HOW LONG WAS I GONE FOR?

haha too long!

I was on holidays and we had so many activities that by the time I get to my laptop, I'm brain dead already. It was a happy, loud, exhausting, but very blessed holidays for me and my family. I hope, you guys, had a wonderful time on Christmas and New Year's as well.

And to summarize my holidays in a single blog post, it will be, all about FOOD! (ok, wait, lemme exaggerate that part), all about F-O-O-D!!! (damn, I'm so back! haha lemme whip my hair back and forth in celebration :D)

*picture heavy*

Sushi Hut

 Edamame is so addicting! It's like Pringles, once you pop, you can't stop.=))

crap, it's 2011 and I'm still corny. haha

My sister, myself, a friend and her boyfriend, went for Sushi Hut on Dec. 27th (I think) and it's an all you can eat Japanese restaurant. Aside from eating spaghetti and chicken, Japanese food makes me happy. A once a month trip to a Japanese restaurant will definitely, make me jump for joy.

Dec. 29, 2010 - Joey's

It was our parents' 26th year wedding anniversary, so, we went out for a cozy dinner, at Joey's.

Servings were so big, there were no room for dessert after.

And just before I leave the town again, I and some friends went to another Japanese restaurant called, Tokyo Zone. Originally, we were planning on dining in at Roll'n Pin, a Korean Restaurant. Sadly, they were closed due to some renovations.

 I should learn how to use chopsticks. Anyone here knows how?

 There goes the edamame again. =))

Now, I'm hungry! haha

I'll try to be back, blog and blog hop again on a regular basis. I still have a line-up of entries to do and hopefully, I'll be able to blog again, at least, with 2 entries a week. I'm really tied up with school works and my job, so at times, it's really impossible for me to even take a peek at blogger.

Have a great weekend blogmates!

BIRTHDAY POST!

Officially a year older! :D and yesterday will all be a part of my history, a day in the life that one day I will remember with a smile on my face. ☺☺

 Yes. A year older today and I should be wiser.

SIXTEEN. Sixteen years old. No. I'm not 16 (I only wish! pfft!) but most people (that doesn't have any idea that I'm a University student) think I am 16, 16-18 years old they would guess when asked. Hells, if people compliment you for looking young for your age (not coz you're small), yep, that's a good thing haha

BIRTHDAY POST this is gonna be :D

and

THANK YOU for all the birthday greetings I got from my fb friends, on twitter, here on blogger, for all the text messages, the voice mails, birthday cards I got from my mailbox -- THANK YOU! It's been a hard week for me and most of you know why and getting messages from family and friends on how much I am loved is just above and beyond so once again, THANK YOU!

owwkay, I have to STOP before we get all emotional here. pwuahaha

so

Let's go back Friday and let's just fast forward to the highlights or it'll be really boring and loooooonggg if I'm gonna start with "ahm, okay so I have school and then..." hmmkay?

I haven't done any grocery shopping yet coz I didn't had the time all week so all I have in my pantry are granola bars and quacker thins and some yogurt and milk and some greens, an apple and a grapefruit in the fridge. Then, the bf showed up surprisingly and I don't have any "real" food to feed him so I called Kobe Japanese restaurant for pick up and this is what we ordered.

Spicy Salmon Roll

[this instantly became my favourite]

Beef Tataki

Chicken Teriyaki Don Buri

Beef Don Buri

We didn't finish everything. I didn't even touch my chicken so all the leftovers were breakfast this morning. Later that night the bf drove me to work and this girl I work with came up to me and gave me a chocolate, and she's like "I went to our Russian market and found these chocolates and I thought of you, I think you're really adorable and sweet and you're so nice to me so here's for you". I don't know what happened but my chocolate mysteriously disappeared from my counter! I had my water bottle, my pen, the line up for that night and everyone's schedule on my counter coz I was skimming through it, turned my back for 2 seconds then it was gone! Seriously! I know I've been trying to cut back on my sweets but since it was given to me, I'm not gonna throw it away. lol! I didn't tell her I "lost" the chocolate coz I don't want her to think I don't value things that was given to me, but before she left that night, one of the girls told her it's my birthday the next day, she gave me a hug and.....

gave me another one.

[munn, I wonder what the other chocolate tasted like :(]

[P.S to the chocolate "thief", that's extra calories for you lol!]

SATURDAY

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!

I checked my BB and was embraced with so much love when I saw all the notifications I got from fb and twitter and I have text messages, IM messages, I also got some birthday greetings recorded by friends and was sent to me then a couple of missed calls and voice mail messages, it was overwhelming! I got ready then by 11am (FINALLY! all the bf could utter after my "forever-ness" in getting ready) the bf and I got out of the apartment, went to the Asian store and bought groceries. Every birthdays I had, we don't go out to celebrate, I am honestly happy with home cooked spaghetti and chicken or hotdog on stick with a marshmallow on top. You want me to be the happiest person on my birthday?feed me spaghetti :D

I had a mini poll on twitter and with some close friends, "Spaghetti or Palabok for my birthday?" Palabok for those of you who don't know is just like spaghetti only with orange sauce and you don't use ground beef for palabok, you use shrimp, eggs and crushed pork rinds and you squeeze lemon on top and for that poll I had, Palabok won. It's ok that I didn't had spaghetti this year, I'm still the happiest person. :D

palabok

hotdogs on stick with marshmallows on top

We can't find any BBQ sticks at the store, good thing I remembered that we have chopsticks! Your home girl gotta be productive you know. :p 

I had to grill that for the carnivore. lulz

Why do men eat so much? =))

Then dessert came

"the cake land"

we picked three 

Strawberry mousse cake

American style cheescake

Peach mousse cake

 Naww. We didn't eat all of it haha we saved some for rainy days, we only ate this

the strawberry mousse cake

I didn't blew any candles, my wish tho? Good health for myself and my family. I know how cliché it sounded but that's all I wanted.

I didn't count my calorie intake today =)) I said I'm not gonna feel guilty since it's my birthday and I'm not gonna deprive myself, after the last burp, I felt sorry. :( After our rest, I told the bf if we could do some sparring and burn off some calories, he agreed.

and he didn't let me use my

hand wraps

I have long fingernails so doing a fist hurt my palms like a beeeeattch and my knuckles were red I thought it was gonna bleed.

It was a memorable birthday for me. I am happy and felt contented.

And before I end this post and hit the sack, I want you guys to say hi to my sleeping "buddies".

Yukkiee

and Kirlean

I got the name Yukkiee from Super Junior's Eunhyuk. No. He doesn't look like a monkey, some people call him Eunhyukie so yeah, there's Yukkiee. I got Yukkiee after I moved out, I have lotsa stuffed toys at my parents' house, I just didn't get to bring one coz it won't fit in my luggage (I have a Timmy Turner, a spongebob, a humongous dog, a teddy bear, a doll stuffed toy and another teddy bear)

biibii

Yes. They are all at my parents' house.

As for Kirlean, it was a gift given to me by my friend before I left Ontario and I promised her that I'll bring Kirlean wherever I go. I kept the promise. Oh, Kirlean are from our names. :D

If you made it this far, *zebrahugs* for you (well, if you missed that post about zebra hugs, too bad :p)

/end

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 ;)