My trip to Vancouver

Where do I begin, and how do I not bore you? Make it short, sweet and to the point I suppose.

Friday
Friday was filled with driving, we left Calgary at 1:30PM and arrived in Richmond in 11 hours. It would have been faster, provided that I:
1) had a car that had power (I rented a Hyunday Tuscon 4WD V6)

2) if the roads between Lake Louise and Kamloops were 4 lanes instead of 2.
3) if we left on thursday to avoid Friday long weekend traffic

However I won't complain about 11 hours as it was estimated on Microsoft's Streets and Trips to take 12 hours. I probably made up that hour by taking the Coquihalla toll highway from Kamloops to Hope B.C.


When we arrived at the Best Western Richmond Inn Convention center we basically unpacked, freshened up and hit the hay...I was pretty exhausted from the drive.

Saturday
On Saturday our goal was to leave the hotel by 11AM and we were successful in doing so! We then headed down to Fisherman's Wharf in search of some fresh crab for brunch. However we couldn't find any (we were thinking they'd have it like San Fancisco did) and we opted for some Sushi instead. The sushi was pretty good, the quality of the fish/seafood seemed a lot better and I sure hope so since we were right by the ocean!

We headed downtown after sushi and were so amazed by the skyline of Downtown Vancouver when we were entering from the South. Condo towers to the left, Condo towers to the right, Condo towers everywhere! Calgary's downtown skyline doesn't even compare! We quickly found parking and then we walked around Robson Street and the rest of downtown for a good 3-4 hours. Mostly we window shopped and then called it a day when our legs were just way too tired.

We headed back to Richmond and went for supper at this Chinese place I saw earlier in the day and I wanted to try it (it seemed busy at lunch time). The place was called Neptune Sharkfin Seafood Restaurant and it was located on 100-8171 Ackroyd Road. We didn't expect much going in it...I mean if you have been to one Chinese Restaurant, all the others are pretty similar. But boy was I ever wrong. This one was more posh but still very chinese. We got in, we were seated and then they pulled out our chopsticks out of the paper for us and they poured our tea for us....it seemed so VIP (for a chinese restaurant). Then came the food, dishes were quite pricey, they averaged about $15/plate but in my opinion it was the best tasting food I have ever had. The seafood fried rice was amazing! The shrimps and scallops were huge and abundant, and the hot and sour soup was phenomenal. I even opted for Lobster and we had it cooked "Singapore Style". Which was basically a spicey tomato sauce. It was so good! And it better be good for $60!!!!! I can't believe I spent that much on a sea crustacean!!! But it was well worth it. When supper was all done we left super satisfied and super full!

We ended the night by renting The Davinci Code on the hotel network and I'm glad I didn't pay full price for it in theatres as I found it really sucked (that's not even comparing it to the book).

Sunday aka Splurge Day
We set the same goal of getting out of the hotel by 11 and we were successful yet again. This time for brunch we opted for a place called Hon's Wun-Tun House. We had seen this place on Rachel Ray's Tasty Travels and also in the tourist guide in the hotel. Seeing that it was so recommended we decided to try for ourselves. There was an address for a location in Richmond, we looked it up and followed the directions but couldn't find it. So after a bit of searching we headed for downtown location on Robson Street instead. Let me tell you, it is well worth the effort of going here. I loved their dumplings and their Honeymoon Fried rice (aka Yin Yang Chow Fan) was amazing. Funny thing is that I have had this fried rice once before and have always wanted to get it again but never knew what it was called. This time I just chose the most expensive rice on the list and when they brought it out ...to my suprise and my delight it was the one I was always wanting to have again!

After that it was back to shopping on Robson Street. I guess we used Saturday to scope out all the things we liked and used Saturday night to decide whether or not it was worth buying...or this is what I did anyways because we went shopping crazy on Sunday. All 3 of us were buying stuff, mostly clohing. We hit A|X (Armani Exchange), FCUK and The Adidas Original Store! I was carrying so many bags that at the end of our 4 hour shopping spree we had to go back to the hotel to unload the goods into our room before we headed back to Stanley Park! It was crazy, I haven't spent this much on clothes since...ever.

Stanley Park was beautiful. I can't believe that Vancouver citizens put aside land that is as big as Downtown Vancouver to make as a park. We arrived there at about 6 and everything was closing down. So we just walked around a bit and drove around the perimeter of the park. I ended up taking some beautiful shots of the sunset and the moon over the bay between Vancouver and Stanley Park. We ordered some Fish and Chips at some place on the park at one of our stops and all 3 of us agreed that was the best Fish and Chips we have ever had. We ended up leaving the park at about 9:30PM. We had to drive through the night life of downtown Vancouver to head back to Richmond and wow was it ever exciting. There was so many people (mostly girls, heh) out on the streets, so many shops/cafes open and full of people...the atmosphere just seemed so awesome. Next time I head back to Vancouver I will definitely have to check out the night life...I HAVE TO!

The next thing we checked out was the Richmond Night Market. It is held every night from 7PM-12AM (7-11PM on Sunday) and is an annual thing that goes from mid May to Mid October. We showed up at 10PM and stayed till closing at 12PM (they opened later because it was the long weekend). It's basically like a T&T but outdoors with vendors in little tents selling everything from chinese dvd movies to dog clothing. But the best thing is they have a section totally devoted to food. You can go and try cuisine from almost every asian culture. I saw Korean, Chinese, Vietnames, Japanese and Indian food being sold and tried most of it too...yum! Each dish is a reasonable size and goes from $2-$4. My favourite of that night was bbq'd spicey squid tentacles....mmmm so good and so spicey!! If you ever go to Vancouver/Richmond between May and October you definitely have to check this out. The atmoshpere is killer and there is lots of people that frequent it. My tip is to splurge and pay the $4 to park instead of parking far away and walking.

So we ended our night after the Night Market. We had so much fun on Sunday, its definitely something I will remember forever.

Monday
I thought I was done shopping but I wasn't. I wanted these shorts from A|X but never bought them on Saturday, but was regretting not getting them. I wanted them so badly and there are no other A|X stores in Western Canada I decided that we hit up the store one more time before we headed back to Calgary. Arrived on Robson St. once again and went to buy the shorts ASAP. Then we headed to a Sushi place across the street for some brunch. I forgot what it was called by the "Special Box" lunch special that we got was amazing! After that we headed for the Trans-Canada East and headed home. Once again we took the Coquihalla after Hope to Kamloops and then to Calgary with stops in Kamloops in Revelstoke for food and gas. We arrived back in Calgary at 12:30AM MT which isn't bad considering we left Vancouver at 2PM MT (much faster than the trip up to Vancouver).


Overall the trip was fantastic. It was the first trip that my brother, Tuyet and I went on together. Before that my brother would stay home. We had a lot of fun experiencing all that Vancouver had to offer. We left feeling satisfied but not fully quenched because we know that Vancouver has a lot left for us to discover. This is definitely a trip I will make yearly. I love Vancouver so much that I would not hesitate to live there (of course if my gf comes with me). However I would never ever cheer for the Canucks haha!

P.S. I will post my pictures from my Vancouver trip in another blog after I get a chance to resize them.

Calgary Stampede 2006 Recap

- Tuyet and I ended up dilly dallying (more so me than her) and we arrived East of the Stampede grounds (Ramsay) by 3:45PM.
- We decided to park in Ramsay at the Elementary school. They have parking there for $15 before 8pm and $5 after 8PM. We figured that we would end up paying $9 if we were to take the c-train from a station (2.25/person + round trip) and that's only an extra $6 and we'd have the car closer.
- After a short walk down a huge section of stairs (east of the Saddledome) we arrived at the Stampede grounds by 4PM.
- The heat was intense at that time so we decided to head inside and catch the 4:30PM show of Superdogs. We got great seats and the show was different this year (in a good way). The show never ceases to amaze me. The best part of the show for me (every year) is when the bulldog comes out! I'm definitely getting one of them in the future.
- After that we headed to the Roundup Center and did some hat shopping and looked at all the products the vendors were advertising. I was really interested in those self-customized novelty toilet seats but at $40 a seat I thought it wasn't worth it.
- Tuyet found herself a cowboy hat first and I think it took me nearly an hour after that to find one for myself that I liked. I ended up by a brown felt Columbia Renegade.


This is my hat. I love this hat, it's so comfortable and totally protects me from the sun!

- By the time we both had our hats, we headed outside but by that time the sun was less intense....boo.
- We ate some yummy montreal smoked sandwiches and later on in the night we hit up some corn dogs. I ate a regular sized corn dog while Tuyet opted for a mini one :D
- I played whack a mole and won on my very first try! For the past two years I have tried without any luck, but this year was my year for whack-a-mole, and I destroyed! I won a pink bear which I gave to Tuyet.



- We decided to buy a few tickets and go on a few rides. We went on a few spinning ones, the ferris wheel and the sky ride. To me the sky ride is a must if you are going to Stampede. Sure there's nothing really exciting about it, but I feel its a good place to take in all the sights and sounds of the Stampede. And plus you get to look down girls shirts :D

- We ended the night eating some texas fries and watching the fireworks. The fries were okay, there were like fresh potatoe chips, but the fireworks were awesome. But not as awesome as the fireworks on the last day of Stampede.

So that's my recap. For me the Stampede is fun but not as fun as it was when I was younger. Back then I went there to meet up with friends and hang out. Now I just like to go for the shows and vendors. Yep I'm showing my age. And I think I'd be a bit more enthusiastic about the Stampede as a whole if it wasn't so expensive! I think I managed to spend approx. $200 and all I have is a cowboy hat and a pink bear to show for it. At least I came out with something right?

Just got back!

So a few weeks back Tuyet told me to keep the weekend of July 8th free so that we can go "somewhere". Baffled but willing to co-operate I made sure I wasn't doing anything that weekend. Eventually the days rolled by and on the 7th she decided to tell me that she had booked the Polynesian room at the Fantasyland Hotel for a the weekend. AWESOME! Even more awesome is the reason why. It was to make up for the missed car show back on June 10th (I went to her co-workers super awkward wedding).

Anyways we left Calgary pretty late because we had to BOTH help our Dads out around the house. I helped my dad install a 40" LCD screen onto a wall mount and she helped her Dad clean out the gutters of her huge house (I think I got the better deal). So with all that we didn't end up leaving Calgary until 1PM. We arrived in Edmonton at 3:30PM and checked into our Polynesian themed bedroom by 4PM. It was amazing! I really liked the jacuzzi because it had this sweet waterfall that filled up the tub, and it would keep on running when you had the jacuzzi jets on. Here's a picture of the room:



We quickly unpacked after we arrived and headed into the mall to have a bit of a snack. After that we came back to our room to let the food settle for a bit and headed for the World Water Park at 6PM. Click here for a old but cool virtual panorama of the waterpark.

Here's another pic (more recent) of the World Waterpark:


The waterpark was so much fun! I haven't been to one since I was kid and I was enjoying every minute of it! We first played in the waves for a good hour but eventually got annoyed of everyones tubes running into us so we headed for the water slides. I ended up riding almost every single slide except for a few that were closed and ones I didn't have the "kahunas" to go on like the Sky Screamer. Here's a lay out of the park and descriptions of the slides. Click here.

Our favourite ride ended up being Nessie's Revenge. It was an advanced ride that was super fast and you would catch huge air off of the drops. It was so exhilirating that we ended up going on it 3-4 times! The bonus of this ride was the lineup was almost non-existant (some rides had about 15 minutes waits in the lineups). After we hit Nessie up one last time we went back and enjoyed the waves again until 8:45PM. Then we made our way back to the hotel to shower and made our way to Bourbon Street (inside the mall) for a late supper.

Bourbon Street was not bad at all. We ended up going to the lounge at Earl's and sharing a few appetizers while enjoying a few Caesar's and Bellini's. The meals and drinks were good but the only complaint I have is that they definitely cheaped out on the amounts of alcohol in our drinks. None of us felt a remote buzz and Tuyet didn't even turn red!

After that we went back to our room and hit up the Jacuzzi! Haha, talk about a water filled day. I was so tired by that time that the hum of the jacuzzi nearly made me fall asleep. With that we ended off the night. Ahhh what a day!

The next day we woke up nice and late and then did a round of shopping in West Ed. We didn't end up buying anything (we never seem to be able to buy anything from West Ed.). We got back into town around 8ish in the evening.

The trip was amazing and the thought put into this trip was above and beyond spectacular. I had so much fun, and I would recommend anyone who wants to get away for a day or so to try out the Fantasyland Hotel. The prices are a bit high, but the entertainment available at the mall and the convenience of it all makes it a great weekend getaway. I'd definitely do it again!







P.S for Tuyet: What an awesome weekend. Thank you so much for being so thoughtful for this trip. You definitely Rock(ed) my Kasbah!!!!!!

P.P.S. This is the first time I never sped excessively to get to my destination. Instead I kept it at a stead 120km/h for the entire trip. It proved to be a more comfortable trip this way, and a lot more fuel efficient!

Famous Bears (Continued)

So here are the rules:
The topic will be "Famous Bears".
I will award 2 points for every comment that contains a "famous" bear, not already listed in this post or in someone elses comment (on this post)! It has to be a "famous" bear. The first person to post the famous bear's name, gets claim to that famous bear. Max 6 points per person. I will also award 3 points to each person who posts a picture of their favorite bear on their own blog on June 27 or 28, 2006. And finally I will award 3 points for some other secret criteria.

So let's see some famous bears that I came up with. Here we go!

We have the Jewish "Berenstein Bears" that we all know from our days in Elementary:


We have the loveable Baloo that raised Mowgli in Jungle Book:


We have Bobo the bear, who is Mr. Burn's bear (Simpsons):


How about the Three Bears that had their house broken into and vandalized by some bubble head/picky ass blonde:


We have the Gummi Bears who took their "Gummi Berry Juice" aka cocaine juice to do super bounces:


And don't forget the ever famous "Teddy" bear from the Mr.Bean show:



Lastly, and oddly the first thing that came up in my mind when I was thinking about "famous bears" was the Masturbating Bear from the Conan O'Brien Show:


To end it off, these are my Favourite Bears. Tuyet and I went to the Teddy Bear Shop in Chinook and made them for our "One Year Anniversary". They are both similar bears, but one has a pink nose and one has a blue nose. I made the blue nosed one and gave it to Tuyet, and his name is Snow Bear. While she made the pink nosed one and gave it to me and her name is Alexia. In these pictures Alexia is dressed up as the football player and Snowbear is the Superhero.



awwww...

LBHS 97 Monthly Poker Tournament Results

Scroll Down to see the Points standings!

Tournament Results
	1st	2nd
LBHS 97 T1 JANUARY 2006	Todd M.	Mike A.
LBHS 97 T2 FEBRUARY 2006	Andrew S.	Alex L.
LBHS 97 T3 MARCH 2006	Kent W.	Andrew S.
LBHS 97 T4 APRIL 2006	Ryan S.	Kent W.
LBHS 97 T5 MAY 2006	Alex L.	Kent W.
LBHS 97 T6 JUNE 2006	Ryan S.	Kent W.
LBHS 97 T7 JULY 2006	Todd M.	Andrew S.
LBHS 97 T7 AUGUST 2006	Kent W.	Ryan S.
LBHS 97 T8 SEPT 2006	Alex L.	Mike A.
LBHS 97 T9 NOV 2006	Mike A.	Kent W.
LBHS 97 T10 JAN 2007	Ryan S.	Kent W.
LBHS 97 T11 FEB 2007	Kevin R.	Mike A.

Wins and Points
Player	1st	2nd	Total Points
Kent W.	2	5	9
Ryan S.	3	1	7
Alex L.	2	1	5
Mike A.	1	3	5
Andrew S.	1	2	4
Todd M.	2	0	4
Kevin R.	1	0	2
Brad B.	0	0	0

1st Place = 2 points
2nd Place = 1 point

The Return of Superman (Continued)

So with the movie coming out this Wednesday June 28th, I thought I would link you to all the stuff I found on the net and perhaps you will catch the "Superman Returns Fever" that I am slowly catching.

Even though I might be catching this "Superman Returns Fever" I am still a bit wary about a few things such as the story line, the casting of some characters, the writers and the director.

Let's start with the "love plot" that we will see in Superman Returns. Apparently Superman/CK has been gone for quite awhile (5 years) and in that time Lois Lane has moved on and has a son with another guy. This gets a big thumbs down from me. Especially since they are saying that Superman Returns takes place in between Superman I and II. So where is Lois' son in Superman II? Another thing is this movie takes place in between Superman I and II yet the characters look remarkably younger in this version (some even think this looks more like Superboy than Superman). As you can see I'm a continuity whore.

Secondly I didn't like the casting of some characters. I'm especially not a big fan of Kate Bosworth playing Lois Lane. When I think of Lois Lane I visualize a dark hair light skin beauty such as Kate Beckinsale or Jennifer Connelly. I definitely don't see Kate Bosworth (a natural blonde). Kevin Space as Lex Luthor should be interesting though and we all know that he will steal the show, and the movie should be named "The Lex Luthor Show".

Thirdly and lastly (I hope) is that I am not a big fan of the writers and director. The writers only have one "big" title under their belts and that was X2. Now I don't know about you guys/gals, but I hated X2. I thought it was the suck. I thought X3 was even worse and the only good one was the first one. And then I pick up a copy of Giant Magazine and read that the writers along with the director came up with the first draft over the July long weekend! I hope they weren't drunk. But with the Lois Lane has a kid plot, I think they were drunk or a bit tipsy. The director Bryan Singer however has a better resume (not great, but good). X2 wasn't bad from a direction point of view, it was just the screen play that was weak. He also directed Apt Pupil which wasn't bad but the one that makes him good in my eyes is that he directed one of my all time top ten movies... The Usual Suspects (if you haven't seen it, GO RENT IT!).

Anyways enough of my babbling, I will now start linking you to all the Superman Returns links and all other Superman related links that I found interesting.

This first link should get you in the mood for Superman.

The Year of Superman

This is a link to YouTube.com that has 11 (recently released) trailers for Superman Returns

Superman Returns: 11 trailers

If you have sound and you want to listen to the ENTIRE Superman Returns soundtrack then click here (You will need Windows Media Player).

Superman Returns Soundtrack

The IMDB.com movie information

Superman Returns @ IMDB.com

Superman Returns article from GIANT magazine

Superman Returns @ GIANTmag.com

Before the making of Superman Returns there was Superman Lives written by Kevin Smith (Clerks, Mall Rats, Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back). But it fell through because of casting, director and many more problems. See what Superman Lives what could have looked like. FYI: This was to take place after Superman's comic death. I think this would have been a lot cooler movie than the one that will be released this Wednesday, and it would have been pretty sweet to see Tim Burton's take on Superman.

Superman Lives

That's it for now, I'll update it if I find more stuff.

Enjoy!

Blog Spamming

I've never heard of blog spamming until a few days ago when I noticed that I have to do a word verification in order to publish a post on my blog. At first I thought that blogspot just added another security feature (similar to the word verification to post comments) but when I thought about it more it just didn't make sense to me. So I clicked the question mark by "word verification" to see what its all about and this is what I saw:

*****
Your blog requires word verification
Blogger's spam-prevention robots have detected that your blog has characteristics of a spam blog. (What's a spam blog?) Since you're an actual person reading this, your blog is probably not a spam blog. Automated spam detection is inherently fuzzy, and we sincerely apologize for this false positive.

Before we can turn off mandatory word verification on your posts we'll need to have a human review your blog and verify that it is not a spam blog. Please fill out the form below to get a review.

*****

So I guess I'm glad that this is a false positive. And all I do was have to do another word verification and now I just wait for someone to review my blog and take this silly word verification off.

I wonder what made my blog come up as a potential blog spam? I have no porn on here, no ads....

odd.

Can you hear me now?

oooh
Alex


ahh
Alex


ooooh
Alex


ahhhh
Alex


ooooooooh
Alex


aaaaahhhhhhh
Alex

Me FTW!

Once a month me and a few guys I know back from high school have a friendly Texas Hold'em tournament. I have come close a few times but last night I finally got the win! It wasn't a bad prize either since there were 5 of us and 2 people bought back in once. The cards were definitely in my favour for most of the night and it felt nice to actually make it to number 1 position finally. Usually we hold it on a weeknight but with special circumstances (Our friend Kevin R. being in town) we decided to have a bit of a bbq and get him in on the game, I hope he enjoyed losing money to us :D

The night is pretty fun since we get to see a few people we never see regularly and shoot the breeze with them. It's relaxing and we get to talk about current news and at times we relive the memories of years past and have a few chuckles. It's definitely good times. If you are LBHS 97 graduate and want in on this action just leave a comment.

So far this is the outcome of each of our mini-tournaments:

LBHS 97 T1 2006: 1st: Todd M. 2nd: Mike A.
LBHS 97 T2 2006: 1st: Andrew S. 2nd: Alex L.
LBHS 97 T3 2006: 1st: Kent W. 2nd: Andrew S.
LBHS 97 T4 2006: 1st: Ryan S. 2nd: Kent W.
LBHS 97 T5 2006: 1st: Alex L. 2nd: Kent W.

-Our buy-ins are $20/person and $20 for re-buy. We usually have 6 players.
-I'm thinking that LBHS 97 T12 will be made more significant with a higher buy in.


P.S. FTW = For the win :D