Passport Office, Dim Sum & New Enrique!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!! I'M OFFICIALLY ONE YEAR OLDER!!

This morning I woke up extra early so I could get my passport application done and over with! I have been procrastinating for a while and I thought I better just do it since I'm taking the day off. Before heading over to the Richmond passport office, I should have taken down the address but didn't and assumed it was still in the same place. Guess what, ti wasn't!!! Apparently, the changed offices in July!! Damn, I was looking all around wondering what happened to the office!?!?!? Finally I went up to the building and noticed on the window (half covered by a huge billboard advertising new condos being built behind the building) a small map describing where and how to get to the new location!! Ugh!! It was about 5 or so blocks away!! I couldn't believe it!! Just before arriving to this office, I had gone to the RBC and Starbucks which is only half a block away from the new location!! Once I arrived at the NEW office, the doors had just opened and security was letting small groups of people into the building. Outside, I was in the line up for about 15 minutes and once I reached the office inside, I waited another 15 minutes (screening process) before given a number to submit and pay for my passport. There were at least 50 people waiting to get their passport processed. I couldn't believe how fast mine was!! As soon as I got my number, 3 minutes later my number was called! I am so happy that I decided to fill in the application online because I was def. finished way faster than everyone else. It seems that I was in another line up for processing my application. There were 3 sets of numbers being used for the processing counters. When my number was called, I headed up to the counter and the lady scanned my application (there is a bar code on the top of my application), stamped my photos, paid for my passport application and I was out of there in record time. I had completed the passport process in under an hour!! Wow I couldn't believe it, I was expecting to be in there much longer. From now on, I will always renew my passport online and will def. recommend that everyone if you can, apply for your passport online!! I left with a huge smile on my face and all those people still waiting had a puzzled look on their face when I walked out of there!

After the passport office, I drove over to my dad's place because I had some time before dim sum (still early) and I planned on driving my dad to the restaurant. My dad wasn't sure why we were going for dim sum and I knew he had forgotten it was my birthday. That's ok, my dad has a lot on his mind and since he is now retired, he never really knows what day it is! Within the hour, we decided to headed over to Shanghai Restaurant on Alexandra Road to get a table because if you order your dim sum before 11.00am, you get 25% off your bill. Since I was out of the passport office so quickly, we had decided to wait until 10.00am before waking up my brother for dim sum. After 4 phone calls, he got up and said he'd be out there door within half an hour! Dad and I headed over to the restaurant after the call so we could order dim sum while we were waiting for my brother, Rhoda and Kay to arrive. Rhoda, Kay and Rhoda's mom showed up a little after 11.00am and thank goodness they brought mom coz my dad ordered way too much food!! There were 15 dishes and 3 of them were Hai Gao! (Hai Gao = Shrimp Dumplings). Gosh I am so stuffed!! We chit chatted for a bit and caught up on life, my father is a very friendly and talkative person and after a couple of hours, we were finally ready to leave. Rhoda, mom and Kay left for Rhoda's place in Burnaby, while my brother took dad home and I headed back to Vancouver. Mom wanted me to call her after I was done because she was going to Best Buy to pick up her online order (DVDs) and since she was in my neighborhood, she thought I could come along. I saw my mom last night and she did not mention a birthday wish so basically everyone forgot except for Kay and Rhoda!

My Presents!! My brother gave me a really nice and expensive shampoo and conditioner by Kerastase. Which is perfect coz I am now going back to salon products. Daddy gave me the universal gift, CA$H MONIE$! Rhoda, my very bestest friend, gave me a very cute matching set of stretch sweatpants and jacket coz she thinks I need to dress down more often. She hates it when we hang out on the weekend and I'm in heels and all dressed up. My reason? Coz I haven't found any casual wear that fits nicely and looks good. But now I can't say that I don't have anything coz she picked out something really nice and it fits really well! She's awesome, the size is perfect! I think HonHon will be impressed and happy that now I will not make him look bad coz he's always dressed casually.

Photos on my Psycho Pat Flickr Account. Check'em out! Must get ready for dinner, I finally decided to have dinner at Aqua Riva with a small group of my close friends, can't wait! Very excited, this is going to be THE BEST BIRTHDAY EVER!!! :) (PS. I say THAT every year coz every year it most def. is the BEST B'DAY EVER!)

Oh yes, one more thing......

Enrique Iglesias's got a new music video, "Tired of Being Sorry" and it's one of my fave. songs off his album!

PINK - I WANT

OMG, how cute are these? It's too bad they are not available in Canada!!

MotoKrzr - Pink

Nokia 7373 - Pink

Blueberry Picking

click photo collage to enlarge

Today, I went blueberry picking with Rhoda and Nelson out in Langley at Krause Berry Farms. Kay was suppose to come with us coz she's heading over to Rhoda's for a week of bootcamp. Hehehe... yeah, it's bootcamp, Rhoda is gonna build some muscles on my scrawny girl ;) But Kay ended up going swimming at UBC with Olivia and Henry, two of her bestest friends. I figured since this was her last day of freedom, she might as well have some fun and spend a little more quality time with Olivia before she moves away to Ottawa the following week. After lunch, I headed over to Rhoda's place coz Nelson was driving us out there and there is no way we would manage to get there on our own coz I don't know anything outside of Vancouver-Burnaby! Yeah, it's pretty sad. Another sad point, I've lived here for over 30 years and have never been to Victoria (but I have heard I'm not missing much).

The drive out there wasn't too bad from Rhoda's place coz we took the freeway straight to the Port Mann bridge and through Surrey to Langley. Once we arrived, it was super busy, there are a lot of people out there picking berries. Raspberries and strawberries were at the end of the season but we managed to find a small bucket of very ripe raspberries. We picked blueberries for about an hour and half or two hours and gosh it's a lot of hard work. Also, the sunshine was out and it was super hot! It's tough work but somewhat relaxing and fun, next time though Kay is def. coming with us coz I could use an extra set of hands! Now that I know, I'm def. going to wear my bathing top and shorts for the next time! Blackberry season starts tomorrow but we are not coming back, maybe next weekend. I also forgot to bring a bottle of water and I was super dehydrated out there. Also, I am going to bring my music player too coz when you're berry picking, you are pretty much on your own!

Nelson was really cool in driving us out there and showing me what kinda berries I should be picking. Although, it was hard hard work, it was a great experience and I am forever hooked on picking my own berries! Love the fact that I got a huge container of berries for just $10.00!!! U pick price $1.50 pound! In the supermarkets, it's almost $3 or $4 for a small basket! I also bought some local grown vegetables at too good to be true prices! $1.10 for a very long cucumber and $1.50 for a basket of green beans! After putting the berries into the car, we headed back to the little stand and to pick up water and a treat. A very deserving treat I might add, it's too bad there were no shortcakes left (really looking forward to that!) so I had a piece of peach pie, mmmmm.... yummy! I am not normally a pie person but I loved it so much that I wanted to pick up a fresh pie but there were way too many choices and I couldn't decide which one I wanted!! It was also not a very good idea to have a whole pie in my apartment since Kay was gone for the week and I would end up eating the whole pie on my own for breakfast, lunch and dinner!!!

Loved it, going to do it again next weekend for the blackberries, I am a very berry person! :)

After berry picking, we headed back to Rhoda's to drop off her berries and to pick up my car. We decided to have dinner at Sha Lin Noodle House on Broadway. Before heading over there, I had to pick Kay up from home since she was going home with Rhoda and I was pretty sure she had not eaten dinner yet. Apparently she did, corn on the cob and chocolate! Dinner consisted of handmade noodles, pork dumplings, green onion pancakes and a cold spicy beef dish. She had a bit of the dumplings and some of my beef noodle soup. After dinner, Kay went with Rhoda and Nelson and I headed home. Wow, I'm tired! I need to separate the berries to freeze and some to eat or bake! Better get to it or I'll never do it!

Zennkai, Shopping and Marie B

This afternoon, I had an appointment with Yulia at Zennkai Salon at Metrotown for a hair cut. Wow, she's awesome! I recommend her and I will def. be back for my next cut and maybe colour! She did exactly what I wanted, keeping my length and lightening my hair without thinning it out. I love it. I also decided to pick up some professional hair products as this is the BEST PLACE to buy professional hair products. Hopefully, the new hair product will get rid of my fly aways. I saw a really cool flat iron and it's at a pretty good price (only $139) but I am using a really good one right now.....

Being at Metrotown, I couldn't help going into Spring Shoes to check out their summer sales, last time I was in there, I missed out on a pair of really cute white and pink shoes!! You would not believe how much I got these cuties for!

After Metrotown, we headed over to HonHon's to check his mail and headed home to meet Marie B. I haven't seen her in what feels like months and it's funny how we were both thinking about each other today! Our plans were dinner and a craft project. We decided to stick around the neighborhood and have dinner at Sala Thai. Dinner was scrumptious as always and we caught up on each other's lives. It was good to talk and I really enjoy her company, she is such a fun person. After dinner, we headed back to my apartment and started on her necklace board which has been sitting in the craft room forever. She picked girlie colours (pink and purple with matching rhinestones) and we talked some more. A few hours later, we were both getting pretty tired and decided to call it a night. She lives by Metrotown so it was quite a ways back for her and after she left, Kay and I vegged on the couch. Kay wanted to rent another movie (we watched two movies last night) but it was too late for a movie and she tried to convince me she needed BBT. No, she will be up until 3.00am if I let her have BBT. Time for bed! Tomorrow I'm heading out berry picking with Rhoda, it's going to be a long and tiring day!

Cornmeal & Bacon Muffins

Another new recipe, yum yum! Very flaky (lots of butter) and great with soup! Not enough bacon though, next time, double the bacon!

Factory Girl & Because I Said So

Factory Girl

Very interesting movie. Didn't get any good reviews or ratings but I wasn't expecting an Oscar performance.

SYNOPSIS as provided by Rotten Tomatoes

Best known for playing muse to Andy Warhol, Edie Sedgwick was a dazzling young socialite who found herself at the apex of the pop art scene in 1960s New York. In FACTORY GIRL, Sienna Miller is the enchanting, enigmatic Edie, offering a moving characterization of the extremely troubled model/actress. The film kicks off as Edie, the daughter of a well-to-do horse rancher, leaves art school and moves to Manhattan in the mid-'60s. Her friend Chuck Wein (Jimmy Fallon) introduces her to Andy Warhol (Guy Pearce), and Andy is immediately taken with the waifish, wealthy Edie. He welcomes her into his Factory, the silver aluminum-foil covered loft where an assortment of artists and oddballs assisted him with his projects. Edie quickly falls into the hard partying, drug-addled scene, starring in Andy's experimental films and becoming his constant companion. She becomes well-known for her unique style, and the fashion industry taps her as its very first "It" girl. Edie is flying high on Andy, speed, and stardom, when she happens to meet the Bob Dylan-esque "Folksinger" (Hayden Christensen). She falls in love with him, and in doing so, falls out of Andy's favor. Her drug addiction spirals out of control, her parents cut off her cash flow, and her very bright star seems to burn out almost as quickly as it rose.

As with most biopics, people are sure to quibble over the accuracy of FACTORY GIRL, and whether it offers fair portrayals of so many larger-than-life cultural icons. However, viewers are sure to agree that it makes a poignant statement about the pitfalls of fame. When Warhol tells Edie's mother that her daughter is going to be "super famous", Mrs. Sedgwick coldly responds: "And what exactly would be the value of that" Judging from the very tragic, short life of Edie, there wasn't much value in it at all.

Because I Said So

Cute chick flick. Kay picked this one. She really liked it and I thought it was a cute storyline. Reviews were deadly, it had a terrible rating on Rotten.

SYNOPSIS as provided by Rotten Tomatoes.

Diane Keaton lights up the screen as an overbearing, matchmaking single mother in this slightly offbeat romantic comedy from director Michael Lehmann (HEATHERS, THE TRUTH ABOUT CATS AND DOGS). The film is a lot of fun, with both Keaton and Mandy Moore delivering energetic performances as a loveable and pretty believable mother-daughter team. After seeing two of her three stunning daughters (Piper Perabo, Lauren Graham) happily marry, Daphne Wilder (Keaton) focuses all her worries on Milly (Moore), her youngest, most insecure, and unlucky-in-love offspring. Twentysomething Milly has got her career as a chef figured out, but is clueless when it comes to love, attracting a never-ending slew of married, cheating, and closeted men. Taking matters into her own hands, Daphne places a personal ad for her daughter, interviewing the suitors herself and settling on one particularly promising young man named Jason. Meanwhile, clueless to her mother's plans, Milly starts to fall for Johnny, a cute musician who in spite of treating Milly like gold, is hardly what Daphne has in mind for her daughter's future. As Milly becomes increasingly involved with both men, Daphne must face whether maybe she could still have her own romantic life at age 60, instead of just living vicariously through her grown daughters.

Unabashedly a chick flick, BECAUSE I SAID SO's intended audience is clearly female, but that's not to say it's all soft. The movie's girl talk includes frank discussions about sex and orgasms, demonstrating the unusually close relationships between the film's women and distinguishing the film from others in its genre. While following a vague romantic-comedy arc, the film also explores the bonds between women, focusing more on the mother-daughter relationship at the heart of the film than on any of the male love interests.

More Restaurants....

Hmmm... thinking about steak ... I am dying to try Gotham or Morton's Steakhouse. I think I can convince HonHon to take me to one or the other since he is such A MEAT-STEAK-LOVER :)

Pretty Michael Kors Handbag on SALE!

Pretty purse on sale and the price riduculous! Must OWN this handbag!!!



Net-A-Porter
Michael Kors
Skorpios leather bag

Reg $795 Sale $397.50

GG

55 MINS

Top Picks for my 32nd Birthday Dinner

Have been doing some research and I like to try new or extraordinary restaurants that I would not normally dine at for my b'day dinner. I figure this is the one time of the year that I should most def. treat myself and have the fun of dressing up for dinner.

These are my TOP CHOICES:
Coast Restaurant
Provence Mediterranean Grill or Provence Marinaside (seafood type cuisine)
Chambar Belgian
Aqua River
The Ocean Club - a live band on Tuesdays, hmmm.. how interesting....
As you can see, I love seafood and all of these are fine dining with an incredible seafood menu except for The Ocean Club which is moderately priced and the restaurants seems to be more Casual Dining than Fine Dining.

Interesting Menu
CRU
Aurora Bistro
Sanafir
Marmalade Kitchen & Bar

Casual Dining
Hell's Kitchen
The Sandbar Restaurant (actually could be considered as "fine dining" as well but the atmosphere is somewhat casual as it being in Granville Island with an incredible view, 2 or 3 course meals start from $30 to $50 without drinks and taxes)

GG

58 MINS

Gucci Twirl Watch

HonHon owes me HUGE. He is the one who is suppose to break the bad news to our daughter about the face that HE can't be here next week and instead is coming the last week of August which happens to be the same week she is GONE TO CAMP .... yes, the entire week. In fact, I know I will be the one who will end up telling her the bad news. For this and all the future grief this will cause me, he owes me HUGE ... this is it:

GUCCI Twirl Watch $1095
Fall/Winter 2007

Although, I am really in love with the Twirl Watch with Diamonds 1.3 inches or 0.9 inches, both are very pricey and with this kind of $$ I would rather spend it in Paris, France :)

Baking at Midnight

Couldn't fall asleep so I woke up and baked muffins! I have been manipulating this recipe quite a number of times and I think I've got it! Yum yum, super fresh muffins :)

Damn!

Someone made key scratches along the side of my car and on my front hood! I have no idea if it was Rhoda's neighbor, he left a note on my front window and approached me last night about my car being parked in their lot for the entire day or if it was a hoodlum or hoodlums who have tried to break into my car numerous times!! SO PISSED OFF.....

well I have to say, at least they were idiots and didn't know how to properly scratch up a car! Only minor top surface scratches but still pissed off.....

Facebook II

Remember this post? Hmmm..... found something else..... do you know you can never end or close your account on Facebook? You are only de-activated... that's kind of scary isn't it?

Kwik E Mart and more....

Today, we finally headed over to the Kwik-E-Mart in Coquitlam, the only one in Canada! How exciting and although it was pretty crazy busy, it was worth it since this is a one in lifetime opportunity. The Kwik-E-Mart is only available until the end of this month and had opened a few weeks back so there wasn't any memorabilia left except for the Squishee cups and a Homer Key chain. I was hoping to get a package of Mmmmm pink donuts but nope :( We walked around and took a ton of photos (see my flickr account) with the Simpsons characters and we bought purple / grape squishees in the Simpson cups, I ended up buying all FIVE CUPS which were $2 + change per cup!

After the Kwik-E-Mart, we decided to stop over at Coquitlam Centre Mall, I haven't been there in ages! We did a bit of shopping, check out my "other" blog to see my awesome summer deals, and wandering around the shopping centre. I am a little bit excited about H&M opening up in Coquitlam Centre as I have heard they have some reasonably priced clothes and very trendy and chic. After our shopping spree, it was getting close to dinner time and we headed back to Burnaby for Nando's Chicken. The girls hadn't decided if they wanted to come to the nightmarket with us or not. Rhoda and I were meeting another friend, BQ, at the nightmarket coz his friend was in a fashion show or something at the nightmarket. Also, we wanted to walk through the stalls and see if there was anything new since the last time we were there. After dinner, the girls finally decided they didn't want to go to Richmond with us and wanted to be dropped back to our place so they could hang out with their friends at DP. That was fine with us as I figured the girls would probably be bored if they had to hang out with us at the nightmarket. Rhoda and I headed to Richmond and found parking really really far away but it was FREE! We found BQ and watched his friend strut her stuff on the "runway". Gosh, it was terrible, very amateur and most of these girls looked like they were asked to do this last minute. We didn't watch it for long as we were quickly getting bored, we decided to pick up some candy from the food fair and checked out the stalls. Still debating on the make up case but realized for $35.00 you are getting what you pay for and that is not a whole lot. I think I will consider spending a little more and getting a nicer one like the Japonesque Medium Train Case although it would be nice if I could afford a MAC make up case but those are a little too expensive for me and I'm not a professional make up artist. If I really had a ton of money, I would def. pick up a Louis Vuitton "Nice Beauty Case", so pretty :) After our walk around the nightmarket, we decided to head over to Tea Hut (our friend's BBT place) to have BBT but once we arrived, it was closed! Apparently, they close really early on Saturday so we went next door to a place called Sweet 23. It's a Hong Kong dessert place and boy do they have yummy desserts! After a couple of hours of eating and chatting, it was time to call it a night!

PS New milk chocolate chip marshmallow muffins!

Oh yes, one more thing, my bestest girlfriend, Rhoda made this! Didn't fit her so she passed it on to me :) Very comfy and pretty!

Friday Dinner

Tonight, Kay and I decided to head over to my mom's place for dinner. We hadn't seen her in weeks and I felt sort of bad that I hadn't spent any time over there. It was a good night to have dinner with her since my grandma had MJ plans and mom planned on having dinner alone. When we arrived to her house, we caught up on each other's lives and what was happening in the weeks that we hadn't visited. My brother came by the day before to visit and have lunch with mom. He also took her car browsing coz he has been eyeing my mom's Supra. She promised him the Supra many many years ago and once mom gets a new car, she would give him the Supra. I found my next car, Lexus ES 350, it is very beautiful and looks stunning. I wish I had $50K kicking around in my account .....

After chatting, we decided to have dinner out coz mom didn't want to cook and we were getting a bit hungry. We planned to go to Superstore and to check HonHon's mail after dinner so we decided to get something quick, cheap, easy and close by. We thought of and headed over to Congee Noodle King Seafood restaurant on Kingsway which is the sister restaurant to the Congee Noodle House on Broadway & Main. OMFG, this is the last time I am ever eating at this restaurant! The service was awful, the wait staff and manager were rude. Our dining experience was horrible and I vow to never ever return. Ok, yes I know when I eat at a restaurant like this, I do not expect the best customer service but they were over the top with sugar coated rudeness on top of it.

Breakdown of complaints:

• Seated the THREE of us at a table that sat 8 to 10
• After sitting down, served with tea and menus, minutes later, a larger group came in and the restaurant manager asked if we could free up the table and wait for the next available table for 4. Lucky for the manager, we only had to wait a minute or two but if we had already ordered and the manager was insistent or just plain being an ass, we would have left the restaurant
• Waitress removed any plate or dish that was empty or attempted to remove items that were not quite done but watching us like a hawk, ready to swoop in on the cleared dishes!
• BUT when it came to refilling our empty tea cups, slow as snails
• The restaurant was packed but there was no line up at the door which meant for no reason whatsoever were they rushing us to finish our meal, continued to hover over us
• Altho Kay and I were finished before my mom, the waitress kept coming by to ask if we wanted to pack the rest of the meal but my mom was not finished yet! We WILL CALL YOU when we are ready for take out!
• The bill came up to $33 + change, we left $40.00 and waited for the change, after 5 minutes and a group of 4 waiting for a table, the manager kept looking as us and wondering why we weren't leaving when he realized his annoying stares were not working with me, he came around and ask if our change arrived, uh duh, NO! that's why we are still sitting here! apparently, the cashier assumed we were leaving a SIX DOLLAR tip and dropped our change into the tip can up the front! I know this for a fact coz I turned to look over at the cashier and I saw that he was pulling our change from the TIP CAN!!
• Change was FINALLY brought back to us, the manager had the nerve and guts to stand there and watch us take the change back, I said to his face, how rude! I am never coming back to this restaurant, it sucks!!! Mom left a $2+ change tip, if it were me, I would have taken it ALL BACK and left them NOTHING.... coz the staff deserved NOTHING.

That was one of the worst dining experiences I have had in a chinese restaurant in a long time! I am NEVER EVER going back there again! The food isn't all that GREAT either!

The Bad and The Good

I just checked my home email on the web and found some really bad news. HonHon is not going to make it to Vancouver this week. Apparently, there is an emergency that came up in his China office and he needs to be there the week that he planned on coming to Vancouver. Yep, that bloody sucks!

Not only is he now going to be a month and half late but he is also coming the week that Kay is gone camping. She is gone for 5 days at the end of August. This means she will only see her dad a few days before she leaves for camp and a day or two after she comes back. I am not going to tell her that! He is going to have to tell her but I am sure he won't and I will end up telling her the bad news.... shoot the messenger, please.

On a happier note, I received an early b'day card from my friend, Jen in London! What a nice surprise and I want to thank you so much Jenn! We miss you tons!! If you are reading this, I am so sorry I haven't replied back to your email, it's in my draft and I am in the processing of writing it! I know, I am so bad.

Thanks Jen! Love Ya and Miss Ya TONS!!!

GG

58 MINS

Thursday feels like Monday

OMG, what a day I am having!!! I am having a totally "off" day, it really feels like a Monday instead of a Thursday!

I arrived at the office a little earlier today as I was planning on making tea instead of buying an Americano from the little cafe in our building (trying to cut back, I just realized I spend $10.00 a week on coffee!!). As I was waiting for my tea to steep, I headed over to the photocopier to make a copy of a recipe for my co-worker as she was looking for a good recipe for Sweet N Sour pork, Cantonese style. Once I made a copy, I noticed that the paper was three hole punched, WTF? It's set at auto, plain letter size so why is it coming out as three hole punch? I checked the paper tray, realized somebody in our office was being really FREAKIN lazy and decided to drop three hole punch paper in the tray instead of going over to the paper room to pick up a box of plain letter size paper because we were out of PLAIN LETTER SIZE!!! OMG.... this is ridiculous! I hardly print to that printer and I do make sure that there is enough paper by my printer but PUH LEEZE, don't be such a l@zy @ss! Go get paper and fill it up!! I did it the last time but I was not going to do it again except that I wanted to print the recipe on regular paper. I ended up going to the paper room to pick up a box of paper but once I opened the box, I realized I had grabbed the wrong boxes and instead of picking up letter size, I picked up a box of Tabloid! Ugh!! I decided to screw it and photocopy the recipe on three hole punch and left the copier room. I finally got a chance to sit down to eat my breakfast and drink my tea when I realized at the last moment that I needed to prep the boardroom for my manager's weekly meeting!! How could I forget? This happens EVERY THURSDAY!! A TOTAL OFF DAY. I quickly made coffee but the meeting had already started, hopefully they did get a chance to grab a coffee, I feel terrible that I forgot ..... I have come to the conclusion that it must be the missing Americano. Maybe I should take baby steps in cutting out my Americano? I think I will def. have to pick one up for Monday tho, those are the hardest days of the week.

*Update 1.30pm - Switchboard Duty - I was covering the lunch break for switchboard and the receptionist didn't clear her desk, she left a half filled tea in a cup right by the phone and binders. I had a caller on the phone requesting a site number and when I pulled the book out, it knocked the cup over spilling it all over the desk and myself. I also accidentally said "sh....t" to the caller on the phone ... I didn't quite say the word but I'm sure she knew WHAT word I wanted.... not a good day at all...*