Jan-chan’s Tidbits

For those that haven’t seen or were not aware of it (although the link IS at the sidebar), I’ve recently put a check mark next to the “get a qi pao” of my wedding checklist. It’s red with gold dragon & phoenix design. There are other stuff on there also but I forgot what they were. Al said they are pairs of fish. For more details, visit my post on the my Wedding Notebook.

A couple weeks ago I had the pleasure of meeting up with Benny while he’s in town. The last time I saw Ben was I believe 3 years ago? I’m glad to see that he’s still skinny as a stick, a stick with a masters degree from Harvard! Congrats!

Talking to Ben always make me realize one thing: I love talking! Ok, maybe it’s the fact that we haven’t seen each other or talk much online (because -someone- doesn’t reply emails), but the conversation never stops during our three-hour meeting. Hopefully he’ll check his email often when he moves back to Asia so we can meet up when I go back for my honeymoon.

Ok this isn’t June but I forgot to post it so here’s a recap. Several weeks back Nathan and I met up again on MSN. I haven’t seen him online for ages, especially since he moved down to the States. We did a lot of catching up and found that he got engaged also! Congrats! I’m still waiting to see a picture of him and his fiance wearing matching WoW T-shirts.

Talking to Nathan brings back the concept of “little Jan”. He was the one that introduced this idea to me. Little Jan is like this part of me where feelings usually gets hidden away due to various reasons. For instance, people asking “How are you doing?” would generally get a “I’m doing OK.” reply. But is that how you really feel? Are you sure there’s nothing on your mind that excits you or bothers you even just a tiny bit? After talking to Nathan I kinda dug around to find little Jan and over the past month had done some self reflection on various areas. That was pretty interesting.

On Saturday (June 21) I went to the Dragon Boat Festival down at False Creek with Al and Mike. It was a pretty nice day. We got there around 11:30 am. After a quick tour around the place, we decided to save a few dollars by going to eat hot dogs at Costco. After a yummy lunch of $2.18 each, we head back to the festival ready to check out the exhibits.

We stopped by the GM tent first because Al was really interested at the test drive. He picked a Solstice and Mike picked the Corvette. Here are the pictures of the boys and their ride:

After the test drive they give you a gift card of either $10 gas or Starbucks certificate. I “borrowed” Al’s Starbucks card since well, I wasn’t fortunate enough to test drive, for obvious reasons (like who else would be taking their picture right?!).

Other fun stuff we did was getting the Schick shavers, some green tea drink with snacks and my favourite exhibit is the one from 744 Communication Regiment, Canadian National Defense. They were there to recruit members and they had an army truck there. Check this out!

I felt like a kid when I climbed up there but hey, where else would I get to play with a real gun? Anyways, after watching Wanda’s race, we head down to Gastown to join WuWu at the Jazz Festival. Here are some pictures of 2/3 stages we visited. The first one is by the steam clock.

This one is by Hotel Europe.

Gastown looked so lively that it barely looked like the same place I went to a week ago. The Jazz Festival run through out this week so be sure to check it out if you get a chance. We all went out to Saltlik for dinner after. The three guys all had burgers while I tried the pasta. I also had the chocolate cake for dessert. It’s even better than the lemon tart!

More pictures at my Picasa album.

So you want to go to fine dining but not sure who will take care of your little ones? Chambar has the solution. I just go an email from Nico & Karri at Chambar Belgian Restaurant stating that they will be having Freedom Night every Thursday. During Freedom nights, couples can drop their children off at the Medina Cafe where kids will be having their own party of costumes, face painting, toys and food while the parents dine at Chambar next door. Services are provided by Ask Your Fairy, Nannies on Call, Dandelion Kids and Chambar.

The cost is $30/child and reservations is required for this service. Children must be picked up by 8:15pm.

I think this is a great service for people who want to enjoy dining out but not have to go through the hassle of finding a babysitter for their kids. Now parents won’t have to feel guilty about leaving their kids at home while they go out to have fun.

Freedom Thursday at Chambar Belgian Restaurant
Date: Every Thursday
Time: Starts at 6pm sharp, ends at 8:15 latest
Age: 3 - 7 years only
Cost: $30/child
Reservations required: call 604.879.7119 or email info@chambar.com

Last Friday I went to pick up Al after work and we took a walk in Gas Town while waiting for Ken to join us for dinner. I don’t usually walk along Water Street and shop there but this time I managed to find something interesting which might have me coming back.

John Fluevog Shoes Store

As we were walking back towards the skytrain station, a sentence from a store window caught my eye “A walk in the park soothes the Soul.” So I looked in the window and saw this:

See that back drop in there? I was interested in finding out what it was. The store clerk was nice and told me I could take pictures inside the store. It turned out this is the John Fluevog Shoes store (as you can tell from the title on the mural). What strike me as interesting aside from the mural is the way the store is laid out. The shoes are displayed on very low tables as well as what looks like a log split in half (see one of the pictures). I’ve never seen Fluevog shoes before but I liked a lot of the designs. I’m definitely coming back later on for some shoe shopping.

One more interesting fact about the store is that the space actually was never there before. The store was built on an ally way. You can see the side of the two buildings, with their windows, inside the store. They had used a glass roof to let sunlight which makes the store very bright and welcoming. The design studio is located on the 2nd floor near the back. The sales clerk told me they actually design the shoes right there. Very cool.

saltlik - A Rare Steakhouse

For dinner, we decided to check out this restaurant we passed by a few weeks ago called saltlik. The menu looked reasonably priced so we head in with hungry stomachs. Al ordered a beef soup and crab cakes ($13), I had a double bacon cheese burger with skinny fries ($15) and Ken got steak with truffle infused sauce ($21). I’m not a big fan of burgers, but those skinny fries were calling my name! The twins also ordered some martinis for $7 each. I’d highly recommend the Smiling Geisha. It’s very refreshing with the cucumber juice. Of course I can’t miss dessert. I ordered a lemon tart which was bigger than I had imagined it to be. The meringue was very well made, slightly crispy on the outside but gooey on the inside. For the price and the quality of the food, I’d pick saltlik over Keg or Earls. Here are some of the pictures.

More pictures from saltlik in my Picasa album.

Misc Pictures

On our way to saltlik, we ran into a bunch of bikers which were riding in downtown for the closing of the Bike to Work week. Here are some pictures I managed to take while some sped by us (click to enlarge):

I’ve subscribed to Seth Godin’s blog for quite some time now and I’ve really enjoyed reading his articles. Today there’s a post about design which I think everyone should read because, as Seth puts it, we’re all designers after all. Seth listed 7 design tips for print and includes a PDF with examples. I especially agree with tip #2. Fonts are like ice cream. You can never just live with one flavour.

Oh and here’s one of my favourite about meetings.