Jan-chan’s Tidbits

Does your girlfriend gets mad if you check out other walking species with boobies?

Most of you would probably answer “yes”. So now my next question is: why? This topic came up several times between me and a few male buddies. My argument is there’s nothing wrong with looking. It’s like reading/watching porn, but more “3D” as the subject is almost (or is) right in front of you. I think it’s pretty natural to look at what we find interesting, pretty, admirable…etc. It’s like if you see a car on the street that you find interesting, you’d probably give it a good stare, so why can’t it be a person? I confess, I check out guys and girls(!) all the time. People are interesting to look at. From the way they talk to the way they dress. That’s why we have outdoor cafes.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying it’s alright to invade one’s privacy and peep at things you shouldn’t be peeping at (like someone taking a shower). Oh and drooling is bad. Keep that mouth closed while you lock on the target.

I also find it funny when I hear things like “I don’t check out others when I have a boyfriend/girlfriend.” Right. Maybe the idea of “checking out” have different meanings for everyone. Like maybe they just “glanced” at the person. That doesn’t qualify as “checking out” right? Recently I heard this from a person who claimed that they don’t check out other people, “Oh so you didn’t get the cute waiter?” Oops?

Al forwarded this article which I found very interesting: “My ogling makees my girlfriend furious” - by David Eddie. Read it if you want to find out how to train yourself in the art of “nogling”.

Since I celebrated Mother’s Day early with my mom, I had the chance to eat out with Al’s mom last Sunday (May 11, 2008). We went to Nu Restaurant, located right under Granville Street Bridge for Mother’s Day dinner.

This is my second time dining at Nu. The place is very trendy and I love the chairs there. Here’s a couple shots of the interior.

[the bar view]

[the kitchen view]

There were floor to ceiling windows surrounding the restaurant and since there were sunny breaks when we got there, I managed to take a photo of the beautiful view.

There was a tasting menu for spot prawns festival. A 5-course meal for $59. However everyone at the table must order the set menu together and since Al’s mom would like steak, we decided to order separately. Here’s what we got:

[click to enlarge]

I didn’t get pictures for every dish as we were really hunger and dug in before I managed to snap a shot. I ordered a Braised Beef Rib Burger for appetizer which was really yummy. The portions at Nu are bigger than other fine dining places I’ve been to and the prices are really reasonable. They also have a patio which you could enjoy the sunset in a hot summer day.

A few things I think they can improve on:

1. Some of the waiter/bus-person’s attire were dirty (you can see stains on them). We started at 6:30pm which is really early, so I doubt the stains were from serving food.
2. Someone was vacuuming the dining area when we arrived and continued to do so for about 15 minutes. Despite the fact that he wasn’t vacuuming under the tables where guests were sitting, I still don’t think it’s appropriate to vacuum while people are dining as the vacuum machine can draw dust from the carpet and into the air.
3. They should put a note next to the tasting menu to let guests know that everyone at the same table must have it or they can’t chose the tasting menu. We had to take another 10 minutes to pick what we want for dinner after the waitress told us about this.

Contact

NU
1661 Granville Street, Vancouver
T: 604-646-4668

Yesterday (May 10, 2008) was Jimmy & Cathy’s wedding. I had the pleasure to attend the ceremony and banquet with Al, Ken, WuWu, LawTam and a few others. As LawTam and myself are both getting married next year, we were snapping pictures of everything we found interesting so we can use it as a reference for our own wedding planning.

The wedding ceremony was at a church on 11th Avenue (sorry I don’t have the name since Al is hogging the invites). It’s a pretty big church with two aisles. It was beautifully decorated with pale yellow and white flowers. Here’s a photo of the groom waiting for the bride to show up and the next one shows the newly weds thanking the guests for coming.

The ceremony lasted longer than we thought (about 1.5 hours). We were all starving and thank goodness they had a small reception down stairs.

We had originally planned to go watch Iron Man after the ceremony since the banquet doesn’t start until 6pm. However we got asked to help out with moving stuff from the church to the banquet location, which is Kirin on 12th Avenue. So the movie plans got postponed to this Sunday instead.

At the restaurant, we helped set up the favors and centre pieces. I wish I was wearing flats but at least my legs were getting a workout from walking around in 2″ heels. Here are some pictures of the table settings.

[very simple but elegant centre piece]

[the favor - a silver keychain engraved with their names and date]

[table with note cards and pens for guests to leave messages for the newly wed]

The banquet was great. The only downside is that the restaurant is in a “T” shape, with the head tables situated in the intersection. There are tables to the sides that can not see anything because there were pillars blocking the view. So naturally all the closest friends were sitting around that area. We ended up partying among ourselves and it was really fun.

I’m waiting to get some of the photos back from Jimmy. Then I can post a close up picture of the newly wed and the group of us toasting.

Oh and here’s a picture of my (sorry I didn’t have a full length picture and my hair is a mess) in my dress.

[can you tell that I have makeup on?]

Last but not least, the day ended around 11:00pm. We got back to Al’s place around 12. All of us were really tired. Look what WuWu was caught doing while we were back at Al’s place.

[I wonder what he’s dreaming about…]

Today I discovered that my post “Brunch at Griffins - Fairmont Hotel Vancouver” which I wrote on May 4th, had been taken and posted on another website, word for word, without my permission or any credits given. The website which took my post is called “The Luxury Hotels Specials”. I also found my post appearing on Live Journal by a user named koodoo_traveler. As you can see, the post is exactly the same as mine but the posting date is today, May 9th at 5:20pm. The photos are still being hosted on my server so it’s using my bandwidth.

I’m sure there are other bloggers who have their work plagiarized. This is the first something like this happened to me and I not sure what actions I can take. Hopefully someone can give me some advice.

Update on May 11 - My materials on the above mentioned websites have been removed. Thank you for all the advice and support.

Yes I’m talking about Y-O-U. I know you’re reading and you’ve got something to say (because some of you would talk to me about it later), why don’t you take a minute or two to jot down your thoughts, opinions, point-of-views in my comment? Seriously, speak up. Your feed back is valuable to me (ok now I sound like some PR for customer service). Dave had recently wrote a post on this and I totally agree with him.

“I find that a lot of people don’t like to express their opinions for the the fear of being judged or inciting conflict. No one likes to be judged, and no one likes conflict (okay, that last one isn’t totally true), but not being firm and opinionated means you’re being wishy-washy. And besides, people with opinions are much more interesting than the me-too’s.” - David Chan’s Everyday Extra

Anyways, hopefully you ghost visitors (you know who you are) will come out of your shell (ghost in the shell?) and start letting me know what’s on that mind of yours after reading my blog.

PS: I’ll be replying to your comments with my own comments instead of making a little blurb on the following post (cuz sometimes I’ll forget to do that). Check back on the comments you’ve posted if you want to see my replies.