(Day 1) First Class

My fifth trip to Japan was a reward – a reward for finally finishing school, which has been a goal seven-and-a-half years in the making. Two weeks after my last exam, I was at YVR, anxiously anticipating the adventures that were on the cusp of occurrence. That, and I missed my little sister who I left in Japan in September. I’m coming home baby!







And at YVR is where the adventure began. Waiting for the plane all patiently and whatever, the boarding time came…and went. We soon got the announcement that the plane currently stationed at the gate had some mechanical issue and they needed to bring a different plane in. Great. Cue me signing onto Facebook and ranting and raving about how awful Air Canada is and how they are always delayed, etc. (I’m sorry Air Canada – I did issue a retraction later…)



About half an hour later, we switched gates and shortly thereafter, boarding commenced. When it came my turn in the queue, the lady scanned my boarding pass and…DENIED. She tried again. DENIED. She pointed me over to join the crowd at the desk. I start to sweat. I proceed to have awful visions of the plane being overbooked and I won’t make it to Japan. But I have concert tickets for tomorrow!! I sweat some more. The ladies at the desk are chatting on the phones regarding some issue or another and the other passengers around the desk look nervous. Eventually they start working with the passengers and they call my name over the intercom. I nearly shout that I’m here and she looks at me and says that my boarding pass isn’t valid (!!!!! dead) but then hands me a piece of paper and says I’ve been moved to Executive First Class. Did I mention this is a 10.5 hour journey over the Pacific? First Class. I grab it and nearly sprint over to the ticket lady who this time, successfully scans me in. I scurry onto the plane and am immediately offered orange juice or champagne. I kind of sob a little to myself.

The next little bit reads like a dab of airplane luxury – I get a menu to peruse for dinner. I get Sennheiser earphones for my listening pleasure. I get a little refreshment kit with brand name lip balm, hand lotion, face wipes, socks, eye mask, etc. Free bottled water. A tablecloth at dinner time. Wine from Italy. Three-course dinner. A BED.




This is me, chillaxing in my pod.




Watching ‘Salt’ with my pre-dinner champagne and salted nuts.


I thought this was my dinner. Silly me – I’m so uncultured. This was only the first course.


It comes on a real ceramic plate! I love First Class.

After trying to sleep and watching ‘The Other Guys’, we neared closer to Tokyo.



Then breakfast (!?!) arrived. Best breakfast of life.



When it came time to de-plane, I was almost sad to say goodbye to my little pod. I felt refreshed and like I never wanted to see an economy seat again for as long as I lived.



So, I arrived! Yes, this blog IS about Japan, so now that we’ve arrived, let’s get to it. I went through the usual paces of immigration, baggage, and the purchase of my train ticket and I found myself, once again, boarding my beloved Narita Express.



Ah, but this ride was not without its own drama. It never fails – as soon as I think I’m all pro at something (like boarding a train or something…), I do something really stupid that shows I’m so NOT a pro. Lame. This time it was me locking my suitcase in the baggage rack without setting a code. So…I couldn’t get it out. HAH! I laugh now, but I was crazy frantic at the time. After reefing on the cord attached securely to my bags for about 15 seconds and taking note of the sign that said if you lock your bags and can’t get them out you have to wait until the terminal station (which was about an hour past MY stop), I ran to the door and summoned a poor little old man over who had just finished cleaning the train. I stammered through some Japanese about how I locked my bags and was acting the whole thing out with wild arm movements and such and then he told me to wait while he scurried over to the conductor man in the last car. He then came over and I continued my pantomime of the whole incident and I was sweating up a storm and whatever. He told me to sit my ass down (in the most polite manner) and him and the little jii-chan left. What does this mean? The train started moving. No one came over. The train arrived at the next airport stop and bunch of people got on and they all walked past and stared at my sweaty, crumpled self, eyes darting about for a conductor man coming to my aid. Once we got moving again, he came and set my bags free. FREEDOM! Blissful freedom. I “sumimasen/arigatou gozaimasu” ‘ed him into oblivion. I stashed my newly free bags behind my seat and tried to focus on the moments slipping by on my last trip (for a while) into Tokyo.





I did the transferring trains thing and finally found myself walking up the road to our little inn where Janelle would be waiting in the lobby. YAYAYAYAY! Sisters alive!

Dropping my bags in our miniscule room, we headed out for sustenance. Oh delicious CoCo Ichi. Never change.




!!!

Did you notice my mention of a concert tomorrow back when I was raving about my delayed flight? Well, Janelle received my ticket in the mail and handed it over to me. Damn this thing was pricey, but it’s my birthday tomorrow so…yeah. The seller even sent along a picture of the group.


Oh Johnnys. I’m excited.

Our bellies full of curry, we headed over to our old haunt, the Maruetsu Petit in Akasaka – a little grocery store which a cute little jii-chan (grandpa) who is the security guard (hee hee) and Janelle has some guy she likes who she never talks to. (Wow – that was an awful sentence.) This being Christmastime, there were gorgeous illuminations everywhere to see on the walk over.









Tomorrow’s my b-day…and the start of a long journey into exploring nightlife as I haven’t in almost 10 years. 28? It’s going to seem more like 18… ha ha. Also, I get to attend my ridiculously expensive concert and start grazing my way through Tokyo. It’s going to be epic! Come along!

*** Due to the…level of detail and somewhat personal nature of my nightclub experiences, I won’t be posting the remaining blogs of this trip on Facebook. If you’d like to keep updated, you are going to have check this blog only. Cool? Cheers.

Read more...

Killing is from Satin

So, like I said, I was meeting up with Jen in a hour in the igloo at Pacific Centre and so I headed over that way to peruse some wares prior to that…





We headed to Benkei for some delicious ramen (gochisosama) and then headed down to the water to be true Canadians…and scope out the craft fair happening next door.




Even if that flame has been distinguished, mine still burns bright. Sniff.

Frankly, this is the closest I’ve ever gotten to the cauldron – I had an umbrella and I wanted to poke it.



Yeah, turns out the base of the cauldron is guarded by lasers! How very James Bond-esque of them. My arm + umbrella was just a wee bit short to poke it. Another day then.


There’s also this Lego whale. The Lego whale also looks cool through Salvador Dali’s eyes app.



So after freezing our buns wandering around the waterfront, we headed indoors to Mink – a chocolate café.



Jen was so kind and offered me a bevvy of my choosing and I chose the pre-discussed Drinking Chocolate. The barista handed me a cup of water with it. What was I in for?



HOLY SMOKES. It was like drinking a tasty pot of fondue. Of the 10 generous ounces they gave me, I had maybe four. And even four made me feel as though I had just enjoyed 20 chocolate bars.



Jen and I did some shopping and wandering and eventually I headed off to meet up with B-Mal for another night of rowdiness. I headed over to his luxe digs, the Fairmont Waterfront, and was pleased to discover his room was on the 23rd floor – the top! Now I can see how the other half live.


Yeah, that about sums it up. $6.50 for a bottle of Evian.

After several libations at that elevation with B-Mal and his pal Josh and I was once again happy. Two nights in a row – I think I may need to join a support group soon. We headed off into Gastown for dinner.

We ended up at this place called Revel Room and they have free cookies at last call! Well, we didn’t stay until then, but there was a lot of talk of it.







After noshing, drinking and chit-chatting, I headed back to pick up my car and crap from the Listel and head on to my destination for this night – Jen’s house! Her and Chris are so kind.

Oh yeah ps – it was snowing kittens and cats this night and we woke up to inches of snow. Oh Vancouver. Jen had to work so Chris and I had brekkie and headed back downtown as I was going to half-heartedly attempt to grab a piece of the sacred Lanvin for H&M collection.



Ah, silly me. Unlike my success at the H&M Comme des Garçons collaboration in 2008, I wound up empty-handed. Of course, for that one I did actually arrive early and wait in line and this time I was four hours late. OH WELL. I did have my hands on the last coat, but it was a miserable size 4 and ridiculously shoddy quality for $350. Moving along…

I met up with B-Mal again and we began to wander the streets like nomads. We stopped for lunch at Steamrollers (giant-ass burritos) and then watched some flying cats.


They look so evil.





We headed to a pub on Granville where we met up with Josh once again and had our glorious libations ruined by a screaming protest which marched up across the street. WAHHHH it sucked. They were protesting the killing of Christians in Egypt (I think) which is a fair cause – but quit screaming the same five words over and over again. Ugh. And I’m probably a horrible person for saying this, but is this sign not hilarious?


Love is from God
Killing is from Satin

I LOLed.

Then we headed on over to Granville Island for a last stop on this tour of Vancouver.




This is a Delica. Amazing ride.








Yusssss – HOLY CRAP indeed. I just kept as the lady if this was “for real”. She said it was and they were all sold out.

So that was that. I bade farewell to B-Mal and wished him well on his forward journey into Singapore. Oh didn’t I mention that? Yes, that’s where he’s moving too. So, yeah. Cool, hey?

Okay, no more blogs will be forthcoming for the next few weeks. I’m off to Japan (YES AGAIN) next week so I need to do something worth blogging about. See you later.

Read more...

Hunters & Gatherers

Life was exceedingly dull throughout October and most of November (of course, that’s in comparison to my September and, well, everyone else’s lives.) I divided my time between three different kinds of work: working out, homework, and work-work at my two jobs. My life suuuucks. Feel sorry for me! Okay, whatever – you likely don’t/won’t. Though I seriously worked for 20-day stretches at a time, I suppose I did that to myself. ANYWAY – onwards and upwards.

In November every year, our department does a professional development getaway into Vancouver and it’s pretty much THE event of the year. You can read about our past adventures here, here, here, and here. I’m sure you didn’t click on any of those so…yeah, I did that coding for nothing. This year, we headed to the same hotel as last year, The Listel on Robson Street. I did manage to score a slightly better room though…







Too bad I’m only going to spend about one hour of non-sleeping time in here. Boo. As soon as we checked in, it was time to head down for lunch and our first (and only) session of the day.


Brenda (second from right) is EATING! Grrraaaaggghh!


Cold lady food with a swimming pool of dreshingu.


Lady-sized dessert. Do you see a theme emerging?

Our first session involved organizing our online document filing systemmmzzzzzzzzzzz. Actually, it’s not so bad since I’m kind of nerdy and like organizing.



The second part of the session involved a scavenger hunt - I’D BETTER WIN! I hate putting effort into things that don’t work out in my best interest. Well, on scavenger hunts anyway. I was paired with my co-workers Blanca and Mark and under my superb leadership, we stormed the downtown core. I was like a woman possessed with acquiring items like a box of crayons from Red Robin, a catalogue from Pandora jewellery, and a business card from the coffee shop inside the HSBC building. And as for our efforts…well…what do you think happened? We won, of course.

Then came time to shop! Brenda and I headed out before dinner to spend the hard-earned money we made from working at this difficult job. And you would be proud – all I ended up buying was mascara! Ok fine, it was Chanel mascara, but let’s celebrate the victories people. Dinner was at the Fairmont at my favourite haunt, Griffins.





Why is it my favourite? Why, their all-you-can-eat dessert buffet with every meal, of course!



Our table was taking ages to be ready, so they offered us free wine…and kept it flowing. Before I knew it, I had drank four glasses…




Of course, I sat at the head of the table because…then I can shout down the length of the table. But I wouldn’t do that because that’s rude.




Blanca telling one of her killer stories. One year, she told us one about a male stripper who gave someone scabies.





The party began to break up shortly after 9 and I didn’t mind because the party for me would continue, just down the street. I headed over to the Cactus Club Café to meet up with my old pally B-Mal and two companions, all of whom had little porno ‘staches for Movember. We moved the party from there a little further down the street to the Elephant and Castle (at this rate, we will be in the water shortly.) I had some cocktail drink (the count was now up to five) and the dudes had this ridiculously massive bread pudding that kind of made me want to chuck. What? I’m still full from all-you-can-eat-dessert buffet, mmkay? After that party wound down (we all gotta work in the AM), we parted ways and I made my way down the deserted Robson street in the rain alone. Cue violin.



That night was a bit of a struggle since I think the alcohol was speaking to me in a language I don’t want to understand. No no, I didn’t throw up or anything (I’m sure your are like, THANKS! right about now) but like that Christmas so many years ago, I got this weird sleep nausea. No more drinking for me!

The morning’s session involved more discussion of filing and by lunch we had called it a day. BRING ON THE WEEKEND! But I’m going to spend it here…and I’m meeting up with Djds in an hour…(to be continued…oooo)

Read more...