globe-trotting : frankfurt

I just finished my last class for the summer!  It feels so good. I wish though, that Stewart and I could be off somewhere fun for this next month but thats ok.  It'll be good to just enjoy Vancouver and plus Marjolyn will be having her baby soon so I must be here for that :)

This post is going to relive our trip to Frankfurt. The food there was super yummy :)  And what's not to love about train stations!?  It just like being at the airport.  Its so exciting to see all the places that people are going and moving around.

globe-trotting : Berat, Albania

Even though I had no idea what to expect, Albania seemed to be exactly what I thought it would be. Our first glimpse of Albania was when we got off the boat in Saranda which is just a hop skip and a jump from Corfu. A very convenient 20 minute boat ride as a matter of fact. Our short time in Saranda would provide for us a taste of what we were to expect in the next 3 days to come. We needed to get on a bus to Berat but had no idea where to go. Fortunately, a guy that was trying to promote his hostel came and gave us a little flyer with a map of the city, so we used that to try to find the bus station. The ‘bus station’ happened to just be a corner that buses stop at. Some people get on there but many just flag the buses down along its route. Stewart had found a guy that spoke English who told us that there weren’t any more buses going straight to Berat that day so if we wanted to go there we would have to get on a bus to Tirana and change buses half way. So this is what we did. So many times on our trip, we just get onto buses hoping that the bus drivers will let us know when we get off. And so many times they let of out in the middle of nowhere! But in this instance it was pretty seamless. We managed to hop right onto a mini bus that was going straight to Berat.

Berat is very beautiful. This Unesco site is nicknamed the city of a million windows for the gorgeous ottoman houses lining the mountains along the river that runs through the town. You would think that with a population of 45,000 people, they wouldn’t look at me like they have never seen an asian person... EVER! But I seriously would not be lying if I thought that I was the only asian in that city. It made it very awkward since, like the rest of Europe, Albanians love the outdoor seating in cafes which are mostly occupied with men. I even had two instances where people just shouted out “Chinwa!.” Oh, and lets not forget about the times where people just honk and then stare at me as they drive by. OH! And the women who almost missed a step since she couldn’t pry her eyes off me. Haha. Pretty crazy. Anyway, back to this beautiful city. At night, the whole city comes out to the main walk along the river. And I mean, the WHOLE city. Men and women come out dressed to impress. I love how people in that city just enjoy walking, conversing, grabbing some popcorn or ice cream and just hanging out. I hope that computers and video games never ruin that for them.

Best Friend's Baby Shower

My best friend, Marjolyn, had her baby shower this past weekend and we celebrated with a picnic themed shower in the park.  So many people pitched in to help and it went so smoothly!  This baby is already so love <3.  I know I already feel like I love her to bits!! I can't wait to meet her in a month :)

Looking Back : Vancouver 2010 Olympics

Since we lost our blog posts from before, I wanted to do some posts looking back to some fun things we did in the past few years.

[ February, 2010 ]

The London Summer Olympics Games are coming up soon so I thought i'd start off with our experience during the Vancouver 2012 Winter Olympic Games.   This was such an amazing time for Vancouver and Canada as a whole.  The atmosphere in Vancouver was crazy!  The city was packed with people from all over the world enjoying what the city had to offer.  I've never experienced so much patriotism.  It was not unusual to break out and sing the national anthem at least once a day with complete strangers :)

Stewart was able to purchase tickets for Canada vs. Switzerland in hockey.  It was an intense game!! It went into a shoot out with Sidney Crosby scoring the winning goal. 

Tasha and I really wanted to go to the opening ceremony and were seriously contemplating paying $600/ticket for this once in a lifetime opportunity.  However, we could never pull the trigger on actually buying the tickets because $600 is alot of money for us.  At that time, I was working at Grouse Mountain and they were having a contest to win tickets to the Opening Cermony's!  Whoever could sell the most of this certain wine in a given time period would be able to go or sell them as some other servers were wanting to do.  Well I won them and it was amazing!!!! The best contest I could have ever won.  My sister and I ended up going and it was awesome. 

Good times :)

Stewart and I are hoping to go to the Summer Games in Brazil!  That would be really awesome too.

Have you been to any olympic games?
Comment below and share your experience!

we're back!

We had to shut down our last blog for awhile and I guess we left it too long and now its all gone :(  So here we go again!  Hopefully we'll be able to post regularly again :)