Jan-chan’s Tidbits

I’ve been slow on the updates lately because the past week have been pretty busy for me at work. It’s the last quarter and everyone got crazy ideas which they want to try to bring in revenue.

Anyways, last Friday I met up with JL for dinner. We had fun talking about random stuff but the best conversation topic was on MMOEG! LOL Ok it’s massive multiplayer online…education game. Yes, education game like puzzles for kids! No I wasn’t drunk when I came up with this “interesting” idea. Hey you never know, it might just work. WaWa came over in the evening and we played MJ together for the first time since like 4 years ago (or longer). I think we need to do this MJ thing more often.

Saturday WuWu and I went window shopping for clothes and also went to pick out his glasses. Afterwards we picked up the twins and went back to his place to have dinner (I played chef). We also did some digging for Whistler accommodations because it had been a while since we all went on a snowboarding trip. However it seemed most places were fully booked and those that have room are super expensive.

So on Sunday morning I got up at 8am and start calling up hotels/lodges at Whistler to get room rates and availability. I didn’t have much luck but after lunch, I called Whistler’s central reservations and found a really good deal on two rooms with kitchenette. The location is about 2 minutes walk to the lifts! We’re planning to bring food up to cut cost so hopefully the whole trip would be around $300 per person. The price works out to be $67/night per person which is pretty good compared to all the other ones I’ve seen. Even better than the ones by 3rd party vendors that offers discounted rates.

So it looks like we’ll be going to Whistler this December on the 19th to 21st. Hopefully the snow will be good.

PS: Thanks JL for the purple scarf & grapes! They were a little sour but it’s nice to snack on (I was popping them while playing MJ on Friday night).

Last week I got a chance to talk to Mike about his son Leon. He’s finally big enough to wear the shirt I got him! He looks so cute!

Isn’t he just adorable?! I know what you are thinking…no I’m not having my own. =p My cousin Chrissy is due soon, I can’t wait to see her baby boy.

Couple weeks ago the guys and I went out for dinner before their bridge night. We went to The Bottle Tipper, a little cozy place by Kingsway and Victoria. It wasn’t packed when we got there but it has a nice stream of customers coming in during the dinner hours.  The food is very good and very resonably priced. I loved their clam chowder and yam fries.

[Buffalo burger with side of salad and chowder. Yum!]

[My beef dip sandwich and house-cut fries.]

The restaurant is within walking distance from the twin’s place (about 5 minutes walk) so I believe we’ll be visiting it often!

I’ve also got the pleasure to dine at Cannery Seafood Restaurant again, this time for the twin’s dad’s birthday. As usual their seafood makes my tummy extremely happy. I tried their Trio of Shellfish this time and a White Chocolate and Raspberry Semifreddo.

[Lobster, scallops and prawns...all my favourites in one dish!]

[This was the last semifreddo they have for that night. I feel so lucky.]

Lastly, I want to mention that I got some very yummy almond crisp cookies from WuWu’s mom. Her cookies were so good I had to trade her with my brownies. I found a similar recipe online so when I’m not too lazy, I’ll give it a try.

Alright I know some of you are dying to look at how they turned out so without further delay (or some of you might hunt me down), here’re some of the photos Al and I’ve picked for our album (click to enlarge):

[That's Ah Bu, the photographers dog. He's so cute!]

[Taken at Hycroft Mansion. I really love that house.]

[Fixing my hair, or at least pretending to anyway.]

[Why hello there! That'd be my thought bubble for this picture. Taken in Gastown.]

Ok more pictures to come later. You’ll also find some posted at my wedding planning blog. Let me know what you guys think of these.

So I decided that since I want to do cardio, I’ll take dancing lessions because that seemed more fun that running on some machine at the gym. After checking out a lot of the dance studios, I went with Harbour Dance Centre, which was recommended to my by Al’s friend Wil. I signed up for their progressive PCD Hip Hop for beginners and thought it should be alright since it said “beginner”.

The first 10 minutes was warm up. Basically we follow the instructor and copy her moves. Just from watching the rest of the girls (it’s a female only course) I can tell that 98% of them had taken some sort of dancing before. The next 5 minutes we did crunches, which I totally didn’t expect to be doing. It was nice thought since I got to work on my abs, except I’m not use to doing it non-stop for 5 minutes straight.

The last 45 minutes of the class we worked on the routine to a song. It was interesting and fun. However, everything was taught in a pretty fast pace (or maybe I’m just slow?!) Remembering the steps aren’t too hard, but actually executing them and at the speed of the music is a bit tough for me. I had thought since it’s a “beginner” course it’d be slow so people could follow but I guess not in this case. So my solution now is to just practice before the next class and hope I can follow faster next time.

I have to say though, it was more fun than I thought. And being an all female class made it a bit more comfortable to start out. I’m planning on taking salsa lessons when MH comes back from vacation. I wonder how many times I’ll step on him…hehe.