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.

The Final Countdown

This week marks the last day of third year! My roommate and I played Monopoly on the second last day to unwind (we were already chilling by this point).

Obviously, with my string of bad luck at Monopoly, she won and I landed a lot on the squares with paying taxes and utilities (which my roommate always somehow manages to secure successfully at the beginning of the game).

Then on the last day of class, my friend C and I went out to celebrate with some shopping and food! I bought a new blouse from Noul (perfect for tomorrow's anniversary) and we ate a lot of food at Zabu Chicken. Unfortunately, they don't have their complete menu online except for their chicken menu.

 This is the beef stew with side dishes.

The mix between ramyun and tteokbokki (Korean rice cakes) with fish cakes as well.

We tried the Zabu soy original chicken, not expecting it to be so much!

I can't believe third year finished... just like that. I still remember when we finished second year and that felt like just yesterday! Time flies by so quickly these days! Just another two weeks then I'll be officially done - no more exams! And then summer school....

It's GO-TIME

Classes are officially over on Friday. I have two more classes, then exams will take over.

This past week has been really busy. Over the long weekend, my group and I managed to complete one whole paper (totaling fifteen pages in the end). I don't know how we did it - but we did (of course we still have to go back and edit a few parts, but that's besides the point). We started on another paper and I managed to get my sections done in one day. And before we started this crazy long weekend of finishing papers, I completed another one a couple days ahead of time. It has been a long week.

This week, I'm just finishing up assignments and presentations, getting everything done on time, and preparing for an interview tomorrow.

Here's some pictures I took throughout the week - it's not much, but at least it's memories.

It's getting harder to find pretty flowers like this on campus....

Went for a quick walk to clear our heads (#ootd).

They're surprisingly growing up pretty well.

Good ol' chicken noodle soup to soothe a headache (just kidding, it did nothing).

More soup from a can and this morning's breakfast of no-choice: cereal.

I've also started sketching and art-ing again. I'll try to get to a scanner and scan them all in soon.

Storm the Wall

This week and last, I participated in UBC's renowned Storm the Wall event. Like I said in my Week in Week in Review | 002 post, Storm the Wall is like a triathlon but with five events, consisting of swimming, sprinting, biking, running, and storming the wall. The infamous wall is 12 feet high (like the Berlin Wall) and our just for fun team challenged it this week and last in getting over it.

Our Power Ranger poses.

For those who have not yet participated in this event, but are contemplating on joining it for next year, let me tell you a big reason why not to join, and half a dozen on why you should.

Weekend Wonders | 001

This past weekend was both relaxing and fun. On Saturday, my roommate J and I ordered pizza for lunch as Dominoes was having a 50% off their pizza.

We got a half-and-half pizza and customized it to our taste: salami and pineapple (with no cheese) and sausage and mushroom (with cheese). They tasted alright but I wished the dough was a bit thinner... I prefer topping over bread.