Thursday, August 31, 2006

Aza aza! Fighting!

I have returned from my mini-vacation in the amazing and beautiful British Columbia and I'm going to tell you all about it. [Note: Be prepared for a very long post.]

Wednesday, August 23, 2006 - Departure
Despite having our household in utter chaos, my family managed to finalize our ongoings, and hit the highway mid-afternoon. Not much was to be expected of the ride there; after all, it's twelve hours of sitting, watching the world whiz by at over one hundred kilometers per hour. Jasper National Park always presents some pretty scenes, though, and this time around we were lucky to catch the most intense rainbow I have ever witnessed in my life. This picture barely does it any justice.

Since we left so late, it would have been difficult and pointless to carry on driving through the night, so we stopped at a motel in Clearwater, ate burgers and fries, and watched How William Shatner Changed the World.

Thursday, August 24, 2006 - Arrival
We continued our journey west the following morning at a leisurely pace. We arrived at my aunt's house in Surrey (about thirty kilometers east of Vancouver) in the late afternoon, and tucked in for a good meal. Since our day was consumed mostly by travel, there was no point in going into Vancouver, so we elected to relax. My uncle suggested we watch Full House, which he had on DVD, and we were definitely tantalized by a trip down memory lane with the Tanners. However, this was not a San Fransiscan family and their hijinks; it was a Korean romantic comedy. Reluctantly we agreed to watch it and the sting of disappointment was soon dissolved. This is one of those so-bad-it's-good kind of shows, only it's not actually that bad. It just has an extremely far-fetched story, and unnecessarily long intervals without action.

Feel free to ignore the following ramble. It's a synopsis of the TV show, which is convuluted, but endearing.

It starts out with an orphaned, aspiring young writer, Han Ji-eun, who lives alone in the amazing house her father designed and built. Her two "best friends," Dong-wook and Jin-hee, get pregnant together, but are deeply in debt and desperate for cash. So, they buy Ji-eun a trip to Shanghai, and while she is away, they sell all of her belongings and her house. Meanwhile, on her trip to Shanghai, Ji-eun sits beside and greatly annoys one of Korea's biggest movie stars, Lee Young-jae. It turns out they are also staying in the same hotel. While at the hotel, Ji-eun also meets one of Young-jae's greatest friends, Yu Min-hyuk, who instantly takes a liking to her. After a couple of days in Shanghai, Ji-eun discovers her friends have also taken all of her savings, so she has no money to pay for her hotel nor for a ticket back to Korea. So, she creates this elaborate story to tell Young-jae in order to convince him to lend her some cash. Somehow, he agrees. Of course, Ji-eun returns home only to discover her life has been sold, and wouldn't you know it, the person that bought her house was none other than the movie star that hates her and to which she is indebted, Young-jae. He immediately throws her out, but she stands her ground, and they agree that she can stay the the house, but she is basically his slave, cooking and cleaning for him. Meanwhile, Young-jae is caught up in a love triangle, involving himself, Min-hyuk, and their childhood friend, Hye-won. Young-jae loves Hye-won, but Hye-won loves Min-hyuk; Min-hyuk thinks of Hye-won as a little sister. This love triangle soon becomes a love quadrilateral as Ji-eun enters the picture. Min-hyuk, of course, likes Ji-eun, while Young-jae hates her. Ji-eun is somewhat indifferent to both Min-hyuk and Young-jae, but that soon changes. So, Young-jae is about to propose to Hye-won, but she loves Min-hyuk so much that it breaks Young-jae's heart and he somehow marries Ji-eun out of spite. It's a botched marriage because Young-jae hates Ji-eun and she is his slave. They are constantly fighting. Hye-won still goes after Min-hyuk but he tells her that it would never work out and she goes crazy. Young-jae also continues to show great affection towards Hye-won, and (ooooooh) Ji-eun starts to get jealous. We skipped a few epsiodes to watch all of it in time, but in the end it turns out that Ji-eun and Young-jae get a divorce, no one ends up loving Hye-won, and Min-hyuk proposes to Ji-eun. BUT, Young-jae also falls in love with Ji-eun despite hating her before, and he proposes (again) to her, too. Who does she choose???

Like I said, it's convoluted and corny and not really that great, but I really like it.


Friday, August 25, 2006 - Science World
Fresh off a good-night's sleep, my sisters and I hopped on the Skytrain, and went to Science World. I, of course, love science, so it was difficult not to have fun. We started off with a look at their preview for the soon-opening Body Worlds 3 exhibit. It would have been nice to see this considering my love for anatomy and physiology, but it opens on September 15. We then looked at their Our World exhibit that explored about all the major elemental cycles, energy sources, and waste management. Then it was time for our show in the Omnimax Theatre, which is housed in the geodesic dome of Science World. It's hard to describe just how cool this theatre is, with it's dome-screen and everything. It's sorta like the one at Edmonton's Telus World of Science, but better. We saw "Greece: Secrets of the Past," which has prompted be to aspire to one day visit Greece, particularly the island of Santorini.

After the film, we continued to explore the remaining exhibits, including a look at ancient Egypt presented in LEGO. It was pretty neat and probably took hours and hours to make each of the pieces. Also, is it true that people make careers out of just making LEGO masterpieces? Because if it is, I don't know why I am going to freakin' university.

We also had some fun in the permanent exhibits (The Mitchell Odyssey Foundation: Eureka!and The Sara Stern Gallery: Search).

After Science World, we met up with my cousin and she took us to this super sweet Japanese/Korean restaurant, Shabusen Yakiniku House. After that we went to an even sweeter ice creamery. Well, it wasn't really ice cream, but gelato, and there were (get this) 218 flavours to choose from!!!! 218!!!! Although some of them I wouldn't even consider trying (Kimchi, pear gargonzola blue cheese, chocolate chili), others were quite tempting. I settled on a pomegranate sorbetto.

Saturday, August 26 , 2006 - Relax
Instead of rushing back into Vancouver, we decided to join my aunt at a reunion picnic at the Peace Arch Provincial Park. We didn't do much beyond enjoying the sun, eating lots of great food, and playing with the cutest children ever. We met up with my cousin in Vancouver and she took us to get delicious donairs. We then strolled around the Bayshore area, which is across the inlet from Stanley Park (we were going to rent bikes but we were too late). It's a pretty "hoity-toity" area with their yacht clubs and swank bars. We stopped at a Bojangles cafe for some chocolate cake and chai lattes and then visited the Inukshuk in English Bay. After that we went to the Richmond night market - this huge and predominantly oriental flea market selling pretty much anything. We were set on buying a copy of Full House on DVD to take home, but we were unlucky, seeing the last copy go from the lone vendor that had it. To console ourselves, we bought some bubble tea and then made the journey back to my aunt's house for a well-needed sleep.

Sunday, August 27, 2006 - The Aquarium
Our day got off to a very slow start, so we didn't make it to the aquarium until 4:00. Additionally, the aquarium had a power issue and was scheduled to close early that day, at 6:00 rather than 7:00. So we only had two hours to tour it, which turned out to be ample enough. We were looking most forward to this excursion, and, accordingly, I took A LOT of pictures, perhaps too many, and since the lighting was generally quite low, many of them turned out rather blurry. But I still got a few keepers.

Perhaps the most disappointing animals on display were the sharks. Maybe we didn't stay to look at them long enough, but they seemed small and basically uninteresting. The best were the belugas. They are simultaneously the cutest and most disgusting creatures. Their pure whiteness connotates purity and innocence, and their pudginess only adds to it. But when you learn just how much of them is fat, and take a closer look, you feel slightly sick. They have this oblong figures with pockets of fat sticking out in random places, and when they swim, you can see their fat ripple in the water. But then you look at those adorable little faces and you're back to loving them again. The sea otters were almost as cute, but they had this foul odor about them.

After the aquarium, we went to dinner at Fresgo's, this diner-type restaurant in Davie Village. I had perhaps one of my favourite sandwiches, a Reuben. After dinner, we couldn't help but make a return visit to my new favoutire ice creamery. This time I decided on mango colada, which was not as great as I hoped it would be.

Monday, August 28, 2006 - Bust
Originally we had planned on heading to the Capilano Suspension Bridge, but since our expenses were starting to run a little high and admission to the bridge was so steep, we decided we'd visit the Lynn Canyon Suspension Bridge, which we had visited at least once before in our childhoods. But even that plan fell through, and we ended up doing nothing. That night, though, my aunt hosted a dinner, which featured good food and karaoke. We reunited with my parents, and went to bed early in preparation for the long journey home.

Tuesday, August 29, 2006 - Mondo Bust
We slept in. We left late. The shocks on our truck went. We were stuck in Abbotsford for an extra four hours. The weather was less than optimal (foggy). The truck was cramped. We tried to stop for a few hours' rest, but that was a gong show. I didn't sleep a wink, and we didn't get home until 8:00 Wednesday morning, greeted by CRAPPY weather, of course.

As a consolation, though, I got to hang out with my best buds, and took in a most excellent movie - Little Miss Sunshine. I haven't laughed that hard at a movie in a long time. It was clever and rather tragic, actually, but still very, very funny. It also had a good soundtrack. Make sure you see it.

If you've made it this far, congratulations, and thank you for a dedicated spat of reading. I appreciate it. I think I'll be posting some more pictures on Flickr.

Tuesday, August 22, 2006

On the Road, Again... Finally

Please forward you congratulations to my family for finally deciding what we want to do.

Although it would be nice to spend the dying days of summer as a family, we have opted to split up to do what we want to do. Mom and Dad are going fishing in Chilliwack, while my sisters and I are off to Vancouver for some touristy exploring. Even though we lived on the Lower Mainland for four years, I have never truly seen Vancouver. So, we hope to hit Science World, the Capilano Suspension Bridge, Vancouver Aquarium, Stanley Park, Gastown, etc. We might even head out to Victoria for a day to see my uncle and his new house.

We're leaving tomorrow, and we should be back in a week. It's likely, but not guaranteed, that I will have computer access, although I might not want to recount my mini-holiday until I am home. Nonetheless, I promise more pictures this time.

Unrelatedly, my Spurs won today! Zing! And perhaps my weirdest atrribute dawned on my today: I sleep with my eyes open.

Sunday, August 20, 2006

Operation: There Is No Operation

BAH! I hate that my family never plans anything. Or, they never confide in me any plans that have been made. I thought we were supposed to be off to B.C. on Friday, but I somehow got that confused with the contractor coming over to dig up our backyard. Okay, maybe our departure got bumped to Saturday? Nope, I had a soccer game suddenly pop up in the evening. Now it seems that no one actually knows what is going on - where we're going, when we're going, for how long we're going, or if we are going at all. We try to discuss the issue and work out a plan, but it never gets resolved, a fact that is agitating me immensely.

I think that part of why it is bothering me so much is that I am getting anxious about school. Part of me is quite dreadful in regard to the possible, and more likely probable, difficulty of this "final leg" of my degree. The other part of me is excited about being back on campus, being around people, and immersing myself in things I love. And I suppose I am expecting this jaunt to B.C. to evaporate the last couple of weeks before classes start. I can go, have some fun in the sun, spend time with my family in a beautiful province (not that I have anything against Alberta), and then return with a mere couple of days before "hittin' the books." Waiting is terrible way to pass the time, and we all know what makes time fly.

But enough of my petty woes.

The EPL season kicked off yesterday. While part of me wanted to get up at 5:30 in the morning to take in the triple-header in its entirety, a greater part of me wanted to sleep. As such, I only saw the Bolton-Tottenham game, which was really to my liking as my favourite EPL team is Tottenham. However, they lost, almost embarassingly, by two goals that Bolton scored in the first fifteen minutes of the match. But it's only the first game, and I have full confidence that my Spurs will rise to the top of the table and earn a spot in the Champions League.

Also, who is regularly reading my blog from Italy?

Tuesday, August 15, 2006

Five "Weirder" Things

Mostly because I have nothing else to blog about along with the desire to blog, I have decided to reveal five more weird, if not weirder, things about myself.
  1. I have lived in eight different houses, nine if you include The Magic Bus I lived in for six months in Mexico. [The Magic Bus was an old RV that was painted white. It very much resembled an ice cream truck.]
  2. My nose is very sensitive to changes in the atmosphere, and responds by bleeding. If it's too dry - it bleeds; too humid - it bleeds; if the pressure changes suddenly - it bleeds. In the sixth grade I had a nosebleed so severe I was excused from school and rushed to a medicentre (I bled for more than two hours). My nose is possibly most sensitive to atmospheric changes that involve hard objects striking my nasal region at high speeds. I have had too many nosebleeds to count.
  3. I have three cowlicks. If you imagine my head as cuboidal as possible without actually being a cube, I have a cowlick on each of the superior, dorsal vertices. The other is smack in the middle of the hairline on my forehead. As a result, I cannot have bangs, and if my hair is too short, I get these pouffs at the back of my head. I know that cowlicks are not uncommon, and not "weird," but I thought that having three was a little out of the ordinary. And this lady once told me that cowlicks are signs of good fortune, rendering me very fortunate, I suppose.
  4. I hate telephones. I hate making phone calls. I hate answering phone calls. I hate hearing phones ring. At home, I rarely answer the phone, and if I am home alone, I will sooner let the call go to the answering machine than answer it. I don't mind if someone calls for me, as long as I don't have to answer it. Talking on the phone is not a problem. I'm not sure if it is a fear or just a dislike; either way, I don't know from where it originates. Sometimes I think that getting a cell phone might help me get over it just from increased exposure, but I hardly get enough phone calls to necessitate my own cell phone anyway.
  5. When I'm having a meal consisting of different dishes it is very important that the different dishes do not make contact with each other on my plate. For example, say I'm having a meal of rice, steak, and salad. The rice cannot be touching the salad nor the steak in anyway, and the steak and salad must be free of contact as well. If, by chance, two dishes happen to touch, I cringe a little, and then separate them. I will still eat them. However, just because they cannot touch on my plate does not mean that they cannot touch on my fork. For example, say I wanted to take a morsel of steak and a bit of rice in the same mouthful. I'll put the steak on my fork and then scoop up a bit of rice. This is the extent of my weird eating habits - it's not like I eat one dish at a time in a counter-clockwise fashion around my plate, and chew each mouthful exactly twenty-seven times before swallowing or anything.
There, I have fulfilled my urge to blog. And in other news, I peeled about seventy pounds of apples today. Consequently, I will be eating apples in their various cooked forms for the rest of eternity.

Saturday, August 12, 2006

Bored Games

I'm bored.

BORED

Bored beyond satiety.

I'm not tired. I'm not restless. I'm not fidgety. I am just bored. Nothing I do tides me over for very long and I've been doing stuff that normally keeps me happy.

I've been reading my beloved Harry Potter (and the Order of the Phoenix). I started it yesterday after finishing A Million Little Pieces, which I didn't really like, by the by - I had some style issues. Anyway, I am now a couple hundred pages in and I am fully reminded why this book is my least favourite of the series. Holy sugar and spice, Harry is angsty. He drives me NUTS, BERZERK, INSANO. Ugh.

I've been playing Sudoku. I only discovered it a few days ago and I'm currently just honing my skills on the easiest puzzles. Problem is... after about five or six puzzles my brain shuts off and I suddenly have no idea what I'm doing. And then I'm mentally exhausted and bored.

I've been playing Makeover with my little sisters - we round up all the makeup we can find, and we go CRAZY. Well, not really CRAZY, but maybe crazy. And then we take photos (see new profile picture).

I've been playing around with some photos, par example:







I've been scouring the Internet for some fun.

I've been e-mailing people.

I've been watching TV.

And I've been blogging, of course.

For someone as bored as me, I sure have been doing a lot. Just not enough.

Le Sigh. I really hoped that blogging would fill the void that is my boredom, but I was wrong. It provided only a temporary, fleeting sense of satisfaction. And now it's gone. Boy, have I wasted your time. I'm going to bed.

Tuesday, August 08, 2006

Five "Weird" Things

Who is it that sings that song..... "Too much time on my hands..." Is it Styx? Some band like Styx? Whoever sings it doesn't really matter. What matters is that I obviously have too much time on my hands to be blogging twice in one day. I have been tagged to do this little survey thing by Monsieur Bergman, so here goes:
  1. I haven't got a run-of-the-mill middle name. Mine is my mother's maiden name, whose middle name is her mother's maiden name, and so on and so forth. It's traditional in my mom's culture. This is partially and coincidentally unfortunate pour moi as I have ended up with the initials K.O.W..
  2. My development from birth was rapid: I was on solid foods at six weeks, I cut my first teeth soon after, I was crawling at three months, walking and talking by seven months. I could read by the time I was three, and had my own signature by five. The first multiplication operation I taught myself was 11 x 20. I skipped the second grade and almost skipped the third. But, I have kind of plateaued since then.
  3. I have very keen eyes, though only when I am wearing my glasses. Although I have poor vision that requires correction, I am very good at scanning scenes to find things.
  4. Though I started reading at an early age, I was never a bookworm. I read so few books in my childhood that I cannot really remember any. The books that really got me interested in reading were the Harry Potter books, and I didn't start reading those until I was fourteen or so. To this day I don't read very much, mostly because during school I don't have the time. But I do make a conscious effort during the summer to read as much as I can. This summer I haven't lived up to expectations, and am just about to finish my eighth book since the beginning of May (five of which I have already read at some time in the past).
  5. I have two birthmarks, one on my arm and one on my ankle. The one on my arm is dark and the one on my ankle is light. They are pretty much the same size and shape. So, it's my theory that the pigmentation that was once in my ankle somehow jumped to my arm prenatally, resulting in two birthmarks.
I'm not sure that these facts are particularly "weird" because they are about me and I don't think that I am "weird." Maybe they're a bit trivial, but they're true. This has reminded me of all the personal tidbits I revealed on my old blog and the very few that I have revealed here (as in favourites, dislikes, pet peeves, etc.). Maybe I'll rectify that. . .

Oh, and I hereby tag:
Nicole, if she has the time
Karen
Future MD
...and anyone else that reads my blog, has their own blog, hasn't done it, and wants to do it.

Obligatory Homecoming Post

Oh, Saskatchewan, the land where the dominant lifeform is the hay-bail; also the land where I spent the last few days, lappin', lovin', and livin' it up. My family, along with another full family and part of yet another family spent the long weekend at Greig Lake, SK, one of the many lakes in Meadow Lake Provincial Park.

My account in categorized, unordered lists. . .

Things that I did not like about our excursion:

The roads. Good gracious, I am glad Alberta has money to put into our roads. Though perhaps trivial in the grand scheme of things, it's somewhat unnerving driving on a unevenly paved stretch of highway that has no discernable centre line or shoulders for a couple of hours. Not only is it an unpredictable and uncomfortable ride, you start to feel plain ol' embarassed for Saskatchewan.

The arthropod community
. Maybe it's because I live in the city and in a different province, for that matter, but Saskatchewan has got some pretty weird bugs, weird and unusually large. Perhaps we were situated by some hotbed of radiation, which has genetically mutated the insects to grow to extraordinary sizes. Or maybe some vacationing witches and wizards are demonstrating to their children the proper use of the Engorgement charm (because the children could not be practicing it themselves - that would be in violation of the Decree for the Reasonable Restriction of Underage Sorcery).

The rain
. It rained on Friday afternoon, all through the night, and into Saturday afternoon. Not extreme rain accompanied by high winds or anything, just rain. Unstoppable, unignorable rain.

The inexplicably cold nights
. I don't know if it was because were right on the lake or because we were so far north, but DANG did it ever get cold at night, cold to the point where I was driven to wear short and pants, two sweaters with hoods, and socks to bed. Mind you, we were sleeping in a tent with only a wafery piece of synthetic fabric between us and the elements. But still - a day that reached a very summery thirty-odd degrees should not be followed by a night where I could see my breath and was awaken simply by how freakin' cold my face felt.

The facilities
. I have done a fair bit of camping in my day, and have accordingly encountered a wide range of camping-washrooms. On the whole, these facilities were actually quite good. There were "flush" outhouses, and free and clean showers. I think it was their proximity (or lack thereof) to our site that bummed me out. The closest outhouse was a good three hundred metres from our site. Normally not too bad, but in the middle of the night when The Urge is calling and it's pouring rain outside, three hundred metres might as well be three hundred kilometres.

Things that I did like about our excursion:

The night sky
. Being out of the city affords me the chance to stargaze, albeit with the naked eye. It's still fun though, and one of my most favourite things to do ever is to watch the sky for satellites. Over the weekend I not only found countless satellites, but saw a handful of shooting stars, and on Sunday night was privy to a wonderful display of the Northern Lights. Oddly, though, I never saw the moon. I'm pretty sure we're not close to a new moon, so I really don't know why I didn't see it.

The lake
. I was a little skeptical about going to a prairie lake. In my experience, they've got nothing on the mountain lakes of British Columbia. But this one was alright. It was sizeable, not too busy considering it was the long weekend, and had good spots for the various watersports in which we partook. The watersports in themselves were another little bundle of fun. Between the fourteen of us that were camping we had two boats, two wakeboards, three sets of waterskis, two kneeboards, two slalom skis, and two towable innertubes. Perhaps the most fun was the tubing. If you have never been tubing, it'd be hard to explain the sort of exhilaration it gives you. I can liken it to that of a roller coaster, but it's not exactly the same. With tubing you're holding on for dear life, being dragged and bounced around at the mercy of the boat's driver. You're horrified of what might happen, but laugh when it's over; you're anticipating your puppet-master's next move, but still anxious in the unpredictability. You're flying and sinking and travelling at what feels like a million miles per hour. You're laughing and breathing heavy, knocking into others and hurting from holding on so tightly. Sometimes you're bitin' it, hitting a huge wave and flipping over, face-planting onto the hard, watery surface.

The food
. When you're preparing to go camping, you generally stock up on unperishables. Among unperishables are some delicious bits of junk. Crackers and chips and granola bars and marshmallows and sugary cereals and pop and juice. Then there's the roastable foods, stuff you can cook over open flame: hot dogs, hamburgers, canned beans, etc. Then there is just plain old good camping food. Each meal we ate was prepared for fourteen people - that's a lot of food. Each meal we ate was absolutely delicious. I couldn't help but indulge a little.

The company
. I'll admit that I felt a little out of place at the beginning, and still did at the end but to a lesser extent. I felt like an outsider. Among the nine children were a pair of hockey teammates, a pair of basketball teammates, and a triplet of soccer teammates, none of which included myself (nor one of my sisters). I am twenty years old, my sister is eighteen years old, and the next oldest were the hockey teammates at sixteen years. It wasn't impossible for us to relate to them, but it certainly wasn't easy. All the young 'uns would go off into their groups or would mingle without my sister and I. That left us with the parents, to whom it was just as difficult to relate. They just talked and shared stories and recipes and whatnot. So, my sister and I would sit and listen. Sometimes we went off to read. But in the end, I was still there with my family, another great family, and another great part of a family. We shared many a'laugh, either out on the lake, at dinner, or around the fire (there was an ongoing joke about the two hockey players sharing a tent with Brokeback Mountain references and whatnot. It was only furthered by the boys themselves: one night around the fire one asks the other, "So, do you wanna go have a shower?" without any intention of it sounding the way it did. The other replied with a disgusted "No," and everyone busted a gut).

I'm sorry that I don't have more pictures. Honestly and regrettably, I didn't take that many, and those that I did take include people, and I don't think I should be posting picture of people without their permission. But I can give you an idea of what it looked like. The lake - big, watery, greenish. Around the lake - lots of trees. On the highway - lots of flat land, cows, and bails of hay. It was wet and dark when it rained, and dry, hot, and bright when it didn't. But, I suspect that The Fam may be taking off to British Columbia in the coming days, and I promise to take more photos then.

Thank you Nicole, Karen, Future MD, and Erin for your sweet comments.

Wednesday, August 02, 2006

Un P'tit Hiatus

I am off to the glorious and wonderful Saskatchewan until Monday-ish, presumably without any Internet access. So, uh... like, leave me a sweet comment to read when I return.