of my dear friends gil, david, jo & hp. a couple of days ago, when i went to the good ol' #4126 to look for matt, my heart sank when i no longer saw the familiar rows of fruit/milk cartons being stacked against the window pane. gil and david's rooms were lighted but they were now occupied by strangers. no one answered the doorbell too. and i left with an overwhelming sense of emptiness and sadness. gone also were the daily shouts from 2 doors down, for me to go over for dinner/chat/sleeping queens/chinesecheckers/csi/gym. and the list goes on.
yesterday was the first time i had to go to church myself. there was no more any 920am "come-out" call. thank God i managed to get hiroko and saori to accompany me at the last minute:) it felt so good going back to university chapel. i was greeted with many warm hugs and greetings from all my friends there! the service was good and God really spoke to me through the message. i was greatly encouraged and comforted.
on a lighter note, some updates!!
::dinner with my dear girls at my place::
the next day after i arrived in vancouver, the girls had dinner at my place!
me back at my kitchen cooking. how much i miss the comfort of just waiting for daddy's superb cooking at home!!
we cooked laksa-flavoured chicken fried rice with the mix that karen brought from singapore! despite how sleepy and jetlagged karen, saori and i were, the dish turned out quite well:) it was quite funny how i forgot to cook the chicken before frying the fried rice; karen accidentally threw away the garlic into the bin while she was peeling it; and both saori and karen were looking high and low for the oyster sauce before i pointed out to them that it was actually right in front of them! haha. yes we were that tired.
dinner finally done! it was a simple meal but we had lots of fun catching up and finding out a couple of scandals!! haha. (for more info, do refer to karen's blog! ;) )
the desserts for the night - brought all the way from singapore!! hiroko and saori loved them too:)
what would i do without them?:)
much thanks to hiroko, who got these souvenirs from new york for karen and i:)
::trip to metrotown::
after church yesterday, i went to metrotown with hiroko and saori:) too bad karen couldnt join us because she had to complete her readings! i was so surprised at how many sales there were at metrotown! it was absolutely crazy!! i exercised alot alot alot of self-discipline so i only bought a cad$5 top from dynamite - my favourit-est boutique in metrotown:) haha. it was a thoroughly tiring but enjoyable day of shopping and fellowship-ing with the girls!!12:41 PM