Lovely Sunday: White Rock

The Rain God has been very kind to me recently, He decided to give me a break from the rain and shower me with lots of sunny love instead. Thanks to his generosity, I had a short road trip with my friends last Sunday, to a place which took about 45 minutes of driving from Burnaby- White Rock.

White Rock is a small peaceful seaside community lying within the Metro Vancouver district. It is quite underpopulated with approximately 18,000 residents, but the low population density makes it relaxing and ideal for weekend getaway.

The first thing we saw upon reaching was the wide stretch of beach along the seaside. It definitely helps to boost up the 'vacation feel' instantly.

I will let my pictures do the rest of the talking. :) This beauty is just way beyond verbal description.

Basically, the sea side is the main attraction of this small town. The beach is wide and spacious, you don't feel pressured even when there are many people. To me, it's also a good picnic place or weekend leisure walk for family and couples. 

There is a rail road beside the beach, :) making it a unique place for photography. Shipping trains pass by it few times a day, carrying tonnes of goods and I just happened to catch one during my visit! *feeling lucky*

 I even caught sea gulls lining up for photos, perhaps they were just waiting to be in frame eh! *chuckles*

Opposite the waterfront is a row of restaurants and souvenir shops. We picked a local seafood favourite for our lunch. Seafood there was pretty cheap considering the portion, $7 for a Fish & Chips combo. I'm not a fan of Fish & Chips but the food taste and price well deserve a recommendation! Don't forget to check out Moby 的鸡鸡 (according to the funny Kareshi) next time you set foot on White Rock.

Friday date: Granville Island

Hello folks!

Last Friday was another Friday date for baby and I. With the presence of warmer weather in Vancouver, we could stay outdoor longer and hop around more places leisurely. Without hesitation, I picked Granville Island for our afternoon walk.

Compared to other islands, Granville Island is relatively smaller piece of land sitting in the heart of Downtown. Because of its convenient assess from Downtown, there's always a huge crowd in the island during weekends and technically, any sunny weather. Vancouverites know exactly where to head to whenever they see the sun!

I don't like huge crowd and long line ups, so going there on a weekday sounds like a perfect plan for me. It allows me to capture the peaceful side of Granville Island.

One thing that keeps me visiting Granville Island repeatedly has to be the crafty boutique in there!

You get to find many small and cute things here, from ancient seal stamps, postcards to vintage hats! Seriously, I can wander around these small shops for the whole afternoon just because of the fun things I can find here. A lot of the things are also unique, most of the time Granville Island is the only place I can ever see them. That just makes window shopping a fun experience here.

Many shops also have contemporary settings, creating a comfortable shopping atmosphere for customers to wander around.

I skipped the beer tasting this time, tried it with my friends on my last visit here and it was quite a unique experience. There were 8 brewery selections and we picked 6 different brews altogether.  The brews came in 4oz glasses to leave some space in your stomach to try all 6 types.

Each of them had pretty distinct taste and flavour, from bitter to sweet.There was also a tasting map on the table which explained each type and their flavour to help us better understand the beer flavour profiles.

The tasters were quite cheap too, 3 cups of 4oz for $6! :) I would definitely recommend this to anyone who's visiting there!

:) That was another lovely Friday, how I wish every Friday stays awesome like this!

Good Friday

The weather was so sunny on Friday, we started off our Friday date at Waterfront. Waterfront is one of my favourite places in Vancouver, it looks more westernized and commercialized. Don't get me wrong, I love Asian places too, but once in a while I'd love to be immersed in a completely different atmosphere just to give myself a feeling that I'm in a foreign western land.

Well, I still consider myself as a tourist here, so I continue to tour around the city and country to discover places where locals may have gotten bored of visiting, or not thought of visiting at all. It is so true that people who were born in a particular city will be less likely to visit tourist spots of their own place, simple because they are not tourists.  They are so familar with the place to an extent that hot tourists spots are not so much of a thing to them.

:) Hehe so let me take up this job on behalf of you guys!

Despite the sun, the weather was a little chilly. But everyone got excited and started dressing up in summer clothes already!

We moved on to Davie street for some Sakura pictures. :) I'm very grateful for baby's patience although I know he's not a fan of photography, haha more of a fan of the person beside him *blushing*. He just walks me to places I want to go.

Seeing rows and rows of cherry trees lift up my weekend mood. They look so surreal!!

Ending this post with a photo of us ( I mean...our shoes) stopping by at the Vancouver sign at Canada Place. :) This city means a lot to us, isn't it? We met here, fell in love here, and continue to hold hands still after almost 17 months.

Lovely friday

Thanks to the sunny weather this month, I have more opportunity to capture and embrace the Sakura beauties perfectly. It's such a happy and romantic moment to watch sakura petals dancing off the trees gracefully.

What's more lovely is, Kareshi finally scooped out some time in the day for Friday date, something we have not been able to do for the past month. I love Friday date, it's the time where there's less crowd everywhere, from parks,grocery stores to public transit (less pressure and frustration for Kareshi in finding a parking spot too!) That really helps in lifting our weekend mood as we can take things slowly and leisurely.

 Past Friday was a busy busy bee day for us.To start of the day, both of us went to a medical lab to take blood test because we promised our friend to participate in a diabetes research study. We had to fast for 8 hours before the blood test, our scheduled appointment was 12pm and we had to wait for another 2 hours for the second blood test. The entire process totaled up to almost 14 hours, it was close to 2:30pm by the time we stepped out of the lab.That was a.......HUNGARY experience, and money granted for this study was definitely hard earned. We feasted on Korean BBQ right after the blood test as a reward to our effort. ♨♨♨♨

After the late lunch, Kareshi acoompanied me to collect my translated birth cert for my PR application. Good thing we took the bus to the translation place because we saw beautiful cherry trees along the way.  Ooooo and the sakura is totally of a different variety from what I saw on the Sakura festival. We spent some time walking around the neighbourhood for more pictures. Of course I would not seize the opportunity, it's very likely that by the next time of our afternoon date, all the flowers would have been disappeared already! Ahn-dweh ahn dweh!!!!

Next, we moved on to the Burnaby Public Library for more Sakura pictures, with Kareshi's shoes came into the scene this time  (Ooops, actually I asked him to). Lasly, I went to buy groceries in a happy and cheerful mood for the whole day. 啦啦啦～只差没唱出来而已

I always enjoy our afternoon date, it's not fancy but romantic in a simple way. Kareshi often works during the entire weekend, that makes me treasure our afternoon date a lot and try to enjoy it to the fullest.

❤ ❤ ❤ Mich you mich you ❤ ❤ ❤ 

Vancouver Cherry Blossom Festival 2014

I did not know about the annual VCBF sakura festival until my friend told me about it this year and invited us to go together. It is a Japanese festival combining the beautiful floral scenery with Japanese food and culture, :) definitely sounds like my thing eh.

That's just the perfect time and setting to shoot some floral pictures as well!

The festival was held on the first weekend of April this year at Van Dusen Botanical Garden. We bought tickets online at a discounted price of $10.50, regular ticket costs $12. Downside about the online purchase is, tickets are strictly non-refundable, so you'll save at the expense of risking for a bad weather. 

Lol, challenge accepted! 

Thank God our group pray was heard and granted. The pouring rain on Saturday almost made me give up on praying but tada, sun just came out of nowhere on Sunday and it was the warmest day ever! Thank you, thank you, thank you! 

I will let my pictures do the rest of the talking since photography walk was the whole purpose of my trip.

Haiku section

One of our goals (I shall say, my friend's main goal) was food hunting. We immediately rushed to the food stalls after entering the garden just to avoid the huge crowd since it was almost lunch time when we arrived.

Hehe, the 4 of us lined up at different food stalls just to save time.

Otonomiyaki

 Takoyaki

 Osaka ball: Slightly smaller than the takoyaki but the coating was crunchier. It was filled with prawns and some carrots with teriyaki sauce (3 choices available) as topping. I like this much better than the takoyaki, it was bite sized and so rich in seafood flavour!

 Zakkushi: I was told that the meat sticks were cheaper in this festival. 3 for $5 as compared to the average $2 per stick in the restaurant, what's your say? I personally dined out in the restaurant before so I knew it was not a cheap eat and the portion was relatively small. Food wise, the taste was great but not impressive enough for me to splurge on another meal again. Good Izakaya place but definitely not the place to fill your hungry stomach.

The surprise eat of the day came down to this sushi mochi. I thought it was Salmon nigiri at first glance but my friend revealed that it was mochi made in the shape of sushi! Even the 'wasabi' was specially made of green bean paste. That was just... impressive work! Or food art I shall say.

This festival also acts like a mini cosplay event as it gathers some anime lovers to dress up in their favourite anime costumes. They were so professionally dressed up from head to toes and photogenic!

Despite I feel cold for them~~~

 Busy capturing sakura pictures

We met a new girl friend who taught us professional posing for pictures. Hence the successful heart shape. You know that.... I can't do it alone without our friend's professional guidance, seriously!

I also saw this funny Totoro who looks very reluctant most of the time. I know... it was not his fault but just the way the costume was made. But seeing his slanting mouth really cracked me up, wondering if it was Edison Chen hiding in the costume.

What's more really funny.. this Totoro wears slippers!

How often can I catch a moment like this eh? You really made my day, Totoro!

I had a good day exploring this festival, thanks to the good buddies and sunny weather. It is an annual event so I hope I can be there again next year. :) And pray for another sunny weather, of course.

This time of the year again!

Cherry blossom is one of my favourite seasons of all year. I love how the flowers colour up the streets and make them look like one of those surreal and romantic scenes in Japanese animes. I always think that I'm not so fond of things but colours really capture my attention instead.

:) And this also reminds me that it's time to hit the parks for a slow walk. More photos coming up soon!