We go home (sob!)

Wednesday - September 17, 2014

We go home today (sob!).  I'm always sad when vacations end (I have to go back to work - sob!) but I actually do miss home.  I miss my own bed - I miss having my own room and not having to share a bathroom (though the last two nights of just sharing with Raymond hasn't been too bad) and I miss my puppy.  I got my puppy three weeks before we left on vacation.  Yes, that wasn't smart - but he was so cute and I missed my Bento (God rest his soul, he passed away on July 26th of this year at 11 years of age) so much that I needed a puppy.  See?

Isn't he adorable?  I missed him a lot, so even though I was sad our vacation was ending, I was happy to see my baby.  

Raymond and I wake up and trudge our way down to the lounge to have breakfast.  Instead of their baked omelet dish, they had hot oatmeal, but plenty of carbs and croissants and other deliciousness available.  We fueled up knowing that we were going to spend the day traveling.  He was flying back to Hong Kong while I was a weenie and just flying home to LA.  But since airlines no longer feed us I knew I had to eat breakfast (not that you had to force me to eat.   Please).  So we stuffed out faces because that's how we roll.  Then we went back to our rooms to finish up.

Um....we had a lot of luggage.  A lot.  We weren't going to fit into a taxi - so Raymond called the front desk and asked if they could call for a van taxi for us - and they did.  Yay for service!  We had a cool taxi driver - he lived in Hong Kong for about a decade so he could speak Cantonese (though we speak Mandarin, though we both speak the language of dim sum - which to me is the most important part of Cantonese) AND he lived in LA for a few years as well...so he knew our teeny tiny hometown!  We even talked about restaurants and places we like.  It was probably the most entertaining taxi ride we've ever had...the world is indeed a small, small place.  

Because we're taking different airlines to different places, we say goodbye to Raymond and drop him off first.  Then we go to the Air Canada hub and check in.  Where are the people?  It's all machines now!  We had to find someone to come and check in our luggage for us since they wanted to charge us.  Alas, as my parents are premier gold, they can't!  But we had to get a live body to come over and waive the fee and print out the tags for us.  Check in was easy.  What was a pain in the butt?  Going through immigration.  OMG.  Once again, there are no longer people, but machines.  Which would be great and fast, except they pull random people to go and talk to the ICE people (all 3 of them, sitting there sipping their coffees with the most bored expression on their faces) in their little kiosks.  What sucked?  My dad got picked while my mom and I were cleared, but since we were all together, we all got in line (didn't want dad to feel abandoned) and shuffled our way through.  I thought it would be fast, but the guy kept asking us questions - where we went, what we bought, how much we spent, what I did for a living, why we were away from home for two and a half weeks.  Blah blah blah.  What I really wanted to do was ask him if we looked like terrorists or people smuggling small children, but I had enough sense to restrain myself because I know the bored looking rotund man had the ability to order a cavity search and keep me from going home.  That would be no bueno, so I kept my mouth shut, smiled my cheesiest smile at him and he eventually waved us away.    

Finally!  We were through.  Because my parents are gold card members, we got into Air Canada's lounge and we partook of their wifi, delicious coffees as well as assorted snacks (I also very much appreciated their spacious and super clean bathrooms).  We had about an hour until boarding, so we chilled on comfortable club chairs and each played on our phones/tablets and ate our heads off.  

This is how we roll - we play on our phones. All the time.

We then shuffled onto our flight to San Francisco where we were going to catch another 50 minute flight home.  We had originally booked a straight shot from Vancouver to LAX in the early afternoon, but in their typically dastardly underhanded moves, the airline decided to change the flight schedule so our 2 pm flight ended up leaving at 8 pm instead.  Uh...what the hell are we going to do all that time?  I'm not for wandering around the street like hobos for hours while lugging around my crap (see our Paris trip - sob!), so we ended up switching our flightr to a much better time even though it meant that there was going to be a layover. 

Can I just say, Air Canada's economy class sucks donkey balls.  We are not tall people.  I'm 5'2" with short legs, my mom is 5'3" with slightly longer legs.  My dad is 5'8" and his legs aren't very long either.  We come from a short people (with the exception of Yao Ming, who is a freak of Chinese nature.  We don't grow them that tall) and we felt super squashed.  Maybe I should have looked around for a tall guy and taken a photo of him smushed into the seat with his knees around his ears, but I didn't want to seem all creepy stalkery.  So all I have to illustrate the sardine can sized plan are photos of our very short legs.  

look how squashed this is!  Ahhhh!

Alas, our flight ended up being late.  We had about an hour and a half layover at San Francisco which ended up being pretty much all gone by the time we got off our Air Canada flight.  We literally ran off the plane and booked it half way across the freaking airport just to make it in time to board our next flight.  Whew!

Crappy crooked out of focus shot taken while power walking through the airport.  

We made it onto our flight and finally relaxed.  Look how happy my dad is!  And fortunately, because it's a United Airlines flight and we get upgraded to economy plus for free, we were MUCH more comfortable in our new seats for our very long 50 minute flight back to LA.  

dad happy about the leg room.  And about making the flight.

look how roomy this is: you can't even see my knees!

Because there was nothing else to do, and also because I finally had a window seat, I was fascinated by all the planes lined up to take off.  

So yes,  got a little enthusiastic taking photos of the sky, and the water, and the random houses and mountains.  But I also (if you have a microscope) snapped a super bad photo of the Golden Gate Bridge.  Which is neither golden nor did it have a gate that I could see.  

if you look really, really, really hard, you could sort of kind of see the Golden Gate Bridge

After the super short flight (btw, United has the cutest airline safety video now - way more entertaining and way less awkward than a very uncomfortable flight attendant showing you how to buckle your seat belt and waving at the exits from 2 feet away when you're not paying attention at all) we were home!  Yay for crappy LAX!

Except...we did not get our luggage.  We waited, and waited and waited, and our suitcases did NOT come down the conveyor belt.   Thankfully we saved our luggage check in stubs and we hustled our way over to the overwhelmed lady working the counter.  She clicked around on her computer and sighed, then talked smack about the Canadians as well as the morons (her words) who worked at SFO, because they put our luggage on the flight AFTER ours.  And we were not the only ones whose luggage didn't make it - there were about 4 other parties on our flight whose luggage was also on the next flight.  We opted to wait an hour and a half instead of driving the hour back to LAX the next day (or waiting a week for their slow asses to deliver my pajamas).  We grabbed some seats (which we were lucky to get because the baggage place filled up and people ended up sitting on the ground) and my mom had to call and placate our poor driver who was waiting for us.  Poor guy ended up waiting in his van for all that time (we made sure to tip him well) instead of leaving us behind.  So for the next hour and a half we just sat there, playing on our phones (again) and since I'm a snack hoarder, we ate random crackers, macarons, and cake I had stuffed inside my backpack - which was fortunate because we were starving by then.    Our baggage finally came out and we finally got into the van waiting for us and we finally made our way home.  Ahhhh.

Thus ended our two week trip.  We saw things we wanted to see, things we hoped to see, and things we never thought we'd see.  We had two weeks of quality time with family (something not easily obtained these days) and with friends.  We spent days in the boonies with no TV, no radio, no hairdryer (sob!), no Target (double sob) and ate some seriously bad pho we thank the good Lord we didn't get explosive diarrhea and food poisoning from.  We saw some seriously awesome natural phenomena, some beautiful unspoiled nature, and land and water and animals as God created.  All in all, this was a crazy successful trip, one we will remember for years to come.  

A birthday in Vancouver

Tuesday - September 16, 2014

Originally I had some grandiose plans for our one full day in Vancouver (though technically, it was kinda a full day in Vancouver the day before as we got there at like, 7 am - but let's not quibble about technicalities) that included things like the Capilano Suspension Bridge (there's even a free shuttle to it outside our hotel!) and Grouse Mountain for assorted outdoorsy things I don't usually do unless I'm on vacation and feel obliged to engage in.  I mentioned this to my family and they were game.  But honestly, I think at this point everyone was a bit "natured-out" and didn't want to hike or climb or see splendiferous trees and mountains and other nature-y things.  As my mom said, we've already seen the aurora, mountains, Denali, creeks, glaciers, whales and orcas.  Trees...nah.  So our day, which I had originally foreseen to be jam packed with outdoorsy activities ended up being...well, not packed with outdoorsy activities.  It ended up being about good food, time with friends and family, and shopping.  Lots and lots of shopping.

I woke up around 8:30 am and while Raymond was still snoring away (and man can that boy snore) I headed to the regency club lounge for breakfast.  I wish I took a photo, but there were people there and I didn't want to be that person blocking their access to food to take a photo.  Continental breakfast can be so many things.  It can be deliciousness or a banana, a little box of cheerios and a slice of toast.  This was deliciousness.  There was a baked egg dish (kind of like a baked omelet) served with salsa, smoked salmon, bagels, toast, cereals, assorted jams and condiments, croissants and pastries.  I don't know where they got these croissants and pastries, but they were so good.  The croissants were almost as good as the ones we got from Eric Kayser in Paris last year - and that's saying something.  My people were already on the balcony and that only had seating for four, so I grabbed a copy of USA Today (I really just wanted to read the sports section) and headed to an empty table for two.  I ended up next to a very nice woman from Florida who went to Vancouver with her daughter who was there on business and we ended up chatting for about an hour.  It's always nice to meet fun and interesting people in the course of our travels.  After breakfast I went back to our room and I surfed the internets and worked on this blog a little more.  Then it was time for lunch.  

It was Aunt Grace's birthday, so her husband had wanted to plan a nice lunch for her.  With Eddy's recommendation, we made a reservation for Kirin, just a few blocks from our hotel.  I just have to say - stellar choice.  Do you know how hard it is to find a nice Chinese restaurant?  I mean, my people make good food,  but my people are not hip on restaurant decor (it's usually a tacky red/gold color scheme with pictures of dragons and phoenixes.  Eww) and uh, cleanliness with regards to the facilities.  If the nicest Chinese restaurant I can think of is PF Chang's (which I still maintain is a glorified and overpriced Panda Express - the food is fine, but just way too expensive for what you're getting - because dude, $14 for kung pao chicken is just morally wrong) because they have nice lighting and clean bathrooms - that's a problem.  (just in LA - in Asia they have very nice Chinese restaurants.  I wonder if it's just a problem with the Chinese people in California)  

Anyhoo, dim sum is meant to be...brunch.  Small plates like tapas meant to be enjoyed for an extended period of time.  So at around 11:30 am, we met up at the restaurant.  

It's a nice restaurant.  Instead of the traditional carts you order dim sum off a menu.  The ambiance was very nice, it was sleek, modern but warm and their bathrooms were clean (yay!).  

I love this tea warmer.  And yes, dim sum is all about the tea.  It's essentially snacks to go with tea.  I wish we had tea warmers like that here in So Cal.  

We got the traditional dim sum dishes: turnip cake, Chinese broccoli, shumai, hargow, phoenix claw (a fancy ass way of saying chicken feet - you can't just say "chicken feet" on the menu - because that just sounds gross.  You gotta fancy it up), and spare ribs.  We also got an egg cake (not something my family typically gets) and soup dumplings and lobster with noodles - not traditionally dim sum dishes.

Chinese broccoli with oyster sauce (although the sauce in the front is actually XO sauce - a seafood sauce)

Turnip cake - well, cake made with daikon radish.  It's good, but an acquired taste

soup dumplings.  Mmm...

egg cake.  Made the traditional way - with lard.

shrimp dumplings: hargow

spare ribs

chicken feet (let's just call it what it is)

lobster (noodles beneath the lobstery goodness)

What?!  I can't believe I forgot to take a picture of the shumai!  The travesty!

Also, it was Aunt Grace's birthday, and Uncle Eddie didn't know where to buy her candles, so he found the discount store by our hotel and ended up with a tapered candle that was like, a foot long.  He just lit it and stuck it in the egg cake.  She was not amused.  Especially as in Chinese practices (which I'm not aware of because my family is not Buddhist, so we don't have Buddhist funerals) white candles are lit for the dead.  I didn't know that.  Apparently he was oblivious to that and she was a little upset.  My mama came up with a fix though!  (later)

Lunch was good.  We all had a good time, ate good food and had good conversations.  Then we split up - Raymond and I went shopping on Robson Street (really, it was Raymond shopping and me tagging along) and the parents strolled around the neighborhood then went back to the hotel to snack and nap.  

Meanwhile, I was following Raymond around all day - and that boy can shop like a demon.  I'm not a big shopper - there are a few stores I can spend a few hours wandering around in (Target, Ikea, HomeGoods), but for the most part - I'm pretty much march in, grab what I want and leave.   This is probably why I do most of my shopping online - Amazon and I are super tight.  Not Raymond.  He can wander around for hours - he reads labels, examines stitching.  I was about to lose my mind.  But I accompanied him because we don't get to spend too much time together anymore, I needed to walk because I ate too much food and felt like I was going to explode, and also because he kept asking my opinion on clothing items I knew nothing about but I would give him a long rambling incoherent statement anyway.  I did end up buying a teeny tiny Roots sling pouch because I thought it was adorable.  Also, I have many, many, many purses - but I don't have a cute little pouch that size - it's the perfect size for my cell, some cash and credit cards.  Most of my purses are gigantor and can fit the world in there.  I also picked it out because I liked the way it was crafted and it was made in Canada - so it's a useful souvenir!  (also because Raymond bought it for my birthday)  I also ended up with a cute little handbag my mom purchased for me for my birthday we found at Winners - which apparently is the Canadian version of Marshall's.  It was on the 3rd floor of a shopping center and we wandered in thinking it was going to be a Target type store - but nope, it wasn't.  It was almost just like a Marshall's, except Winners has much more designer goods than Marshall's.  Seriously.  The first thing you see when you walk in is an $1800 Ferragamo handbag.  Not too shabby, eh?

Literally, we shopped around for hours, and because I was a moron and didn't wear my trusty Rainbow flip flops, but another pair of sandals (damn you dolce vita!  Damn you!) my feet were about to fall off and I was going to just sit on the pavement and cry uncle.  We were limping back to our hotel when we remembered we were suppose to be buying a birthday cake for Aunt Grace.  We had yelped bakeries around our neighborhood and ended up settling on Thierry, both because of proximity and because of their fabulous reviews.  We walked in and I was enchanted.  Because I saw chocolate.  And pastries.  And macarons.   I was in heaven!  Except...they didn't have cakes we wanted.  As in small cakes - they had big ass cakes - but considering we were leaving the next day no way we could buy a big cake. So I made an executive decision and purchased some small pastries and macarons instead.  We'll just improvise!

I love their door!

OMG.  Look at how pretty this deliciousness is!

sooo pretty

Does this not look like the best thing ever?

They were constantly busy, there were people buzzing around at all hours every time we passed and the people who worked there were cool about me taking pictures of their pretty, pretty pastries (I asked because some places have bitchy people who get all offended like they're Cher and I'm the paparazzi or something).  But the person who helps you with the pastries is different from the person who helps you with the chocolates who's different from the person who helps you with the macarons - which is weird because it's all next to each other.  I don't know if it's usually like this or just because they were busy, but whatever.  It just took a little longer to grab everything you want.  This was not cheap, btw.  It wasn't super pricey, but the macrons were about $2.20 each and I think the pastries ended up being around $6-$8 each.  But totally worth it.  

We hobble back to our hotel room with our box of pastries as well as the fruits of Raymond's shopping labors.  At this point I was going to cry uncle - I just wanted to sit down and not move for a few hours.  Alas, this was not meant to be - after resting for less than an hour (a pittance!) we trooped over to Aunt Grace and Uncle Eddie's room to sing her happy birthday!  And because the dead people white candle freaked her out, my mom cut the candle down and colored it with her lipstick.  Yes, her lipstick.  And since the pastries were too small for the candle, we just stuck it to some random piece of paper and placed it next to the plate.  So we got birthday cakes (sort of) and a birthday candle (sort of)!  Good enough on vacation!

She was excited!

If I go back to Vancouver, I will definitely go back to Thierry.  Their pastries were sooo good.  The blueberry tart was out of this world!  And their mille feuille was amazing.  Their tiramisu was good, but it wasn't great.  I kinda wish we ended up buying another tart or mille feuille instead of the tiramisu.  It was tasty, but it wasn't that different from other tiramisu I've had.  The crust on that tart was magical - magical I tell you!

We told my mama and Aunt Grace about the shops we hit and they decided they wanted to visit Winners - and since we were unable to articulate the location, this meant putting our shoes back on and taking them.  We decided to walk over (about 10 minutes away) and just have dinner there.  Except what we realized at 8:30 pm (after shopping) was that all the restaurants in the area shut down!  What??!!!  Who shuts down at 8:30 pm?  In a major city?  So the parents went back and Raymond and I went in search of take out.  At this point I was super tired, my feet hurt, I was cranky, and I was starving and whined that I was perfectly fine with the McDonald's that was literally half a block away from our hotel and conveniently open 24 hours  (I needed something other than sugar!).  He came up with the brilliant idea of going to the Japadog restaurant to grab food for us and just getting some Asian take out for the parents.  Except we realized after walking the 15 minutes there that Japadog was closed (sob!) and so were the restaurants surrounding it.  We walked another block and managed to find an open Japanese restaurant - Junsei River Japanese Restaurant (we ordered tonkatsu and chicken katsu there) and a Chinese restaurant - Next Noodle Bar -  two doors down open (we ordered 2 different types of fried rice).  He waited at one restaurant while I waited at the other.  Thank God for greedy Asian people who want to make money and stay open late!  Yay!  By this time it was after 9.  He was tired and his feet hurt too - and there were a lot of homeless people wandering around the streets at this point - so literally, once the food was ready, the two of us each grabbed a bag and pretty much hoofed it back to our hotel.  We dropped an order of fried rice off with Aunt Grace and Uncle Eddie and the three of us shared the remaining fried rice and the two Japanese bentos.  The fried rice was good (I'd eat it again, though I sorely missed my sriracha) and the bentos...eh, they were okay.  Honestly, I couldn't taste the difference between the chicken and the pork - they just tasted like fried meat.  If we'd known better we probably would have just ordered more food at the Chinese place.  We spent about $22 CND at each of the restaurants for dinner - so it wasn't too bad.

Sated (and refreshed, since we stopped off at the lounge the floor below and grabbed waters and sodas) we went back to our room to finish up packing and watch some TV.  

We severely underestimated just how much stuff we purchased and had to pack.  In fact, my mama went downstairs to the shopping center earlier in the day and purchased a duffel bag just so her suitcase wouldn't be over the weight limit.  Since she had extra room in her suitcase, I had to put some of my stuff in her suitcase or mine wouldn't close (sob!).  We had an extra carry on size suitcase we had brought with us we had checked when we flew to Alaska, and she gave that one to Raymond to take onto his flight as a carry on since he couldn't shut his suitcase either.  Oops.  

It wasn't until 2 am that we sorted through all our things and settled into bed.  Raymond suddenly sat up dismayed that we had yet to try anything from Tim Horton's.  One of the things we noticed in Vancouver was the overabundance of Starbucks.  Seriously, they're everywhere.  But we don't have a Tim Horton's at home and we had said that we were definitely going to try them while in Vancouver.  Except we hadn't and it was already 2 am.  Never fear!  Right next to our hotel (which has its own Starbucks.  I swear, I think Starbucks is trying to take over Vancouver - there are at least 2 per block and I'm not exaggerating) is a Tim Horton's that's open 24 hours!  So Raymond trudges downstairs @ 2 am just to buy some Canadian coffee. I didn't want anymore coffee because I actually wanted some shut eye, but I yelled after him to grab my fat ass something sweet (now that the fried rice has settled it could use a friend).  So he comes back upstairs after 10 minutes (because the clerk no speaky engrish and they had to settle for lots of hand gesturing) with a coffee, 2 donuts, and 2 packs of ground coffee, one for each of us.  

Canadian donut - which tastes just like its American cousins

Thus ends our last night on vacation, sitting in bed eating donuts while watching Family Guy.  Because we're classy like that.