Life Lately

Hello readers! I’ve been feeling lazy lately, hence the lack of post. A lot of has happened for me since my last post! As you may know, I was preparing for my move to Kelowna to attend UBC Okanagan, but I am no longer moving. Last Friday, I got an email from UBC informing me that a small number of spaces remain in the faculty of arts at the Vancouver campus and they are offering me admission. I was actually really shocked, because they had rejected me months ago and I wasn’t expecting anything like this to happen. I accepted the offer because I would be saving my parents at least $1k a month on rent and food, but because it was offered to me at such a late time, many of the classes I wanted to take are full.

In other news, I got a new car! Technically it isn’t “my” car because I am sharing it with my brother, but I am still happy because I can now venture into farther places to try new places to eat. Before I had to borrow my moms car to drive and it was quite the hassle because my mom always made the borrowing process complicated.

I got a 2013 Mazda 3 sport in the colour graphite. The car was purchased at Freeway Mazda located in Maple Ridge and I was impressed with our salesman Anthony.

Lastly, here are some pictures of some food I ate lately:

{Lemongrass pork chop, shredded pork and meat pie from Thai Son}

{I purchased this watermelon soda because someone on my Facebook raved about it, but I thought the taste wasn’t very watermelon like. It tasted more like those sour watermelon candies in a soda form}

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Recent Purchases: US edition

Hello everyone, I hope you are all doing well. Last Thursday, Es S, Prince V and I headed down to the states to do some shopping. We went to Seattle’s premium outlet, Trader Joe’s and Bellis Fair. This was our first time going to Trader Joe’s and I was excited to go because I’ve heard people raving about so many of their products! Here’s what I got:

Our first stop was the premium outlets. I didn’t buy much because I wanted to save my money for Trader Joe’s and Bellis fair.

I got this Marc by Marc Jacobs watch from the Fossil store for $60, which I think is a good deal. It’s a small watch with a leather strap and a good addition to my closet. I also got a pack of bangles from Aldo, which came with a leaf bangle and an infinity sign bangle.

From PacSun, I got a cross printed cardigan ($19.99)  and Billabong tank top ($16.99) with a hear print. PacSun is having a great sale right now, all their sale items are buy 1 get 1 free.

Our next stop was Trader Joe’s. My first impression of the place was that the prices were so cheap compared to Canada. I can’t wait to come back!

I also bought a bag of lightly salted kettle cooked chips but ate it before I took these pictures. I’ve only tried the Palak Paneer and onion rings so far, and I thought both were good.

Bon Crepe: Green Tea Parfait

After a delicious dinner at Cactus Club’s coal harbour location, we were in need of some desserts. Originally we were going to eat dessert at Cactus club, but after our server cleared our plates (which took 20 minutes after we finished eating) and looking at the dessert menu, our server never came back to take our dessert order. We waited around 15 minutes, so we just decided to pay and leave. We were originally going to go Bella Gelateria for gelato, but the line was insanely long, so I suggested we drive up to Bon Crepe on Robson Street.

Bon Crepe is located inside Konbinya Japan center, where you can order from the outside or go inside Konbinya to order. Along with delicious crepes, Bon Crepe also serves up soft serve ice cream, sundaes,bubble tea, parfaits, pudding and corn dogs. I love their crepe batter here and according to their website, the secret to their crepe is their “mochi mochi” texture. Since I’ve tried their crepes on numerous occasions, I decided to try their green tea parfait.

I love anything green tea/matcha, so naturally I would gravitate towards this parfait!

Here’s a picture of what goes into their green tea parfait.

Chicco, which is located a few blocks down Robson from Bon Crepe, also sells green tea parfaits, although their parfait is pricier. I’ve never tried Chicco’s parfait, so I cannot compare the two. Here is what I thought of the parfait:

Pros:

• Decent price for the amount of food you get
• All the components by itself were good
• I really enjoyed the soft serve and their homemade whipped cream

Cons:

• Hard to eat everything together, so instead you have to eat the layers separately
• Green tea ice cream wasn’t really necessary because there is already green tea soft serve
• Due to the green tea ice cream’s harder texture, it made it difficult to get the bottom layers
• Wished there was more tapioca

I was too full to finish this, so I thought the parfait was good, but not amazing. Maybe I would have enjoyed it more if I was hungrier.  I also recommend sharing this with a friend because it’s quite hard to finish by yourself without getting into a dessert coma.

Recent Purchase: Hunter Bradwell Short Rain Boots

While browsing the clearance section on Little Burgundy’s website, I came across these Hunter Bradwell short rain boots. These have been on my wishlist after seeing a picture of them on instagram. I have big calves, so I have a hard and mostly frustrating time finding tall boots that fit, so I tend to buy booties. Since they were 50% off their original price of $140, I decided to get them. I also had a 10% code and after shipping (which is $5), the total was $75.84.  These will be perfect for the snowy Kelowna winters and I think they pair nicely with skinny jeans. Even though they aren’t the most physically attractive shoes, I bought them because they are practical in snowy weather conditions and also because I don’t own any Chelsea style boots.

Here are some ways to wear these boots:

{Via here}

{via here}

With all the sales going on, it’s very tempting to purchase things I want, but don’t necessarily need. I’ve limited myself to purchasing clothing for the upcoming fall and winter seasons because Kelowna doesn’t have most of the clothing stores I shop at, so in a way, I am stocking up in Vancouver. Thanks for reading!

Review: Kishimoto Japanese Kitchen

I have a long list of restaurants to try, but Kishimoto wasn’t one of them. During car free day on Commerical Drive, Es S and I were originally going to go to the place next to Kishimoto’s, but due to the lack of service, (we stood for for a while and no one acknowledged us) we went to Kishimoto instead. Es S said she heard good reviews about Kishimoto, but I’ve never even heard of the place, so I went in with no expectations. When we were seated at the sushi bar, I noticed that the restaurant is run by Japanese people, which is not very common in Vancouver. After the meal, I was glad that we went here instead because I had a good experience.

After looking at the menu, here is what we ordered:

The first item to arrive was the tunta tataki salad. The melt in your mouth tuna rested on top of a bed of greens dressed with a tangy dressing. This had a nice balance of flavours and I enjoyed it.

Next came the Kishimoto roll- scallop, salmon, radish, sprouts, soy paper. This was beautifully presented, one of the nicest sushi  presentations I’ve seen so far. The taste was equally as impressive as the presentation. The ingredients tasted fresh and the whole roll tasted great.

Life Lately

First off, apologies for the lack of post lately. In 2 months I move to Kelowna, which means I have to start preparing for my move. Yesterday I received the unfortunate news that I am waitlisted for housing on campus, meaning that I will have to find an place to rent. Even though I applied very early, first year students and returning students get priority, so for a third-year transfer like myself, I get last priority. With 2 months left before school starts, I have limited time to find a place to rent and I feel stressed out. On the bright side, I registered for courses and got into all the courses I need to take.

Since I haven’t updated in a while, I’ll make this a longer, picture heavy post. Here are some pictures from my phone:

{Chorizodor burger from Romers Burger Bar}

{Father’s day dinner @ Seasons in the Park: Prime rib}

{My first time trying Soho Tearoom. I ordered the Malaysian curry chicken served with roti and a sad salad}

{Second time at Soho Tearoom. This time I got chicken steak and porkchop with mushroom sauce on rice. This was a generous portion for $8}