After 2 grueling back-to-back final exams (6 hours of pure torture), I am freeeeeeeee!!!

FREE, I TELL YAH!!!

My Last Day of School… FOREVER!!!! (21st of August, 2010)

And where better to celebrate than…

@ HAPA

Apart from the great people + great food + cheap(er) booze, Hikaru was working that night and I wanted him to celebrate with me!

With L-Dawg.

Lor & Jacob.

The early birds: Law, Lor, Jacob, Rose (shoot!! Sorry, I blocked you, eek!), Me, & Brandon.

Already had dinner & coming in for moreeee…

With Maaaj

Sarah, Jacob, & Vivian. He kinda looks pervy in this shot. I should talk to him about this.

Bumped into Andrea! Who was patiently waiting for her dear Bert to get off work.

Shots, shot shot shot shot, shots!!! The dirty hooker.

Bought a round for whoever that was standing closest

With Nicole & Brian… Brian is my lifesaver. Without him, I would not have gone through University. I have him to thank for pushing me and he has me to thank for entertaining him through the boredom of University… happens when you are too smart and school gets too easy -_- I wish I had that problem.

More of us.

With Jinheeee My mama-san.

Tad boy. Nice photobomb, Law.

Very attractive.

Now, this is just going overboard…..

That’s better.

And they just keep on going!! Their desserts: strawberry tiramisu.

And more girls joined us! From the left: Me, Jeanne (I know it was hard to spell her name… I’m not sure I got it right. In fact, I’m almost positive I got it wrong, lol, sorry!), Jenn, Izzy, Sarah.

Cheers!!

And Shawn Chow arrives.

Managed to steal Hika for a bit to grab a pic with me!

With drunk Emmy, lol.

I…. really don’t know how to comment on this pic.

Cheeeers, to a future filled with boring, administrative work!! But also to never bringing home work

It’s been a long, windy, stressful, and very colourful journey of school…. But I am sure glad it is over!!

Time to grow up now, Nat

More barbecueeees!!

I love packing my summer with my favourite activity

Barbecue @ My Place (9th of August, 2010)

Mmm.. Meats Market. They have the best of the best!

Whippin’ out our pit.

Shrooms…. there was corn too (obviously) but I reckon everyone’s sick of seeing pictures of corn.

Chillaxin’ indoors (kinda lame weather that day actually) while waiting for our juicy meats to cook!

Hika; our dedicated chef.

It’s always so difficult to get him to pose normally.

If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em!

B-B-Q!

Naoki & a hidden Valerie.

Lyo & Julianna.

Watermelon! We only ate half of it… they gave us the other half & it sat in my fridge (I hate cutting fruits FYI) and molded 0_o I threw it out only 2 days ago. It’s September today.

Admiring my wall of friends + family collage Usually the first thing guests tend to do when they first come in.

Finished the night with some good ol’ karaoke!!

+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+

And only days later, the weather became scorching hot!!

The type of rare weather that occurs like… two days in the whole year in Vancouver.

Reminded me of being in Malaysia, actually.. with less ickiness of pollution.

Hot Barbecue @ Spanish Banks (14 August, 2010)

Went back to good ‘ol Spanish banks at the very same spot as when Lawrence was fungry for barbecue because we like it that much!

Shawnster!

K-dawg. Holy moly, will you check out those abs he’s got there!! Puts mine to shame!

So ripped that I just had to take two pictures with him, lol.

Manning the BBQ.

As was Hika I always bug him to host barbecues and to attend barbecues… I think I know why he likes it less than I do with all the work he has to do and all I do is feed my face :p

Maui ribs. Friggin’ juicy ass uber delish flank of meat!!

Enjoying my maui rib with Clarabelle.

With Hika

With Wynnie & our ice cold coke, mmmm..

The crew.

Chicken wings!!

The brothers from another mother.

Mmmm…

With Sarah & Rose.

Never seen anyone so angry eating a celery.

Lor; making sure the sun does not get the better of her!

The king of queens & barbecue… or at least, that what he seems to think?  

Ribs *drool*

Wolfing it down.

And it’s time for dessert!

Shawn sure looks like he’s liking ‘em strawberries Oh Shawn…

“Okay, open when I count to three.” Hikaru fails.

Peace out!

Until next time, lovelies & gentlemen

Finally!!!

After half my life of schooling, I’M DONE
(given, of course, that I passed everything…. *knock wood!!*)

I am so incredibly stoked & I had such a good time celebrating yesterday (although the night can never end quite the best when your face ends up in the toilet) & opening up my first day of NO-SCHOOL with a great round of golf, hard to ruin my mood at this point!

Everyone who’s still in school right now & can’t wait until they are done (I know there are weirdos who actually like school..) probably hate my guts right now but hey! Hang in there and you can join the graduate club very soon

So I have a breather now since Hikaru’s taking a quick nap before going for dinner @ Zakkushi & its about time I blogged about our kayak camping trip that was a be-jillion years ago it seems!

Kayak Camping Trip @ Granite Falls along Indian Arms (31st July - 2nd August, 2010)

Day 1

Our “try to pack as minimal as possible… only essentials” luggage. Yeah, right.

Jersey shore, baby.

Group shot! All good & ready to go: Lawrence, Kait, Brad, Kirsten, Nick, Wynnie, Me, Tad, Hikaru, Jacob.

Prepping up!

Kirsten & Brad.

Lawrence & Tad’s paddle.

Hikapoo!

Me! Yep, all I do really is take pictures, bwahaha. And enjoy the breeze ;p

After 4 gruelling hours (maybe for Hikaru, lol!), we reached our destination!

Kait & Nick setting up their tent.

Tad’s cute little one-man tent! It has a chimney! So cute.

Our cozy home for 2 nights

Jacob.. you are sitting on my chair. No wonder one leg’s all funny now.

Wynnie sheltering in Jacob’s tent.

Granite Falls!

Reflection.

  
Climbed up the waterfall!

Brad & Kirsten.

Our camp food dinner! Marinated sanma fish with egg, seasoning & rice. Yum! Pretty good for camp food.

With Kait! Photobombed by Law :/

Group shot! (Minus Hika).

And off to sleep we went! Pretty early (wasn’t even dark yet.. granted it gets dark at like.. 10pm) because we were all super stumped from kayaking & setting up camp all day.

Day 2

Fishing in the wee hours of the morning! About 10ish am…. heh. My first fish of the day!

My 2nd fish.. They are getting tinier.

I even caught a star fish!! But.. it was so small.. in comparison to:

Hikaru’s uber huge starfish!! Which looks like a deceased alien, yuck!!

And this is the back of it… or front… still! YUCK!!

Anyway, we obviously weren’t doing very well with our catches so we gave up & visited the falls again.

Hika, probably sad we didn’t get a good catch. What will we eat for dinner then?!

Flex.

We got bored… and were reduced to rock-building.

According to a Japanese saying, if you can stack 21 rocks without it falling, you will find your true love! Yatahhhhhh!!

More rock-building.

We stacked friggin’ 26 rocks! We’ll find more than one true love :p

So, in the middle of the night last night, a bunch of douchebags with underaged girls came in this. Go figure.

First bath of the trip! And last… the water was SO FRIGGIN’ COLD!! I’m sticking to wet wipes bath.

Tad is one crazy sonofagun.

Our squeaky clean from fresh water & biodegradable soap!

Hahahah! This pic so funnay. Jacob looks like he just gave Kirsten a big one.

We got bored again and decided to fish somemore! This time, we brought Kirsten & Brad and look what she caught! Something other than the lame rockfishes I was catching.

Hikaru’s first fish! Undersized rockfish.

Number #2 for Hikaru.

  
3rd starfish that we caught of the day.

#4 for Hikaru.

Er… we tried to throw it back alive…….. usually they swim away. This one didn’t.

#5 and the smallest rockfish ever.

#6.. Hikaru’s on a roll!

And the fourth alien we caught! I think this was my catch too.

And just as we were going to give up…

We caught a big one!!! Yay, dinner!!!

Good enough size MMM!

Day 3

Back to Deep Cove we gooo… The peaceful waters in the morning.

So… close………

Numbah 1, babyyyy That’s right. We rocked that kayak hard!

Was certainly a fun adventure!

Oh, I hear Hikaru’s tummy growling.

Time for dinner, until next time, folks!

Makes hella more sense than 1 + 1 = 2, don’t you agree? :p

Anyhoo, am aware that I ought to be studying since it is less than 36 hours to both my finals but, hey, gotta take a break right?

Not a long enough one that I can finish up my blog post on my kayak camping trip though (promise I’ll do that right after!)…

So, it has been eleven months with Hika and it has be amazing

We’ve done so much in this short period of time & grown so much as well.

In 30 days, it’ll be the big one year

Yesterday, after work, I discovered eleven ginormously HUGE red roses sitting on my bedside table!

I was really surprised because admittedly, I…. kinda of forgot? (I’m terrible with dates… get scoldings all the time for forgetting Birthdays & what-not unless there are pre-determined celebrations going on in which I mark my calendar)… which made me feel awful but also extremely grateful to have someone like Hika in my life who is incredibly thoughtful & sweet

HUGE, I’m telling ya. I’ve never seen such humongo ones before that I am creating words that don’t even exist.

Deep red. Lovely.

Left a note & chocolates… Awww! I was at the brink of tears. Btw, lindor chocolates are friggin’ the most amazing chocolates ever. LOVE. THEM.

Thank you for being such a thoughtful sweetheart <3

(=^_^=)

Ermmm…. okay, back to the books, SIGH.

This is it.

2 more papers and I’m done.

Done.

Fin.

Kapish.

That’s it.

5 more days of torture & I am released from the wrath of school.

I.

Can’t.

Friggin’.

Wait.

BRB!

Movie Review

Salt

Not a fan of Angelina Jolie (Team Anniston!!) after watching True Hollywood Story on her and found out what a weirdo she is.. So, I didn’t have very much expectations for this movie. Nonetheless, it was actually a decent movie but I admit it grudgingly. Also can’t deny that Jolie is stunningly gorgeous and a decent actress. Doesn’t stop her from being an evil husband-stealing seductress boooo!!! Anyhow, type of movie I’d watch once in the theatre and probably won’t think twice about it again. It was good while it lasted.

Ratings:

Brilliant! A must-see!

Exceed expectations. Two thumbs up!

Satisfactory. Enjoyable.

Mediocre. Very average.

Bored to tears. Almost slept.

Functionally retarded. Left cinema.

+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+

KOOZA! was aweeeesomeeee

It was definitely entertaining & the comedians (jesters) were hilarious!

I was at the edge of my seats for a few of the stunts they performed and the flexible girl that did a solo flex performance was jaw-droppingly amazing. That was definitely my favourite act. She has maaaaad skills.

I must admit, a lot of what they’ve done, I’ve seen crazy Chinese acrobats in Genting and even in 1utama performed with a little more craziness & no strings attached… so I wasn’t superbly impressed with most of the stunts performed. Although, walking on wires certainly requires some crazy skills for sho!

Apart from the ridiculous rip-off parking ($25!!!) and the mad expensive snacks & bevies, it was a great show

+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+

Was leafing through the internet and bumped into the MorphThing baby-maker and my itchy fingers couldn’t help but try it out

Awweeee So cute haha.

+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+

It’s that time of year again when the Hapa boys & girls get together and paaaaaaaaartay

Hapa Summer Staff Party on a Boat (21st of July, 2010)

Robson girls: Eri, Jess, Megs, Mariko, Mio, Karbs, & Me!

Rockin’ our Blue Steel.

Jinhee!

More Robson girls! And Justin photo-bombing us, pffft!

The girls with the phoenix and geisha tattoo!

With Hika-kun

With the managers: Mary, Maaj, Yuks, & Jiena.

Sightseeing..

More ladies in da haus.

Peek-a-boo!

Hapa’s FOBs from Taiwan or China or HK… one or all of the above!! They’ve only been in Canada about half their lives…

Our dear drunk Emmy exclaiming the completion of her very first beer of the night!

We heart Karbo! CGA will be stealing her away from us

All in whites! I swear the boys are wearing the exact same shirt and jeans…  

With all the booze going around, people started showcasing their hidden talents!

And the drinking game begins!

Annnndddd, Mackenzie makes it to the finals whilst Kazuya walks away with an unfinished beer and should be ashamed of himself tsk tsk.

Ready..

And chug, chug, chug!!! You can already tell who’s ahead of the game.

Mini Isobe wins the title & more booze!!

Dinner time

And we enjoyed the rest of the ride around Vancouver while waiting for the sun to set for the Celebration of Light to begin.

Dusk..

Beautiful downtown lights of Vancouver.

And U.S.A opens the show!

I love purple fireworks! Evidently, those are the most expensive fireworks too!

More purple brilliance!

You are getting the picture, I know.

The grand finale!

Pictures never do justice! The U.S.A were undoubtedly good.

Alrighty, I am about to crash. My eyes can barely stay open from the back-to-back double shifts.

Can’t wait for KOOZA– Cirque du Soliel– tomorrow!! Wheeee!

(=^_^= )

Since the full-blown summer arrived, I stuffed activities after activities on my 1 and the half miserable days off from golfing to double-booking barbecues!

Barbecue #1 @ Spanish Banks (17th of July, 2010)

Lawrence was fungry for barbecue! Our wieners & sweet corn mmMMMmm..

The barbecue crew. Hikaru sure looks like he’s enjoying the sun a whole lot, lol!

Our gourmet hotdogs!

Complete with lettuce, onions, & mustard!

With Wynnie.

With Lorena & our sweet cornnnn.

Not sure what’s going on there…

Volley! Hikaru; our loyal spectator.

Set!

Work it, Jacob.

With the girls! And Darryn.

With the boys! And Lindsay and Yuri..

Enjoying the mini chairs! You’re still okay if you can fit into them. Otherwise, you’ve got a problem.

I scream for ice-cream!

Poor boy suckered into buying me a cold sweet treat!

With the ice-cream man!

Spongebob, meet spongebob senior!

I call this… Buddha-frisbee. They throw frisbees with their minds.

Chips!

*Crunch*

At 2ish, it was time to move to another barbecue–

Barbecue #2 @ Alice Lake (17th of July, 2010)

The boys fixing up our new barbecue set!

It works!

Mmmmm warmth.. for some reason, it was incredibly windy at Alice Lake that day and Vancouver’s wind is not quite like Malaysia’s.

We got a new boat too! Went all out @ Walmart, lol. The SEAHAWK!!

Naoki’s firebending abilities.

He certainly would be very useful for barbecues and such.

Bought a new fillet knife to fillet the fishes we never caught.

Prime rib! Mmmmmm… (and more sweet corn. I bet you are like, “What is with this woman and her obsession with sweet corn??!! Enough already!!”).

It was soooooo goood. Like seriously cho hoishi man.

With the ladies, Julianna & Valerie.

More food! Shrimp skewers, german wieners, pork & more beef!

It was time to test the SeaHawk out!

We are floating… this is a good sign.

Yay! It works! Hikaru hard at work while I stay camera-ready.

Row, row, row your boat….

Oh! How I LOVE Summer in Vancouver

So much to do.. so little time!

Alrighty, time for some snooze!! Gotta be up bright and early for a 5 hour kayak to our 3 day 2 night camping trip in Indian Arms!!!

So excited

Let’s hope we survive *crosses fingers*

Until next time!

On their own, these two crazies can drink a whole party.. together–

CHAOS!!

Too bad I didn’t stay long enough to see the destruction that becomes of them…

In fact, it is now almost a week after and I have not yet heard from them. Hmmmm, maybe I should check.

Shawn & Kevin’s Birthday @ Library Square (16th of July, 2010)

By the time we arrived at 9pm, Bday Boy #1 was already good and flushed.

Nothing compared to Law, though… I think he was half a beer in 0_o

Shawn kept reminding us he got “burnt from the sun” earlier today…

With Wynnie & Law! Gosh, I look so pale next to Wynnie!! My skin just refuses to soak up any sun!

With Bday Boy #2: A hybrid between Spock & Audrey Hepburn!!!

You don’t see it?

Here let me show you:

+  =

Audrey Spockburn!! LOL!

Wyn & Isaac.

Wyn, Brynn, Me, & Izzy.

With teeny Tina.

Teaching Hika to pose with his chin out! No double chin. Eeeee!! Hika’s got sweaty pit marks >.< Lucky thing he’s a dude.. wouldn’t be too attractive on a girl, I don’t think.

No double chin! Magic!

C-belle, Isaac (looking fairly pervily at me), and a photobomber!!

We were supposed to… “act serious”. I don’t know which part of serious the other two drunkards were trying to do.

With Lorrrrr.

With the girls (and Law’s head… yep, no body, just head) on the dance floor!

And most of us called it an early night (I had a reason.. I had to work!!… Yes, on a Saturday… -_- Darn banks for opening Saturdays now) soooo I sure hope the boys managed to take care of themselves!!

Happy Birthday Shawn & Kev

+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+

Movie Reviews

Predators

You know what, I expected it to be a blowout (in a bad kind of way) after what happened with AVP but hey! I was pleasantly surprised. Maybe pleasant isn’t the right word to use for this movie…. but it definitely brought me back to the original Predator days for sure. I remember watching that movie on repeat so many times. Loved it! I was so young too, lol. Even back then, I already had a knack for scary stuff. Anyhow, I thoroughly enjoyed the action in this movie and I definitely like the flow of the movie and the little twists here and there. Solid movie throughout!

Ratings:

Brilliant! A must-see!

Exceed expectations. Two thumbs up!

Satisfactory. Enjoyable.

Mediocre. Very average.

Bored to tears. Almost slept.

Functionally retarded. Left cinema.

——————————————————–

Inception

With all the buzz going around that this was an amazing sci-fi thriller and that it was so mind-boggling and crazy intelligent… I thought they were absolutely spot-on. If you really get into it, there are so many layers in this movie it would take hours of discussion and exploration to truly get the movie. And even after that, you’d be coming up with more possible theories of… oops, sorry, don’t want to spoil it for you guys. I’d say go watch it with a friend who has great attention to detail (if you don’t already have that capability) and have a great discussion afterward yamcha-ing or something. Apart from the after effect of the movie, the cinematography was darn superbly well and the graphics were pretty friggin’ impressive. It was certainly an eye-full as much as it was a brain-full (I don’t care if that’s not a word). Once again, Leo has gotten a “Brilliant! A must-see!” review from me.

Ratings:

Brilliant! A must-see!

Exceed expectations. Two thumbs up!

Satisfactory. Enjoyable.

Mediocre. Very average.

Bored to tears. Almost slept.

Functionally retarded. Left cinema.

Hikaru brought me to Squamish, specifically Alice Lake, to go trout fishing!!

I haven’t been fishing since… far too long!

My Paps used to take us all the time and I thought maybe I might’ve lost my touch on hooking ‘em worms on but I guess I didn’t.

Not surprisingly, the worms in Canada are far bigger & juicier looking than the scrawny stringy worms in Malaysia.. also slimier, which made it a little harder to get them hooked on good.

It was the perfect day for fishing! It wasn’t too warm but nice & sunny

Fishing @ Alice Lake (11th of July, 2010)

Beautiful Alice lake. This is Hikaru’s secret fishing spot!

Hika prepping the rods.

I was sooooo afraid of possibly falling in. Camera & all our other good stuff stayed behind.

Sparkling crystal waters… so pretty!!

After about an hour & the half (we kinda started a little late and the trip over took an hour..), we were done!

Hika was a little pessimistic because he says that no one ever goes fishing in the late afternoon and catches anything. According to him, fishies are asleep! He goes in the wee hours in the morning and catches 20 fishes apparently.

But since my lazy bum can’t get up earlier than 10am on my days off, there was no way in heck I could wake up early just to fish… pfft.

Which is why I was thrilled with my catches of the day!!

Catch #1: Tangled lines connect to a very old tiny hook and a very old teensy floaty thingy.

Catch #2: Even more tangled lines hooked to a pretty decent sized log. I was on a roll here.

Catch #3: I caught my very first trout!!! It was small compared to the crazy huge fishies I’d used to get fishing with my Paps but my Paps had those hard core crazy fishing gear with huge ass hooks & since worms were too puny for bait, we used chicken intestines… yum.

Catch #4: I caught my 2nd trout, wheeee!!

Granted it wasn’t 20 trouts (but what on earth are we gonna do with 20 fishies anyway??), but at least I caught something!!
(which is more than I can say about Mr. Pessimistic *hehe*)

I’m glad he took me though! I’m so pumped to go again. I told him we needed to get bigger hooks & maybe buy an inflatable boat so we can fish deeper into the lake and get the big boys!!

Too dark…

Failed again…

There’s my fishies!! Puny lil’ buggers but I’m pretty psyched to get ‘em deep fried & eating them up, MMM!! >:)

After all that, it was time for dinner!

Felt like Izakaya but went to Guu Garlic & Toratatsu recently so those were out. Kingyo & Miku are too expensive for the amount we were planning to have and well, we both worked at Hapa so out, out, and out. Thus, we visited Guu Garden to give it a second shot.

Tried it once before and didn’t quite like anything we ordered…

This time around, it definitely was a better experience!!

Dinner @ Guu Garden (the same night)

With Hikapoop.

Hika’s face is extremely punchable, I know.

Gento; the sashimi platter. Replaced tuna with more salmon because I hate tuna sashimi, yucks. So fatty! Ahi tuna on the other hand… Anyway, and there was kanpachi, scallops & amaebi (spot prawns). Love kanpachi!! All very fresh.

Bang Bang G; strips of chicken and jelly fish salad in goma dressing. Guuuuud!

Kimchi udon. Can they be any more stingier on their kimchi? Jeebus. Wasn’t very good, wouldn’t recommend it. Unless you like noodles with oodles of butter.

Tako uni wasa. Again, could they be any stingier with their uni??? Taste like the same shiznit as Hapa’s so…. I probably wouldn’t order it again. I think I prefer Guu Garlic’s or Octopus Garden’s tako wasa better.

Cream Korokke; I don’t quite enjoy eating deep fried cream so…. I left this all for Hikaru. He downed the whole thing pretty quick so if you like a ball of deep fried cream, I believe this is pretty good.

Tontoro kushi. I like this! But I couldn’t eat more than one kushi. Is there such a thing as too tasty? I think so.

I forget what this is called (another one of Hika’s choices) but it’s basically balls of taro (yam). Decent… I really like bonito flakes though!

Gindara; sablefish cooked in miso and butter. Not recommended. Again, unless you like tasteless fish with oodles of butter….

Dessert! Green tea cheese cake on top of a chocolate chop cookie. Good! Light and not too sweet (most white places desserts are too darn sweet.. it’s like diabetic-on-the-spot sweet most of the time, which is why I would more often prefer going to Jap places for desserts). Definitely would come back for this dessert.

So some hits & some misses but all in all, waaaaaaay better than our first time experience here.

Up sides are that it’s super close to Hikaru’s place in downtown + the ambience/settings/atmosphere is pretty nice!

Alrighty, should go back to concentrating on my Prof (hehe).

Over & out