Hawaii - Day 1

Pictures from Hawaii ahoy!

So glad my midterms are all over, phew.

And apart from the billions of assignment I have due, it will only be 5 weeks of torture before it is ALL OVER!

Well, almost all over.

But I do get to visit HOME

Erm, back to Hawaii…

Hawaii - Day 1 (19th of February, 2009)

[Exploring Waikiki Beach & Dinner @ Roy's]

Morning of our arrival With our fresh flower leis!

Visited the International Market Place (in case you can’t already tell from the picture…)

Hiks & the Duke.

I swear I was going for his lei..

Waikiki beach baby!

    
Our first of many tanning sessions! Sort of… it was fairly cloudy.

     
The stand-up paddle man & dog.

And later that night, we had a delish dinner @ Roy’s; a fine dining restaurant that was just 5 steps away from our hotel.

In the lounge waiting for our unreserved table.

Hikapoop.

Checking out the goods.

Hang loose.

Our appetizer from left to right: lightly seared ahi tuna, barbecued rib, and a spring roll.

Ahi tuna roll! Well, we’re in Hawaii so might as well get our fill of the ahi.

  
Catch of the day! I… forgot the name of the fish. It’s been a while! Haha. But it was sooooo goood!

The mahi mahi.

Hawaii’s local beer! It was actually drinkable.. for me.

And we finished it off with TWO desserts (so greedy!!)

The warm chocolate souffle. Nothing spectacular but it was definitely good!

The taro cheesecake topped with sour-something ice cream. This was very, very good!

  
That about wrapped up our first official (I don’t count the real first night where Hikaru got super sick from the flight…) night in Hawaii!

More to come!!   

Hapa Winter ‘09 Staff Party - Part II

Haha, I am finally going to post up the remainder of the pictures from our staff party waaaaaay back in January

Hapa Winter ‘09 Staff Party @ Provence Marinaside (4th of January, 2010)

- Part II -

Let’s begin with the feast!

Le Menu.

Le appetizers.

We had 6 delightful mains to choose from, including:

The wild mushroom ravioli.

The half chicken.

The beef tenderloin.

Poisson du Jour.

Bouillabaisse.

And my order, the Prawns Provencal.

Delish!!

And we finished it off with a warm blueberry cheese cake topped with vanilla bean icecream! Yummers.

With Mariko, Kristie, Emmy and an intruder!!

With still-sober Sandra ;p

Megs & Jennifer.

Fumi, getting-there Sandra, Jinhee, Jenn, and I.

With Angeline.

<3

With Miss Chinese Vancouver 2009, Eliza!

James, Tomoki, Mary & Vicki

With dear Rosy.

Alyssia!

Lovin’ the do

The sexy bartenders of Hapa

Meow!

Mary, super-drunk Sandra, Jiena, Miyuks, Me, Angeline, and an unaware Lyo.

Our happy family

And finally, DA BOSS, Mr. Justin Ault.

And that about wraps up the Hapa Winter ‘09 Staff Party!

Next up, MORE HAWAII GOODNESS
(think I’m gonna let you guys go with just my videos? pfffft)

Ohhhhh, CANNAADAAAAA!!!

Today… Canada made HISTORY!!!

Not only did they beat the USA team with a glorious finish in ice hockey (the religious sport of Canada), they also manage to break the world record of having the most golds EVER (fourteen golds!!!) in Winter Olympic history!

I am truly, truly blessed to be able to be apart of the celebration.

Being in the streets of downtown was absolutely crazy amazing!

High-fiving random people on streets and watching crazy celebratory stunts was an insane experience. I wish I brought my camera down but I totally forgot it in the frenzy of actually TRYING to get downtown.

The definite best part was when I was in my car (and there were honks everywhere, which made driving a tad confusing) and as I halted at a light, pedestrians were cheering me on to honk my horn & when I gave ‘em a nice big one, I got yells so loud that a camera man decided to come to me and film me!! SUPER AWESOME

I think it was this that did the trick:

Proud to be a FOB-Canadian

Pictures of the victorious game that lead to world history:
(Source: http://www.vancouver2010.com/olympic-hockey-photos/)

A fish eye view of the jammed packed Canada Hockey Place.

The fans.

Crosby: scored the winning goal in overtime. Epic.

The amazing team!

Good ‘ol closser upper.

Man, I don’t think I have ever cheered this hard for hockey before!!

Heck, I didn’t think I’d ever be watching a sport like hockey! I always had a hard time catching the itsy bitsy black puck flying around but when the TV screen is right up your face (we had pretty awesome seats in Aqua Riva) it certainly is pretty hard to miss.

So, CONGRATULATIONS CANADA!!!

YOU DID AN EXCELLENT JOB!

I AM SO GLAD TO BE A PART OF THIS

In Hawaiian Paradise - Day 6

Boooo…

I’m back in the rain and gloom

Wait, scratch that!

Definitely NOT gloom… Why?

Because CANADA IS TOTALLY ROCKIN’ THE WINTER OLYMPICS!!!

Granted we don’t have as many medals as the US (those, crazy robotic athletes), we are kicking ass in the gold medal count!!

LOL, I say “we” as though I am Canadian… Although, I think I am slowly morphing into one. Not to difficult to do that after the occurrences of wannabe terrorist stunts the extremists in Malaysia are pulling.. I mean, why would they put boar’s heads on their own mosques & try to pin it on the Christians? Absolutely ludicrous, if you ask me, but that’s another story!

So, anyway, there is a definite upside to being back in Vancouver!

In fact, as of right now, I am sitting in Hiks’ apartment downtown and I can hear honks & cheers of celebration of Canada having the highest count in gold medals

And to think, we could possibly get another one at tomorrow’s hockey game against the US!! That would certainly be a sweet victory.

But let’s not count our chickens before they hatch, shall we?

Also, let’s get back to what this post is suppose to be all about :p

In Hawaiian Paradise
[Day 6]

In Hawaiian Paradise - Day 5

Day 4 was nothing short of another great day in Hawaii, however, a tragic accident occured:

My Olympus baby crashed & burned while we were snorkeling in Hanauma Bay

Being addicted to having everything recorded into something other than my lousy human memory, I went to Ala Moana Center (biggest mall in the state!) and purchased the new Fujifilm underwater camera!

It was such a steal!

US$150 for an underwater camera that has pretty good movie quality! (you’ll see :p)

Let’s move on to my movie for the day

My dolphin encounter!!!

In Hawaiian Paradise
[Day 5]

Dolphins are amazing! Their skin is so soft & they are incredibly smart & gentle Absolutely adore them!!

And only just now, we went back to Gyu-Kaku for dinner again!

That place is soooo yumsss :p Love, love it!

Brought out my new Fujifilm just to try it out (plus, I can upload my piccies right away too).

Dinner @ Gyu-Kaku

With Hikapoo. Check out my burnt skin, heh heh.

With my Blue Lagoon (virgin).

Ahi poke.

Daikon salad.

Kalbi; Hiks’ fav.

Garlic ebi.

Harami in miso sauce. It was so-so. Compared to the other beef we had, probably rank #3… we had 3 different beefs.

Jizz in me pants fillet mignon. Every bite is heaaaven, omg.

Bacon wrapped in enoki! My fav combo.

Jizz in me pants roasted enoki in their own sauce mix YUM.

With Hikapoo, the chef!
Sigh, why is my face still so white? I swear, I baked myself in the sun everyday since I came here!! My body is nice & lobster red but my face is like… no difference than before I am incapable of tanning sniff!!

Our satisfying sweets! Dorayaki ice cream. Dorayaki is da best

Pictures from the Fujifilm cam aren’t too shabby, hey?

But I am much liking the video quality! Which is what I bought it for so I am very happy with my purchase

And with that, I am off to count down to…

MY BIRTHHHHDAAAAAAYYY

Yayayayayayay!!