Outing @ UBC and Downtown Vancouver

On Monday, I took some pictures at UBC seeing as how all the roses have finally bloomed at the Rose Garden.

Don't these flowers (?) remind you of the Truffula trees in Dr. Seuss' The Lorax? They look like this:

(Image taken from here)

After a short meeting with a professor, my friend L and I went downtown to pick up the light stick from Epik High concert (they had some issues with customs so weren't able to get it to us on the day of the concert) and do some shopping.

But, first, we had a quick lunch!

Lunch was at a Korean supermarket called H-Mart. I had no idea they had a mini food court right upstairs! I had japchae, which is Korean vermicelli and a bento box. The bento box contained kimbap (Korean sushi), tteokbokki (Korean rice cake), and mandu (Korean dumplings).

After that, we walked off our lunch and I finally bought runners! Now I'm all ready to go for work! They're from Adidas and not only do they look pretty, but are comfy as well! It's been so long since I've wore runners that I've forgotten how comfortable they make your feet feel - totally different from flats. Now I ask myself why haven't I done this earlier? Oh right - because the runners I've come across are either crazy, neon colours or the front looks way too wide (*cough* Nike *cough*).

They're orange (almost like a pastel orange, between coral and orange maybe?) in colour and the stripes are a nice, light grey colour.

And that was my outing to downtown Vancouver, it's been a while.

Goodbye's and Hello's

The end of my third year at university and final goodbyes at my place of residence for the past two years. On Wednesday, I turned in my keys and visited B's place one last time before he moved out the next day. The view from his residence is a lot nicer than my teal coloured ceiling basement suite. I'll let the pictures do the talking.

From his place, you can see the waters at UBC's infamous (nude) beach: Wreck Beach. The view is phenomenal - especially during sunset. When you exit his place (but still on the same floor), just around the corner there's a window where you can see the path leading up to Main Mall. There's construction going on to build another residence building because UBC just loves old, abandoned parking lots and grassy green fields - perfect spot for construction, which UBC is becoming infamous for.

After that, we left to watch The Age of Adaline. It was a nice, relaxing movie. Relaxing not in the way that it's mundane, but just very different from the action packed movies coming out these days (like The Avengers: Age of Ultron, which I can't wait to watch!). The "science" parts (if you can even call it that) of the movie was a bit... interesting. And fictional-sounding. Very much so. So much so that it was a bit laughable. I don't know science well, and although I'm sure miracles do exist somewhere in another galaxy, the science-y parts were just... I can only offer a dry laughter: ha ha ha. But, the movie was quite nice - interesting story line, and like a few others have pointed out, similar to The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (online version).

We left for dinner shortly after and decided to eat at a place we haven't gone to in a very long time - Kawawa Japanese Restaurant. I had my "coming of age" (aka. 19) birthday here back in my first year of university. Good times.

We ordered from the regular menu, and I had Cuttle Fish & Scallop Course and Ika Sugata Yaki (aka. grilled squid) while B had Box B, which included ebi & vegetable tempura, beef teriyaki, gyoza, and chicken karaage, and an agedashi tofu side dish.

Maybe it's because it was a while ago, or I just didn't ordered the "right" thing, but the portions this time were pretty big. It was difficult trying to finish up everything and, in the end, we had some food leftover.

But, of course, there's always room for dessert! I had the Fresh Fruits Parfait, which came without the spoon. It took a few minutes for me to find somebody to ask for a spoon.... Other than that, the service was pretty attentive, especially towards our drinks; They would keep refilling it even before it reached the 1/3 mark.

That day, I also said my final goodbyes to my place of residence for the past two years and finally moved back to my parents' place for the summer. Although I haven't completed unpacked yet (too... much... stuff...), I took some pictures once I got home since the sun was basically welcoming me back that day with its glorious rays. I was able to whip out the lenses that B got me for my birthday and put them to good use, capturing as much as I can with the fisheye lens and trying out the macro lens as well.

Even though it's good to be back, it's a lot harder to eat whatever I want, whenever I want. When I got back, the first thing both my parents exclaimed was "OMG, YOU GAINED SO MUCH WEIGHT!" Thanks mom and dad. I'm glad to see you again as well. Thanks for welcoming me back - I can just feel the love oozing out of your words.

I guess now's a good time as any to (finally) start - or should I say, restart my diet. I bet I'll start seeing results in less than two weeks considering the restricted diet my mom's putting me on by cooking less food. Life is tough, but then beauty is pain. I should probably start exercising... maybe then I'll be able to eat more food. Isn't there a saying that the sole purpose of exercising for some people is so that they'll be able to eat more? The lengths that people go to eat whatever they want just shows how powerful food is. And how great some people's determination are. Anyways, I'm just rambling on now. I will end this post with a picture of my forever big baby Labrador, Winston:

Isn't he just the most adorable dog ever? Still behaves like a puppy and - like his owner - knows his angles for taking the perfect picture: never a full on face-on picture, but always either a side or tilted profile of his handsome face. He knows how to work the camera.

Weekend Wonders | 002

The weather surprised me this week. Although there was forecast for rain, the sun held up and stayed (albeit some drizzle). Here are some pictures I took of the remaining pink on the trees before the weekend.

There was also an Art Pop Up event downtown so my roommate J and I left early afternoon to check it out.

One of the artist there told me that the pieces on the left are from the most prominent artist out of all of those at the location today, and that's why the pieces are priced much higher than the others. And by higher, I mean at least double. And by others, I mean around $600.

The artists who painted the ones on the right works in the movie industry. From what the artist who showed me around, he said that she's in charge of computer graphics and animation - like putting robots into cityscapes. 

The ones on the left are by an up-and-coming artist. I would describe them as light, fun pieces, whereas the one on the right is by an artist who experiences with colour-blocking and free lines. These minimalist lines show the beauty of a woman's body. Unfortunately, I didn't take a picture of the other works which you can clearly see the outline of the body, but I thought this one was the "nicest" because I liked the colour combination.

These are pieces based on Vancouver. The painting on the left is done by the artist that was showing us around. It was done on Yugo paper, which is like a plastic canvas. It doesn't completely absorb the watercolour and that's why the colours can be so vibrant. He had layers upon layers of colour and it was just really fascinating to see it come together up close.

I couldn't resist taking pictures of these two ladies with the hair because patterns and lines are totally my thing.

If you look closely at the collage on the right, the body is of a woman's but her face is replaced by a baby's. I thought it was pretty funny.

The linoprints on the left are simply amazing. They are so detailed and you can just tell a whole lot of work was put into it. I actually got a chance to speak with the artist herself and she said that she likes the progress aspect of working with lino. That's admirable. I had worked with lino - but on a much smaller scale than her - and it was difficult enough for me to throw everything away at the end. It was bad.

After the art pop up exhibition, we did a little shopping for Mother's Day. We popped into Roots and I got my mom a change wallet.

I actually wanted to get her this, but seeing as how the last wallet didn't work out (she never used it), I decided to just get what she would actually use, seeing as how she uses a change wallet right now.

(Pictures taken from Roots website)

I also got her earphones with microphone so she can talk on the phone a lot easier. I'm also thinking of drawing her flowers with watercolour on a large piece of paper (just for watercolour, of course), and then framing it. She keeps talking about how I should draw her flowers on a much larger scale so she can hang it up at home, and this way I can skimp out on buying actual flowers because I actually have no idea where I can get them near my house once I move back home. Maybe I'll add some koi fish in there as well seeing as how she likes fish too.

We also went into Chapters to see if there was anything in there for Mother's Day. I went to the Art section because there's actually a lot of interesting reads. I took some pictures of the art books that caught my eye and that will inspire me later on when I'm having artist's block.

The author and artist of this series: Illustration School, is Sachiko Umoto and I love her simple and cute art style. The first one is her Illustration School: Let's Draw Magical Color and it has pages on what feelings different colours give and combinations of colours, plus a whole lot more. The second one is her Illustration School, Let's Draw! and it includes a book (or art manual) and a sketch pad. Everything is super cute and just like a storybook.

We also took a look around Lush, and the smell was just deafening - if that's even possible.

The bath bombs look like babies (to me) and an Adventure Time character (to J), but they are actually of a nun... it's called Mother Superior. Oops.

I also came across the perfect lightweight jacket for Spring/Summer at Ever New. It was expensive, but it feels really nice against the skin - breathable and light.

And of course, it's a bit unavoidable while walking around Downtown Vancouver that you don't see something weird or funny. Today, we saw two large owls walking around. To be specific, it was two people dressed up like owls and walking around the square. 

After we got back home, we relaxed for a bit before ordering pizza online. Technology is so amazing these days. We got some spicy wings and custom pizza from Domino's. I had the sausage and mushroom toppings while J got the salami and pineapple (we switched around from last time). The wings were spicy, but it was more of a sweet spicy, and the pizza was... pizza - how can someone not like pizza?

The next day, I went to a birthday dinner for friend C. We went to Kyo Korean BBQ & Sushi House and ordered some spicy pork for BBQ, scallop karaage, and chicken wings to share and then we each ordered our own things. I had the spicy tofu stew. It was hot and spicy, but had a sweet taste to it.

And, of course, can't forget about the birthday cake!

The cake was very, very chocolate-y. Inside and out it was all chocolate. Too much chocolate. But it made the night very memorable!

I've also moved back home, so I will be un-packing and reorganizing my room for the next few days.... It's gonna be fun.