PART FOUR + SCHOOL SUPPLIES HAUL

So this is part four

[click them if you don't wanna miss out on the adventures]
PART ONE,
PART TWO,
PART THREE

This entry is for all our souvenir shops haul :D Do you guys buy postcards or fridge magnets as a souvenir either for yourself or for your family and friends? I do! And I love getting postcards from my friends too, it's touching to know that they remembered you while they were on vacation. :D

PART FOUR is all about some more food, postcards, magnets and my back to school haul.

FOOD

Who doesn't love to eat? haha

[click the pictures for larger view]

These fed the four of us already.

SOUVENIR

 postcards and the pencil and the magnet I bought

more postcards

key chains, the red envelope you put money in to give as gifts for the holidays,

a dvd, and a travel journal for my sister.

BACK TO SCHOOL HAUL

I am saving the best for last! Most of our back to school haul are from a store in the Pacific Palace, it's not Sanrio but they are licensed to sell Sanrio merchandise. There are couple other stores that sell Sanrio stuff but they are the fake ones. How can you tell? Aside from the fact that the owners told us, you can easily spot fakes. Fakes of course are less expensive than the original and the Sanrio characters faces are just a bit distorted/it's just off and the texture feels weird too. 

Let's start with my HELLO KITTY

Hello Kitty bag, Hello Kitty pen w/ 6 different inks and a Hello Kitty pillow

[my dad's early birthday present for me]

My computer desk. [the COACH sling bag was a gift from my mom and the MAC book that you see is my sister's].

hmm here's the other stuf

there's a monkey pencil case.

a froggy post it.

Hello Kitty: lunch box [another gift from my mom], a hand held mirror, a mini notebook, a mini ruler, a paper clip holder, photo frame, a headband, coin purse and a mini clip.

Can you tell I'm excited and ready for school now?! lulz!

Then we went to the CrossIron mall and I didn't know there's actually a Sanrio store in there, went it and bought this.

HELLO KITTY WALLET!!

that's the front

the back

inside

The downside of the wallet? It's too small/tight for all my plastics and other garbage I keep in my wallet (like receipts, etc haha). I have other Hello Kitty stuff even before this haul, but I have more Paul Frank, and a lil bit of Tinkerbell. I fell in love with monkeys first before I fell for cats haha And the bf was surprised with the Hello Kitty gaga coz I am the girl who spazzes at the sight of Paul Frank or just any random monkeys and out of nowhere wave my hand with my imaginary wand at the sight of Tinkerbell. I told the boyfriend, I'm still loyal with my monkeys and Tinkerbell, the reason why I went Sanrio gaga was, there's no Sanrio store at the mall (there used to be one but they closed it already a year ago) unlike, Paul Frank and Tinkerbell they have a licensed store for them at the mall and there's a Disney store too. Sanrio?I dunno when I'm going next to Calgary, so while I was there, bought every thing I needed.

Now, let's see what my sister bought.

Doraemon bag

a coin purse

Doraemon: tissue holder, the small one beside it is a towelette holder (I think),

one of the boxes is a mug and I forgot what the other one is.

Yay! That's it for my summer vacay entries! haha School is gonna start in two weeks.

• How's your summer vacay?
• School started for you yet?If so, how's school treating you?If not yet, are you excited to go back?!

HIGHFIVES and HUGSHUGS if you made it 'til here! ;)

PART THREE

PART ONE, PART TWO.

PART THREE is our Calgary trip. I conquered my fear of heights again when we went up 191 meter (626 feet) standing observation tower in downtown Calgary, the Calgary tower (originally known as the Husky Tower; source).

That's the Calgary tower I believe.

I forgot to take pictures while waiting for the elevator that will take us up to the tower and the elevator is really crowded to even take pictures inside (there's info on the sides of the elevator and the other towers outside Canada).

I'm taking you now up the tower ;) [click the pictures for larger view]

Did you know?

Altitude sickness you feel yet? :p

The whole area was carpeted and there's only a small area, that instead of carpet you walk on glass floor so you can view  downtown. The bf dared me to step on the glass floor and have my picture taken, I tried but I couldn't! I wasn't even having butterflies in my tummy, it felt like my stomach, my small and large intestines were in panic and rearranging themselves inside and my heart was suddenly up in my throat. Ahm, please don't laugh, I wasn't even kidding ;(. It's a glass flooring so whenever I tried to step in and look down or even step on it for 2 seconds, I feel sick like I'm gonna throw up and pass out at the same time sick. I can't help but think of morbid things like the glass breaking and me falling down and boom! I'm dead. I was just on the edge and clicking the shutter hysterically and mom, dad and my sister were the ones whose been taking pictures and videotaping the tower (credits to them).

here's more

manngg! This is seriously one of the posts I would never ever try to read again out of boredom. I feel really sick like my heart is up in my throat again from looking at the pictures and seeing in my head the glass flooring. Even if I didn't had my picture taken standing on the glass flooring, I still succeeded in somehow defeating my fear of heights just by having the balls to be up there.

Just in case you're wondering what's still up in the tower, ahm, there's a souvenir shop and there's a revolving restaurant that goes on a full rotation at noon, I believe.

We have other destinations saved in our GPS, and one of them is a Filipino restaurant named Aling Rosing and we planned on eating our late lunch there. Our GPS took us to a dead end! Good thing we drove by the Pacific Palace 

and decided to find a place to eat in there and to our delight, there wasn't just one but THREE Filipino fast food stalls! I wasn't really hungry for any pinoy food but when I saw the TURON (banana fritter) sign, my sister and I had to buy them. They were really yummy so we decided to buy more.

I am Filipino food deprived! I only get to eat "real" food like honest to goodness home cooked meals whenever my parents are in town or when I go on vacation at my parents.

my sister had that halo-halo

/end part three

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Since I have all the pictures ready for this entry, might as well try to put everything up together for this part three post.

I'm not really a fan of flowers, but when I see a well maintained garden in the neighbourhood, I both envy and admire them at the same time for having such an admirable passion. The pictures I'm gonna show you next are the ones I took from a Banff park (I'm so sorry I forgot what it's called or maybe I wasn't really paying attention when we got there).

It's a park, it's a tourist destination so it's well expected that the park is presentable, still, kudos! to the caretakers of the park.

[click pictures for larger view]

aww at the fly ;)

the fly flew away :(

Sorry for not being able to put captions under each picture as I don't know what they are called, honestly. The pink ones I think are dandelions?

Hope you enjoyed this entry as well ;)

• Do you have fear of heights? If given a chance would you want to be 626 ft up then look down thru a glass flooring?
• Do you like flowers as well?Do you know what you call the flowers I just posted up?If you do, would you please let me know?Thanks!

I think this is a long entry and if you made it until here, HIGH FIVE! and HUGSHUGS!

THE PART TWO

Here is PART ONE. Well, uhm part one is the beginning, bragging everyone about my cooking skills ;) haha come on! For part two, it'll be mostly the places we went to see, and not being boastful here, but I am seriously proud of how my pictures turned out to be really pretty and could pass as postcards.

On our way to Banff

I seriously wanna go back to Banff in the winter and try to ski.

$19.60/day

BANFF NATIONAL PARK

So we drove in and I can't even imagine what I'll look like inside, the park, the mountains, I just can't picture it in my head tho I've been hearing a lot from other people that Banff is indeed a beautiful place. Here's more pictures for you ;)

some of the downtown

This I believe was on the way up to the hot springs

We didn't spend much time up here coz we were extremely excited to ride the Gondola. Most of you guys know that I have motion sickness and I have fear of heights, guess what? I CONQUERED MY FEARS and rode the gondola!

A bit intro about the Gondola ride. The ride will climb up 698m (2,292ft) to an elevation of 2,281m (7,486ft) at the summit upper terminal -- the departure point for a mountain top of activities [source].

Our Gondola ride tickets.

My dad was the only one who didn't ride the Gondola. Tsk! We didn't know that they take pictures before your ride back down, the picture must admit was one of the unflattering I have, but whatevs, I didn't really care, I still think the picture was cool and it will forever remind me that once, I defeated my fears.

OUR RIDE

On our way up

see, I'm braver now, I can even look behind and take some pictures

[some pics from my fb were taken by my sister].

I honestly almost crap my pants every time we pass this metal thing. The sound it makes felt like it's gonna crash and we're all gonna die tragically. wow! Paranoia! haha

This is the stop.

From the mountaintop, there's that view, ahm I'm not sure if there's also a restaurant, but there's a souvenir shop and there are flags hanging in the ceiling.

There's OUR flag right there! 3 stars and a sun.

THE TOP VIEW

AND THIS IS THE BEST, BESTest SHOT EVER!!

This, honestly could pass as a postcard, whacha think?!

You're a stone if you don't think this picture isn't breathtaking.

On our ride back down was when our picture was taken. Sorry. I don't have the balls to post that picture up here haha

The ride back down

That's it for our Gondola ride. Next stop for us was the Bow Falls. It wasn't as attractive as the Niagara Falls, hearing the water calmly (comparing to Niagara) falls and flowing, it's so peaceful that I can just seriously sit there until sunset.

I don't have our pictures from Niagara trip 3 summers ago in my laptop so I'll just use the ones I found on google.

NIAGARA FALLS

Nighttime at Niagara is the best! It is probably one of the romantic places to be at.

See, I told you :p

I remember there was a band playing when we were in Niagara 3 summers ago (not sure if they have different bands every night) plus the fireworks that to me is really romantic. Watching the falls and the fireworks all at once. 

credits: The Niagara falls pictures aren't mine, I got them from google images.

THE LAST PART FOR PART TWO.

FOOD!!

After our Gondola ride and the Bow Falls we then headed to a Japanese restaurant which btw is located right in front of the inn we stayed in for the night.

Yes. That is the only picture I can provide. We were so hungry that every time our food is served, we almost literally inhaled them.

I hope you enjoyed the pictures ;)