Today is the day for the traditional Lunar Chinese New Year. Since they don’t appreciate Chinese New Year as much as actually turning it into an official holiday here in Canada, it was a regular work day for me (pretty envy that the folks in China are all having a 1-week vacation). Anyway, I got a chance to have dinner with Alice and Matthew last night. Had a bunch of traditional Chinese food for New Years like dried oyster/mushroom, BBQ duck….etc. It was pretty tasty and I got to see the folks counting down for the New Year at Aberdeen Centre (a Chinese mall) on TV.

Today after work I went to visit Wendy’s family, I brought over some Ferrero Rocher, got some red pocket (=D) and was invited to go up to have a drink. Chatted about some random stuff like the economy crisis (that I really don’t care about), their newly installed floorings and decorations…etc.

Also I finished watching another Japanese drama called “Monster Parent”. It was pretty interesting and I will do a review soon.

Kelvin (one of my old high school friends) was here sleeping over at my place last night. He was coming from Hong Kong, stopping by Vancouver, then head to Calgary for some businesses deals. I got off work earlier so I could meet him up and show him around. I brought him to Aberdeen Centre, and a couple other Asian malls. I was going to eat at a bubble tea place with him but it was so packed with teenagers so we didn’t bother and ended up driving all the way to downtown. It was quite cold at night but since we had to search for food we walked alone Robson street from head to toe. We ended up settle down at Earls, due to the farily attractive menu and relatively low price…lol.. The place was nice, waitresses are…hot…lol. I think we ordered a pizza, a pasta, and some “dried cripy ribs”. The food was awesome, very tasty actually.

Played some darts at home with my dart board that was otherwise covered in dirt. It was quite fun, as Kelvin apparently knows it better than I do. We had some chats, played some fighting games on the PS2 and went to bed…seperately. I guess having some guest over kinda lightenS up the otherwise dead atmosphere in my house. Not that I hate living alone but it’s indeed kind of cool to be able to interact with someone during the course of the day. @_@

Went to Aberdeen Centre tonight with Rachel for a countdown event. It was pretty shocking when I stepped into the mall as it was around 11:45 pm and the mall looked like as if it was during the day - lots of people…stores were opening…etc. Pretty amazing, and it further proved the fact Richmond was infested with TOO many Chinese….lol

Anyway, it took us quite some time to find a an empty spot which gave us a direct line of sight to the stage. Since it was pretty close to 12am when we got there, the stage performers are finishing up their tricks and we were basically standing there waiting for the moment to come. Finally they counted it from 10. After everyone yelled “ONE” out loud, a loud noise followed with huge amont of colored shiny stuff flying around the entire area, and some fire crackers. It was a pretty amazing view… at least it was free

Since I’ll be leaving for Beijing (China) and Hong Kong coming Friday, went out for some last minute shopping today. Damn, ended up spending over $500 in total… it was too hard or impossible to restraint myself from getting all these cool things that I like. Went to this Chinese bookstore “SUP” at Aberdeen Centre (the name sounds really cool IMO) to get a couple books so I have something to waste time on when I travel, like this Korean language learning kit with textbook/CD, and a book about European Mythology which I think will be interesting to read (total $99). Also got a crossover bag pack ($220), a spare battery for my Macbook ($159), and an inflatable pillow for use on the plane ($6). I was going to get this nice Jacket in Richmond Centre but I thought I was too broke to do so Anyway I’m now broker than ever, guess I really have to take on a couple more web design projects to balance it off!

Went to Benny’s restaurant “14981” with Edison, my co-worker at Graphically Speaking. Benny prepared an awesome menu for us, so at last I got to taste the great food he cooked at my place during the last couple parties, at his restaurant. I knew it’s going to taste way better and turned out it really was.

The mussels and black cod were tenderer than the ones he cooked at my place, the caesar salad was great (I’d prefer less bacon on top), and the lamb rack was amazing (liked the “balsamic glaze” sauce a LOT, got to ask him where I can get it from.) I generally dislike lambs due to its “unique” flavor, but I can’t deny the fact that this one was really delicious. Edison liked it a lot too, especially the fish.

We went to Aberdeen Centre in Richmond to get these popular cream puffs from Beard Papa (an extremely popular Japanese bakery that makes delicious cream puffs). Edison wanted to get some for his girlfriend. I had their puffs couple years ago in Hong Kong and it was so tasty that I never forget, so I was stoked comming to know that they have just opened their first Canadian store, and it’s in Richmond! It was a huge lineup, around 30 people, and we had to wait for an hour and half.. well, the wait turned out to be well worth though as the puffs were sooooooooooo good. I bought six (limited a dozen for each person), I think I still have one left in the fridge and it’ll likely be gone tonight