It was Wendy and I’s 9th year anniversary. We went to T&T supermarket and got a 6 pound lobster! It was so huge, I had to chop off both of its claws in order to fit it in my wok. I steamed it for ~20 minutes and it was done. It was really delicious, but the meat was less tender than I thought, I’ll try steaming it for a shorter period of time next time. Oh we went to Granville Island to pick up some fresh organic veggies, and made a veggie soup - I’ve put so much stuff into it….carrots, zucchini, red onion, mushroom, and tomatoes.

This week I’ve been working busily on my papercraft as usual, finalizing it now I think it’ll only take about 2 more days before it’s done. Today I was painting the white, exposed parts at the paper creases and joints, to make it look better.

Went with Wendy to The Cannery seafood restaurant by the Vancouver Habour waterfront. The place was quite hard to find, and it had securty gates where I had to speak into a mic to let some guy know that I was heading to the restaurant. It’s beautifully located right next to the water, at a slightly elevated cliff, so beautiful when we got there at the blue hour. I brought my new Panasonic GH1 camera for a test drive, took a few pics inside and out and then the battery died on me! Huge =( … Didn’t get any pictures of the food but it was awesome. I had a swordfish and Wendy a halibut. We both had non-alcoholic pina colada. She got a balloon too as the server recognized her. I was surprised to see a dining menu that was prepared by Wendy with our names on it that says “the cannery wishes wendy & herman a happy anniversary” =D . We had a complimentary dessert too, I think it was called strawberry crumble and it was very tasty despite the strawberry paste was a bit sour.

I spent most of my time making my Howl’s moving castle model. I’m having a pretty good progress, finished all the 7 chimneys during the last 3 days of hard work, also finished making a couple of the castle’s exterior addons, and its ears (I didn’t know it’s got ears until I made them). Now I’m going to have to install the chimneys, and after that, it’ll be the many houses and also the gears and stuff. Can’t wait to finish it ASAP.

Okay, so for some crazy reason the Gravlax salmon is being sold at Ikea again..! It was totally surprising to see loads of them being sold at Ikea, cause I went there just to get some light bulbs and didn’t expect to see the fish at all. This is after like a year of waiting for the fish to come in stock again… I instantly bought 5 packs of them and finished a whole pack the first day (as seen in the pic). So tasty…~~~

Another big happy is that the Kalimba that I bought from Amazon.com arrived. I had to go to Point Roberts to pick it up, but it was well worth the effort (even though I later realized that they sent me the Huge Tracey Treble Kalimba instead of the Alto Kalimba that I ordered) I played with it for a couple hours after getting home, and a bit more the same evening - it really hurted my thumbs…lol However the sound was really nice and almost haunting. It’s hard to tell how nice or not nice a sound is but all I know is that it’s the kind of sound that I really like. Tried to play some simple song, while trying to remember which tine correspond to which musical note - it wasn’t easy at all. I have to wait for my nails to grow back in order to play it properly - you’re supposed to play it with a bit of the thumb flesh and mostly the nails. Holding the instrument on hand gives me a very magical feeling, knowing that it was made in Africa and that the African actually plays on it during rituals and stuff like that. I know I will be playing on it a lot the next couple weeks.

It was Wendy’s birthday on the 26th (last Sat). I prepped gifts and home made dinner (sirloin strip steak) for the night, and home made chocolate mousse! Even though the main highlight was the dinner, the steak turned out to be overcooked a bit, and the chocolate mousse wasn’t hardened enough but the spaghetti was awesome. I also bought sea salt and cheese (chunky ones) to level up the dishes. It was a fantastic night and I was particularly happy since I wasn’t able to celebrate Wendy’s birthday with her for the past 2 years and finally, this year I could stay with her.

The next day (Sunday) we rode the new Skytrain “Canada Line” from Richmond to Downtown, got off at the Waterfront Station. The ride was cool, got to see a lot of roof tops (since the rail was quite high up) from Richmond Centre area all the way to Bridgeport. Upon crossing the river the train went underground for the rest of the trip. We revisited Mink Cafe near the station since I was craving for the blended iced mocha and Wendy wanted the Chocolate Fondue - we ended up getting both of them =D Yummy~

It was a nice day, Wendy and I decided to do BBQ at my newly renovated patio. I tested my 10+ year-old gasoline grill in the morning with the really old full size gasoline tank and it worked! We bought our food at Fo Tan (火炭) BBQ supplies, including chicken fillet, BBQ pork, and chicken wings, all marinated and ready to grill…and two corns as well. Also got a whole bunch of veggies at T&T supermarket like portobello mushroom, peppers…etc. Oh, also got two pieces of grilling plates from Daiso ($2 store) which worked quite well with the grill. Rest of the photos here

I was doing the grill most of the time, while Wendy would do the cutting and de-boning for the cooked food. The food were really tasty, especially the BBQ pork. Wendy also made garlic butter bread even though I overcooked a few of them and part of them turned black They were tasty though The portobellos were really juicy and huge, while the onions were sweet. We had great fun for about 2.5 hours and we almost finished all the food except for two pieces of bread!

Went to Silvercity after that in hopes of watching Star Trek but it was impossibly packed - when we were there the show was almost sold out, so we decided not to squeeze in but to watch it tomorrow.

My mom left today and she’s now back to Hong Kong. It will take time for me to get used to it, probably a week or so. Wish she stayed longer

Can’t really believe the fact that I’ve turned 29…sounds old enough…but somehow it seems to have been a rather long period of time since I was 27…did time fly? I’m not sure, maybe, but it went slower last year, than a few years ago, somehow.

Anyway yesterday was the first day on my 29th year. I was so happy that Wendy was here to stay with me for the day (she wasn’t in town for my past 2 bdays). I’ve received cute gifts from her as always - got a bday card, a pair of Japanese style “Koi Windsock” plushed dolls, and an rabbit shaped eyepad with a lavender scent in it (see pics). And then today I’ve received a full plate of cookies painted with colorful icings, they are so cute, and I didn’t really want to eat them..!

Last night I went to an Italian restaurant called La Quercia in Vancouver, with Wendy and my mom. I had high hopes since the reviews were great, plus it was recommended by Benny, so I was feeling really excited to go there. Turned out to be a let down. The place was NOISY, and the table was tiny. These were already some huge turn-offs. The service wasn’t bad, waitress was patient explaining all the dishes they had and also the specials (even though she spoke quite quickly that I missed a few of the items). We got two glasses of reds, they were good even though the glasses were tiny. The appetizers were good, but no surprises. We got a sablefish, an Italian stuffed pasta (rivoli or something? can’t remember), and a regular pasta. For the mains we got a halibut and a duck breast. Strange enough the side veggies were actually tastier than the mains! The halibut was overcooked (or maybe it was the ingredient?) as the meat was dry. The duck breast was bad. It was tender for sure but then it doesn’t really have any taste in it, and the skin wasn’t flavoured at all. I kept thinking about the awesome duck breast I had at Benny’s restaurant…lol. Anyway, the dessert was okay, it was a chocolate mouse, taste pretty good but again nothing extraordinary. It ended up at around $130, which wasn’t bad at all I think, even though the food was just mediocre….or was it just that I was expecting too much? I don’t think I will be going there again anytime soon though.