This Way To The Pool

In December each year, I have a birthday. Crazy, I know. Since it had been a while since my last one, Janelle and I decided to celebrate with a weekend out in the city, booking two nights at the deliciously-retro hotel, The Burrard. Now, my birthday didn’t fall on any of the actual days in the city, but we enjoyed ourselves like it did. It all began on a rainy Friday night.















At the time, we didn’t realize it would be a problem, but our hotel was situated across the street from a hospital…a pretty hospital all covered in Christmas lights!



We decided to take a hike and check out the south side of downtown Vancouver. Have I mentioned how much I love this city?











After a quick Skytrain trip into Richmond to pick up a pair of shoes I ordered from Browns (gotta love the Skytrain with all their massive Canuck posters everywhere), we ended up back in Yaletown for dinner.






The burritos were amazing.

We then hiked our way back up to Robson Street in search of karaoke. Finding none in a respectable price range, we headed to Moxies for a drink. After sampling what tasted like turpentine (thanks for the recommendation, waitress), then its replacement (yeah tropical paradise!), we headed back to the hotel to crash.



After only several ambulance siren awakenings, Saturday morning arrived – and so did our quest for food.




What a cutie.

After sushi, shopping, and Starbucks, we had to head back to the hotel so I could watch the hockey. Boo Hockey Night in Canada. Yay Canucks!






My big purchase of the day. Immediately after this picture was taken, I spilled red wine on it. I suck.

Since the Canucks were playing the Leafs, we, of course, went off to dinner the victors (5-3, suck it Toronto!) Dinner was at Society in Yaletown (notice a theme emerging?) courtesy of our sweet package deal booked with the hotel. Pink chandeliers? Yes please.





After dinner we headed back to the hotel before our final destination of the night, the Roxy. That was…well, Janelle will never set foot in the Roxy again. I probably won’t either. Imagine a warehouse-sized room, badly furnished, with a cover band playing music you’d never want to dance to. And then sprinkle in a large contingent of douche-bag types and some other “rock”-types with beards. Hah! I don’t think I’ve ever wrote such an accurate description. But there you have it. Best conversation of the night:
Janelle: “We are sisters.”
Guy: “But not real sisters, right? Like, friends-who-are-sisters?”
Janelle: “No, like sisters-with-the-same-parents sisters.”

Sunday morning was check-out, and after packing up, we headed to, where else? Yaletown.




Bye, cute little courtyard!

We did a bit of picking through the shops and got our drank on thanks to some little shop handing out champagne. What a great idea!


For Sis.

Upon the recommendation of the cashier at BeautyMark, we ate lunch at PHAT – Home of the Canucks. This is turning into a Canuck-filled weekend. And I wouldn’t have it any other way.







Stuffed full of hot dog and garlic fries, the next logical step was to go for coffee. What?



After a touch more shopping (what? We are pros.), we decided to call it a weekend and say goodbye to Vancouver. Until tomorrow. My actual birthday. I’m making my NHL debut, and it couldn’t come at a better time.

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Sleepover in Hipstamatic

Thanks to Groupon/Jaunt/LivingSocial/etc, I think I have a new mechanism to meet my goal of staying at every hotel in downtown Vancouver (west side only, plz.) Jean and I decided to splurge for our annual (?) weekend excursion into the city for some girl time, gabbing about thighs and whatnot. Our trips are always full of ambition and then we end up lazing about. But we are old ladies. It’s what we do best.

Our selected retreat this time around was Le Soleil where we stayed in a suite with a sitting room(!) and a view of the brown building across the street. Sexy.




The best part was the Keurig in the room, which we didn’t use for fear of the price of the included k-cups.

We met up with Jean’s friend Jessica for dinner at decidedly the coolest-named restaurant in Vancouver, Transylvania Flavour.



I thought the restaurant would be cave-like with a vampire theme, but it just looked like a strip-mall location turned wannabe European. My bad. Also, the owner lady was inexplicably intimidating and the food was only OK. Next!

We headed back to the hotel and went for dessert to the Copper Chimney. We got a $20 food card when we checked in so we obviously HAD to use it. I had a this chocolate thing which tasted exactly like every other chocolate thing that restaurants buy from WOW Desserts and have shipped in. Next!



We headed two blocks over to the Cactus Club on Burrard and got our sociables on.



Ugh, I hate the waiters at these kind of places. He comes by, splays himself across our table and proceeds to ask us if we are having a “girls night out” and what our plans are for after. You still aren’t getting a bigger tip. He then comes by later to ask if we want “shots” and says he’ll grab something really special and delicious just for us. It proceeds to cost me $7.00. UGHHHHHH loser.

After cleaning up my $35 tab, we head back to the hotel into our twin beds! Twinsies!





The next morning Jean and I checked out and headed into Gastown for some sustenance.







We ended up at the Red Frog which was amazingly quiet for a Sunday lunch. We had a nice sit.





After exploring some of the wonderful shops Gastown has to offer, we headed out of the city and back into the valley….these nights away are getting decidedly tamer.

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Seeing Only Numbers

So months and months after I actually graduated from my various concurrent scholastic endeavours, I convocated. That’s not a word, I realize, but it’s what I did. My parents came out and the family collective headed into downtown Vancouver to the swanky convention centre where I joined the scads of graduates (99 percent Asian, of course) and said my final goodbyes to years and years of study. The day was a blur, but I Hipstamatic-d it. That is also not a word.

I had Janelle work as my camerawoman since I wasn’t supposed to carry anything on stage with me…plus that would look stupid if I posed for a self-shot while walking across the stage.





There was a big paparazzi scrum when walking in…imagine millions of Chinese with massive Nikons flashing away.







Mee!





Proud to be! Now to earn the big bucks…

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