Witnessed/Ruled

The last bits of February:

Vancouver 2010 Party city is over. :(

Pal from Calgary, Adam Zendel came down to see some of the Olympics. This is at W2 in gastown. 

Okay many of you must have been here:

Wasn't it insane?!

Thanks Vancouver Winter Olympics 2010 for Wilco, fireworks, all the gold medals (and other medals), intense game and competition watching, people, and being here, it sure was fun and I feel so lucky to have witnessed and experienced all this. Safe to say, you ruled. 

A-S-I-A TOUR I:

Hong Kong:

Hong Kong was a blur of shopping malls. I saw a buttload of Uniqlo's and Muji's and now I wonder how much I'll be craving seeing them in person once I am back in Van.

Seeing so many shops and so many people, and sadly getting kind of bored of looking at the clothes (all becomes a blur after awhile...a very monochromatic blur), I started looking harder at the people. And I think this: the fashion sense in Hong Kong, after being to Japan (albeit briefly so this observation could be very superficial) and talking to my Aunt, I am thinking that it is motivated and defined mostly by status and huge well known brands, rather than in Japan it seems to be motivated more by true self expression (you see a lot more 'stranger' looks in Japan than you would in Hong Kong and a variety as well, extremes like over the top outfits seen in Harajuku and then clean looks like Muji and Uniqlo). It doesn't matter what you are wearing, but who you are wearing, and it seems like the opposite is more found in Japan. I know brands and who you are loyal to is a big thing around the whole world, but it seems to be a really dominating and deciding factor in how a person's appearance is defined in Hong Kong.

Kuala Lumpur:

KL's Twin towers! My dad works on one of the lower floors of one of these buildings. I don't know which one.

Aren't we?!

Islamic Arts Museum Malaysia. Okay I am not closed minded or anything (or whatever), but I didn't think I'd be at all interested in seeing this museum, but faced with a bunch of time in my hands and not really knowing what to do in Kuala Lumpur, I went to this museum on a whim because it is one of those big tourist things to do. I say that I wouldn't be interested because I don't really know much about Islamic Art and it just never really held any interest to me. But this museum was beautiful! There was a section that showed various mosques around the world (little perfect models with insane tiny details that just thinking about make my eyes cry), and holy shit some of them are amazing, AND THEY WERE BUILT FOREVER AGO! Really nice and impressive.

I feel like I've paid more attention to the architecture in Kuala Lumpur than in most places I've been to. Maybe because I had/have few notions about the place and to see impressive structures here and there is neat and a bit of a surprise.

I have been drinking like gallons of cold milk tea, god, so! delicious! And everything that I've eaten in Kuala Lumpur (Chicken Rice, Laksa, Chicken Biryani, etc) has been awesome and super good, and is great when you first eat it, but I am beginning to feel the effects of the heaviness/greasiness of it, like feeling mega tired afterwards and thinking, "Man what did I just eat." Anyways.

A really sort of nerve-wracking thing about Kuala Lumpur is the taxis. With most, okay well, EVERY, place that I've been to, you can hail a taxi, and that taxi will take you wherever you want. But here! HERE! They sometimes don't want to take you there (because they want to stay on a certain side or whatever), and if they do take you, they might put it at a set fee, which is higher than if they were to just open the meter and let it run. I don't really understand why they do it and it just makes for a really nerve-wracking experience, especially being a foreigner because I am super not good at haggling and when you want to get somewhere, you just want to (or at least I want to) get there as soon and as easily as possible, even if it means spending like a few dollars more.

Tiny bit of Singapore:

Went to the Singapore Art Museum. It's in a really neat building, (a restored old school building) and I was really impressed with this piece by Donna Ong (beautiful!) and also this collective (Vertical Submarine) and their stuff made me laugh.

Hey!

It was nice catching up! Let's do this again sometime!

Ties.

Today I ate crab with family that I haven't seen in six years. They visited my house in Calgary before coming to Vancouver and my youngest cousin, the one who likes to have his picture taken and repeats everything you say, he was able to comb the hair on my dog. Only my mom combs my dog (mostly I think cause she's the only one that is willing to do it, wants to do it, but partly because my dog only really likes it when she does it). My dog does not get along with people, can be kind of vicious (the vet had sent a letter recommending she be euthinized because my dog almost bit a nurse) and as cute looking as she is, really isn't very nice to anyone but my mom, dad, brother, and I. It is nerve wracking to have people stick their hand in front of her, asking to be sniffed and allowing them to touch her, luckily they pull away fast enough when she growls. For her to allow this boy to comb her, I think there's something kind of special about this kid, he won her heart, and even though I only saw him for an hour or so, mine too.

His older brother is cute too! Has a nice quietness to him, the kind that is okay with just listening and allowing his younger brother to take all of the attention and be the eccentric one. He plays clarinet and soccer and is very tall.

My uncle was saying that what my mom orders for dinner is very different from what he would order. She orders things with more vegetables. And what he and her order is different from what their other brother would order and so on (my mom has...4 siblings). I thought that was kind of nice. You could tell who's dinner belonged to who.

I rode the new Canada line to meet them and gosh it felt really cool and exciting! And then I began imagining if I were in charge of putting sky train lines in Vancouver, I thought about where I'd put them and whether they'd be underground or above and when.

Above mostly.

air, hot and thick.

A free night of folk festival courtesy of Mr. Adam Zendel. Hi Adam!

A sleeping hippie.


My friend is off to Saskatchewan and was saying he was looking forward to when you leave your home and you reflect on what you're leaving, and he was excited to see what he would think about.

I'm leaving Calgary after staying here for 12 days (which was a bit too long) and it's not quite the moment where I reflect on the city (I suspect this will happen more while I am at the airport and waiting to board) but right now I think I'll remember the air, hot and thick, and me being sick for what felt like forever, and watching so many movies, and how much I like driving late at night, mostly because there's no one around and I don't have to worry about looking like a shitty driver or crashing into anyone but a tree.

Man I can't wait to be in Vancouver.

last night she said:

Nothing Future from Ellen Lee on Vimeo.

Oh thank you everyone, last night was swell!

confession #1: mom's pasta salad.

I know it's summer when I am eating this salad.

My mom would make this when we would have big barbecues with family friends over and I loved it with chicken and potato casserole.

The salad has a crappy ingredient that I have a big soft spot for (probably because it was the only dressing we had when I was growing up for whenever we ate salad. Then my mom discovered the wonders of balsamic vinagrette and olive oil) Kraft's Zesty Italian Dressing. I try to stay away from crappy food as much as possible but there are things that I can't quite keep away from:

-Ice cream from Mcdonald's. Jane and I had this all the time in Japan and it's such a cheap ice cream that satisfies my cravings without any guilt whatsoever.

-Chocolate dipped cone from Dairy Queen, I had one the other day and I noticed how thin the chocolate tasted (something which I never really noticed before), it was almost water-y. But I love the dipped cone because right when you get it the chocolate hasn't quite set, and then when it does, it's mega fun to crack it.

-Kraft Dinner and McCain frozen fries with tons of ketchup. In high school this was my favorite thing in the whole wide world to eat! I haven't had this combo in like 4 years, but I bet I would still enjoy it.

-Instant noodles and Little Caesar's 5 dollar pepperoni pizza. And...hahahaha I would add malt vinegar to my noodles as well. With instant noodles I always have to have something crunchy to eat with it.

-Dill pickle chips (Old Dutch!) and grape slurpees. Junior high summers!

Okay I am done with confessing all of the bad things I like to eat.
If you would like to make this pasta salad, here are things that you stick in it:

-Pasta (I use rotini, but you can use whatever sort of shape you like)
-Cherry tomatoes
-Advocado
-Brocolli
-Kraft Zesty Italian Dressing.

The dressing is seriously key! As for measurements and stuff, just eyeball it and taste and I'm sure you'll end up with something good. Make sure though to boil the brocolli for 1 minute (until it turns bright green) so that it's cooked evenly and you're good.

it's all so nice.

Past few weeks of April and the beginning of May:


A great dog in Chinatown. Sometimes when I see a big dog, I think that if I were to ever get a dog again, it would have to be a big dog. But then I see small dogs and am totally won over by them and start to think that I should get a small dog. I've now decided that erm, dogs in Vancouver are only for admiring purposes.

hahahahah

Chocolate raspberry cream pie at Aphordite's after graduating. For 7.25 or so...not really worth it (even though it was pretty). I can only take so much whipped cream.

Tulips! My mom says they are so spring, and I completely agree.



One of my favorite things that happened in the past few days was taking a nap on the beach while Harrison walked around. It felt so good to just rest after a hectic, completely full, but undeniably memorable past few weeks.