Best Weekend Ever!

This weekend was the best ever! It was packed with activity and interesting things to see and do. It was great. I left work around 12:15 as I was given the afternoon off. P. and I quickly cleaned up the apartment, dealt with the cats and then headed off for the ferry. Based on their online status, the ferries were already 40 - 50% full. We wanted to get there ASAP to avoid the huge crowds. We got there just after 2PM and thankfully made it onto the 3PM ferry.

IKEA

After a brief rest at my place, we head out to IKEA. I wanted a shelf for our pantry and things like that are ridiculously expensive on the island. I found one that was decent looking online for $20 at IKEA. I didn't want to ship it as it will cost more than I paid for it. P. wanted to look at chairs. We both found what we wanted, but P.'s chair was really heavy and we didn't have a car going back to Victoria, so we didn't get up getting it. On the way out we saw this funky desk that had the word "love" written in different languages on it. P. really liked the style of it and was drooling...

Night Market

After IKEA, we headed to night market! I didn't go last year and was sad to hear that this years wasn't going to happen. Somehow another company go involved and they were able to have the night market at the same location. The was much smaller than I remembered in previous years. They had taken out one entire row of stalls and another stall was only half filled. The food, however, was just as good. P. and I shared a whole bunch of stuff: bubble tea, sui mai (燒賣), takoyaki, curry fish balls (咖喱魚丸), Korean japchae and little chicken egg dessert (雞蛋子). The last thing isn't really little chicken eggs. They just look like chicken eggs, but its really a waffle like slight sweet dessert. I was too busy eating to take pictures!

The food stalls - pretty busy!

Making Takoyaki!

The market wasn't as busy as past years. The stalls with food were pretty packed, but the other stalls were pretty empty. I remember in past years where you need to grab hold of others in your party or else you would lose them in the crowd! This year, there were huge gaps and lots of space. Takes away from the experience a bit. It was still fun though! I ended up purchasing a Puma bag and P. got a Spainish soccer jersey. It was definitely a fun night. I kept on running into people too. People I knew from Victoria of all places. Guess people were over for the long weekend.

Shopping

P.'s computer died a couple days ago and we took it to Vancouver to get it checked out. The computer guy said that the motherboard was fried and that P. needed to get a new one. That began our 3 hour long search. We were at lunch at the time, but there was a Best Buy next door. They didn't have anything. We tried Future Shop and that was another no. They suggested we go to The Source who said the Future Shop guys know nothing and that they always refer people to them (haha). The Source referred us to NCIX, a computer store in Burnaby (near Metrotown).

The set up of the store was interesting. It was a mix between a retail store and a warehouse it seemed like. At first we weren't sure what to do. Employees were calling out numbers and people were at computers... It was just a mess. Eventually we figured out that we needed a number. When we arrived they were in the 80s, our number was in the hundreds. In total, I think we waited about 45 mins.

The guy we got was pretty useless. We described what we needed, but sold us the wrong thing. Once we left the store, P. and I took a look at it before we left the vicinity and the motherboard given to use was HUGE. No way would it fit into P.'s tiny computer. In the end P. returned the motherboard and asked the computer guy to ask his distributor about a correctly sized motherboard.

The inside of NCIX.

Afterwards, P. and I head to Metrotown for some hardcore shopping. More about that tomorrow.

Sushi Garden

After our intense shopping spree and massive amounts of spending money, P. and I were tired and hungry. Neither of us knew what we wanted to eat. We ended up driving past a sushi restaurant that was still pretty busy despite the late hour (just after 9PM). There was no wait and we sat down right away. At first glance, the menu was extensive and very well priced. The walls were painted quite nicely.

We ended up ordering Spicy Tuna Roll, Yam Tempura Roll, Chicken Karage and Tempura Udon. The Spicy Tuna Roll was interesting. They had sliced up the tuna which is really different from the chunks that are served in Victoria, AND it was actually SPICY!! In Victoria, the spicy tuna roll is never spicy (enough). I always add more wasabi to get the spice factor, but here they were great. After 2/3 pieces my mouth was burning. Yum! The Yam Tempura Roll was pretty good. The roll was large and had quite a bit of yam in it.

Yam Tempura on top; Spicy Tuna on bottom

The Chicken Karage, was so-so. It didn't look all that appetizing and seemed to lack the "karage" taste that other places have. It was very subtle. The Tempura Udon was decent as well. P. loved the springiness of the Udon noodles. It came with 4 pieces of tempura. I remember from when I was younger (I always ordered Tempura Udon) that it would come with a huge place of tempura so I was a bit disappointed. Despite that, it still tasted great and the tempura had the right about of dough to veggie ratio and a good crunch to it.

By the time P. and I had worked our way through this, we were stuffed. I packed 3 of our chicken pieces in a napkin to be eatten later. The best part? The bill only came to $17!!! What a deal! If we had the same meal in Victoria, it would have cost at least $30 and have tasted much much worse. Definitely will be coming back here in the future. Oh - the reviews are right. The service isn't all that great, but I can look past that because of their awesome food.

Vancouver Pride Parade

Sunday morning /afternoon I headed to the Vancouver Pride Parade. There SO many people out, dressed in the craziest of things. I remember going to the Victoria one and feeling overdressed and in too bland colours. This time around, I was a bit more prepared and wore a brightly colored tank. The parade was HUGE. Lasted 2 hours. There were so many floats ranging from politicans to churches (!!!) to various societies. It was a lot of fun. Lots of free stuff and awesome energy bouncing around. Here are some pics:

Mmmm...

Check out those costumes! Must be super hot!

Even I couldn't wear those shoes, walking for hours.

Brave soul!

B.C. Day (150 Years Anniversary)

And so on Monday, I headed back to Victoria throughly exhausted. I didn't really want to go out again, but P. and I went and walked around the inner harbour just to see what was happening. We managed to catch a bit of Sarah McLachlan's performance, which was cool.

And so ended the best weekend ever. I'm so tired. I'll need a whole day to sleep to recover!