Basho cafe: A gem in town

Thanks to my good friend Xin, I found a new gem in town. :) What's even better is that it's located pretty close to my work place!

Basho is a lovely cafe run by a Japanese family. It's a small shop sitting on East Hasting st, with around 4 table seats and 2 more window seats in total.

 The menu is very simple, which I think is good considering that it's a small cafe. Sometimes less means more ( in terms of food quality).

The cafe is a mixture of contemporary and retro setting. It gives me a homely feel, with a lot of D.I.Y decorations in place, and of course, a friendly obasan serving me in front of the counter. All these contribute to a cozy place to chill on a weekend.

The crowd was manageable when we went there. Although there were grab-and-go customers hassling in and out every couple of minutes, it did not create an intense feeling to the customers sitting in the cafe.

 The pastry is pretty unique too! It infuses the Japanese flavours into Western pastry.  We tried the Nut mochi, Kabocha muffin, Chocolate matcha cookie, Matcha white chocolate brownie, and Sesame brownie. Prices are quite reasonable, ranging from $0.5-2.00 per piece.

I guess the Japanese style pastry really suit my palate. Similar to Japanese pastry, they have lighter texture and sweetness. Except for the nut mochi, the others are not too sweet, just nice for my liking. Sizes are just nice for the 2 of us, not too big and we managed to try on various types.


I personally like the Matcha brownie a lot because the texture is light but every bite of it feels like I'm immersing myself in a Matcha sea.

We ordered the Matcha latte and it came in a huge cup. The latte is lightly scented with Matcha, it has more milky taste instead.

I really like this cafe a lot because it's not too crowded, providing the right atmosphere for chatting with a friend I've not seen in a while. The eats taste really good and reasonably priced, I would love to go back next time!

Short business hours would be the only disappointing part of this lovely cafe, as it runs from 9-4pm from Sat-Sun and 9-5pm from Wednesday and Thursday (Yes it's closed on Mon and Tues). Hopefully they would extend the hours in future so that I could grab some cookies home after work!

* Special thanks to Xin for most of the great pictures :) *

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!

Hawaii trip: Day 2

We spent our afternoon out in the sea on Day 2. I do not know how to swim so I thought snorkelling would be a good way for us to explore the undersea and get close to the wild animals. Prior to the trip, I started looking for Groupons for outdoor deals in Honolulu. :) My effort was well paid off, I managed to grab a snorkelling deal for two at $59.

We joined the Hawaiian Diving Adventures for afternoon snorkelling, the weather was simply perfect for snorkelling! Sea water was warm enough to make us feel like the sun was kissing our skin gently. We met the 2 owners at the jetty at 2:45pm and they brought us out to the sea. On the way to the destination, they  educated us on the proper ways to put on the gadgets and briefed us on some safety precautions.

Glad I made the choice to snorkel. We actually saw a big sea turtle while snorkelling!

 Photos credit: Hawaii Diving Adventures

Despite the awesome trip and blessed weather, baby caught cold and felt dizzy after snorkelling. We decided to get on the boat early for some rest. I also spent some time photographing the sea landscape. The view at the sea and at the beach were completely different, having close encounter with the nature felt surreal yet comforting.

And close view to hot guys at the sea, why not?

The trip ended at 5pm and I was more than happy for my choice. Glad that we forked out significant amount of time for the best thing in Honolulu- sea! 

The jetty is quite close to Kua 'Aina, a famous local burger shop which is on my to-eat list. We took out the burgers and had our dinner in the hotel.

Burger was not disappointing but not very impressing either. It wasn't flavourful enough and didn't have the juicy texture like I expected it to be.

 I was more fond of the shoe string fries, it was so crunchy!

Walking around the flea market at Honolulu stadium was another highlight of the day. It is a swap meet and market place, whereby swap meet is held on every Wednesday while flea market is held on the weekends.

The stalls were lined up in circle around the stadium, so basically you're done after going for a full round. This was a spontaneous plan which popped out just the night before. I was browsing through trip advisor for some travel advices and saw many people recommended this place for souvenirs and unique local wares.

I've always enjoyed shopping in flea market, so I thoroughly enjoyed my time there scrutinizing all the little things around! Some of the stuffs were repetitive, especially souvenir items, but I also managed to find some good deals exclusively. :) This is absolutely a place for souvenirs, with more selections and cheaper prices.

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!