Latest Creations – Personal (Business) Cards
by Jan on October 5, 2010
I’ve finally updated my WordPress and have switched to a more minimalist theme. What do you think?
Along with my side projects and the wedding planning, I’ve taken the time to finish designing personal cards for Al and myself. Both of us don’t have business cards from our current work place and we’d like to have our own for networking purposes. So here are the designs (both front and back):
Here's my card. P E T stands for Phone, Email, Twitter
Here's Al's.
I know the design looked very similar, that’s because after Al looked at mine he said he wanted one for himself. What do you guys think? I think the drawing of Al looked more like him than mine. Probably because my hair isn’t exactly like that. Hehe can’t wait to get it back from the printer.
Turned Into A Busy Bee
by Jan on September 22, 2010
As the titled suggested, I’ve been quite the busy bee the past month. Some of you know that a couple of my friends are in the mist of creating an iPhone game and some how I had volunteered myself to do the graphics portion of it. I’m no artist and I can’t draw so trying to come up with concepts and actually drawing it out had been proven to be quite difficult. ~__~
If you’ve followed my wedding planning blog you’d know that I was the MC for my friend’s wedding earlier in September. It was not as pleasant as I would’ve wanted it to be since the day was a bit hectic, with lots of last minute changes. I was freaking out the week leading to the wedding day as I realize that I can’t really write my script (since it’s in Cantonese). My solution at the end was to write a script using a mixture of Chinese characters, Cantonese characters (I’m not even sure if they exist in the Chinese dictionary) and English to “represent” what I had wanted to say in Cantonese. The twins looked at my script and had a good laugh out of it because it would make no sense to anyone else unless they actually read it out loud. Oh well, it worked for me and now that it’s all over, I’ll never want to be the MC for any wedding ever again.
With that wedding out of the way I can finally start thinking about my own wedding. I can’t believe it’s less than 9 months away. The guests list had grown, much to my dismay, and I still have to hound my parents to get their portion of the guests list so I can check whether I’ll have enough paper for the invites and the boxes for the wedding favour.
Lately I’ve been going to a new photo studio and might be doing some pro-bono marketing work for them. This had me thinking about wedding pictures again. Actually Al knows the makeup artist there and she’s been trying to teach me how to apply make up. It’s really fun except I’m super slow at learning it. Unlike gaming, my hand-eye coordination is just bad when it comes to drawing on my face.
So now I have the iPhone game, some pro-bono work (which I’m very excited about actually), makeup lessons as well as wedding planning on my to-do list for the next few weeks. I’m also looking for a new theme for the blog since I haven’t updated to the new WP 3.0.1 yet due to the fact that I’m afraid my current theme won’t be compatible. Hopefully by the next post I’ll have a new theme for both this blog and the wedding planning one. Wish me luck!
PS: Sorry if the post seems very random. My brain is not function at full capacity right now because I have too much stuff going on inside there. Will try to write a better, more coherent post next time.
A Déjà Vu Experience
by Jan on August 20, 2010
Ever since I had the car accident I’ve been wondering if I’d see the car that I rear ended again.
Well this morning, at the same intersection where the accident happened, that car was right in front of me again! It’s exactly the same situation, he was in front of me and we’re both waiting in the left turn lane. It was scare. I had to do a double take to make sure it’s the same car. How can I tell? Well I didn’t quite remember the license plate but I did remember what his bumper and side panel looked like after I hit him. That’s how I recognized that it’s the same car.
And what is even weirder is that his work place is close to mine! We both headed up the bridge and took the same exit off the highway. I thinking to myself “I hope he doesn’t work in the same building as me.” He took a left turn on the street where I took a right so I guess he works down the road from me. Interesting…yet a bit weird at the same time.
Anyways, I’ll be taking the car for repairs next Monday. Then I’d need to wash the car. I didn’t get a chance to wash it after the road trip to Seattle and it’s super SUPER dirty right now.
Good-bye Road Star & iPhone
by Jan on August 10, 2010
Before we start lets define what a road star is. Basically if you’ve kept a clean driving record (or at least you were not at fault for the accident), after 9 years you’d be a “road star” as termed by ICBC. It actually goes by a scale, you start at zero and every year you’ll get -1 provided that no accidents that is your fault happened.
Now most of you know that I’ve basically taken public transit since I got my driver license. It wasn’t until last June that I finally got a car of my own and started to drive. However the many years of taking the bus had provided me with the road star status, giving me a maximum discount on my car insurance which is a good thing!
Ok on to the main part of the post…(I’m not really thinking right now because I haven’t gotten over what happened yet so what I wrote might seem all over the place, read on and you’ll see). Last Thursday, on my way to work, I stopped along with all the other cars that’s waiting for the left turn lane. I remembered something stung my eye and by reflex, I closed them very quickly (like a longer blink) and at the same time my head dipped down/forward (kinda like I was looking down). Next thing I know, I felt myself jerked forward and boom! I hit the car in front of me, a green Civic SE. I’m guessing I must have hit the gas when I did the whole “long blink + head down motion”. My first reaction was “Ouch my head/neck!” I had hit my head on the headrest after the impact. I didn’t feel a lot pain at the time because I started to panic. What should I do?! This is the first time I’ve gotten in a car accident. The next thing that went through my head was “Did I imagine this?!” lol. Well after seeing the guy in the Civic look back at me with this “what the hell?” look, I knew it was real. So we did the normal “exchange the info and call ICBC to report the clame” thing after pulling into a side street. All this time I’m having mixed thoughts of: “Shit, how did I end up hitting the guy” + “why is this happening to me” + “I wonder how much this would cost” + “Damn there goes the vacation I was planning to go in the Fall”.
After driving to work and calling Al to let him know about this rear end accident. My coworker actually told me to go home because I look pale. I actually felt sick in my stomach. Maybe it’s from the stress? When I got home I wanted to sleep but the neighbour decided to clean their roof and there were like 5 kids playing outside which made it way too loud to fall asleep and I ended up lying there starring at the ceiling for 1.5 hrs.
As if this isn’t bad enough, my iPhone 3GS decided to give me the black screen of death (with a bonus of the Apple logo) on Saturday. When I left the phone to charge on Friday night it was working perfectly. Saturday when I checked to see if I had any calls. The phone was sluggish so I turned it off, waited 30 seconds then tried to turn it back on. It went dead. All it showed was the Apple logo. I took it to the Apple store that afternoon and the guy behind the bar told me it’s a hardware issue so the only way to “fix” it is to replace the phone. BUT, my warranty expired exactly 14 days ago. This means that in order to replace my phone I need to pay $260 + tax. I can’t believe this is happening. What rotten luck to have a car accident then have the phone die on you in the span of two days? I have a lot of data stored on the phone and all my appointments are on there as well so now I’m trying to remember what I had booked for the next two months so I won’t miss them.
I’m waiting for the iPhone 4 to be in stock as I’d rather upgrade for $399 than pay $260 for an older phone. And I’m using my mom’s old Nokia phone which is only good for calling. I tried to text using the phone and after 15 mins, I give up. Also I don’t have my contact list on my sim card so if you need to reach me, calling me is better and if you insist on texting, please include your name (lol) so I know who you are.
Hopefully I can get my hands on the new phone soon. Feeling pretty shitty the past few days :[ Not even sweets/desserts were cheering me up. Grr.
Summer Night Market
by Jan on July 13, 2010
The annual night market is here. This year, it’s called the Summer Night Market, which is not to be confused with the “Richmond” Night Market as it is put together by another group. The location, however, is at the same place where Richmond Night Market had been held for the past few years, right off Knight Bridge behind Bridgeport Road.
So far I’ve been to the Night Market more than 4 times already since they opened on May 21. Every time I go, I’d see one or two new vendor at the food section. There are old favourites which I’ve been counting on, such as the place for “wheel cakes”, Xin Jiang BBQ, Korean Street Food where they sell fried whole potatos and Dragon Beard Candies. This year there are a few notable additions such as the Roaming Dragon, BBQ Whole Cuttlefish and Sumo Bites. Well a picture is worth more than words so lets get on with the photos (be prepare to do some scrolling…and drooling) :
Dragon's Beard Candy - We waited 15 mins to get ours.
Making of the Dragon's Beard Candy. It's actually just like cotton candy but has peanut fillings.
Wheel Cakes - one of my favourite snacks at the Night Market.
Wheel cakes in the making.
Wheel cake with custard filling. Also comes with chocolate, peanut butter or red bean.
Vietnamese Dessert - it's like a coconut based drink with different fruits. Very yummy.
Some of the fillings for the Vietnamese Dessert.
Xin Jiang Man BBQ - The best Xin Jiang bbq in the Night Market!
Sumo Bites - one of the many new vendors this year. Have yet to try it but looked promising.
Potatoes from the Korean Street Food stall. Prepare to wait at least 10 minutes to place your order.
Another BBQ place. Didn't catch the name but they had bbq quail eggs and it's near the stall for Sumo Bites.
List of their bbq menu. Looks yummy don't they? Bacon wrapped asparagus and quail eggs.
Here's what they look like. The 3 on the left are the bbq quail eggs wrapped with a strip of bacon and drizzled with Japanese mayo. The 1 on the right is the cheese filled fish cakes.
Hong Kong Waffles - for me it wasn't even close to the real thing 
Roaming Dragon - located at the back of the food area. You can't miss this unique looking truck.
Roaming Dragon's menu. I've tried almost everything there except for the fried rice balls.
Korean Tacos from Roaming Dragon.
Pork Belly Sliders from Roaming Dragon. Very yummy.
The average price for most of the food is the same as last year. If I were to have dinner at the market it’d roughly cost me $15-20 which isn’t bad at all considering I get to try a lot of different foods. To save money (so I can eat more food instead of spending it on drinks) I usually don’t buy drinks like bubble tea at the night market. Plus I feel that it’s nothing special as I can get that any where. However, I must stay that if you’re in need of a drink after eating all the above yummy food, your best bet is either the Vietnamese Dessert drinks or Roaming Dragon’s Lychee & Basil Lemonade. The bits of lychee adds texture and sweetens the lemonade while the hint of basil gives it a very refreshing taste. I heard that Sumo Bites has a ginger cooler. I’ll give that a try next time I head down.
