Night at the Orpheum

As a Valentine's Day present, I got two tickets for a VSO Russian violin concert. It's been close to a year since we were last here. I was lucky to get two free VSO concert tickets at work last year and we came here for the first time. We enjoyed the architecture of the building and the excellence performance by the VSO. I figured it would be a treat for us to come back here. The place hadn't changed at all, still buzzing with activities. The pieces played during the concert was a bit too serious for my taste and apparently too boring for the guy in front of me because he fell asleep half way through. My favorite piece was the music from the Nutcracker dedicated to the famous ballerina that passed away recently. We took some pictures before the concert and during intermission. You don't have to worry about our greyish blue skin color, we are both healthy. The color came from the LED flash light on Bernard's cellphone camera.

This was me in the hall just outside the dress circle.


The huge old fashion chandelier from the ceiling




The orchestra getting ready just before the performance. There was supposedly to be a prelude concert an hour before the actual concert but was canceled. I felt jibbed :(



Bernard normally prefers to be behind camera but I convinced him to be in front of the camera for a change.

Chinese New Year Gathering

It was a quiet Chinese New Year. We just had a simple potluck with Bernard's family at his mom's place. I made bobochacha and stirred fried asparagus and prawns. The bobochacha didn't turn out as great as I like because I put too much tapioca and it was still pretty decent. I hope I can make it even better next time.

Here are some candid shots from the gathering ...


Catherine and Norm relaxing over some wine after the big meal.



Agnes and Glen still eating while Bernard moved onto the taro snacks.


Bernard finally noticed the camera and gave a satisified smile after securing a big chunk of taro snack.

Agnes and Glen still eating. Glen looked up confused from his plate of food. But Agnes was quick to react and gave a photogenic smile. Does it look like Glen is using Agnes' head as a table?




Bernard's mom was busy washing something in the kitchen ... feel kind of bad.



We forgot to take a group picture so this is the closest thing we have to a group picture.

Our stuffed kalamari creation

We love the stuffed kalarmari at this Greek restaurant and I decided to try making our own. I found a lot of different recipes but most of them don't resemble the ones we tried at the restaurant. I finally found one (from Good Eats) that seems pretty close and decided to try it one Sunday night. Bernard got quite excited as well as he also loves the squid dish. We made a mixture of bread crumbs, tomato sauce and prawns as the filling and stuffed the mixtures into small squids.

The following is a picture of what I envision the end product will look like


and this is a pictures of how our squids actually looked like after we took them out from the oven ...


OK, so our squids looked more like dog poo than squids but surprisingly, this mess actually tasted pretty good, just like the squids we had at the restaurant! The main problem was that we underestimated how much the stuffing would expand and how much the squids would shrink - to less than half their original size. So the stuffing spilled all over the place and the squids pretty much disappeared after baking.

Here's a pictures of how small the squids were after they were baked


S0 I am no Iron Chef but I think we are pretty close to getting this dish right. Just have to get bigger squids and don't get too greedy with the stuffing next time :)

Christmas holiday

I took the time between Christmas and New Year off and it's great! We stayed in town. Didn't do anything special but got lots of sleep and met up with friends and family.

We set up the Christmas tree that Bernard bought with his sisters a few years ago. It's been kept in the storage all this time because they got tired of settingit up and taking it down. It took us about 2 hours to set everything up too, but we were happy with the result. Bernard bought some cute ornaments which added a dash of color to the mainly gold and silver tree.
I made a wreath from the materical that we chose from Michaels, and we hung the wreath above the fireplace.


And it's so much more festive with a tree! It was actually my first time setting up a Christmas tree so it was really fun. But I might find it tiring after a few years :)



On the 23rd, I had dim sum with my high school friends because our high school classmates Gwen and Derek were visiting from Toronto. They haven't changed a bit, except that Derek now has a #1 haircut. It was nice to catch up with them and to see everyone else at the dim sum gathering.


The cymbidium orchid that Mr and Mrs Ng (the last owners of the house) left us are blooming. I was so exciting! It hasn't bloomed since we got the house 2 years ago and from what Mrs Ng told me, it didn't bloom for a long time before then as well. The flowers are light yellow and have a faint fragrance.


On the 24th, we had a Christmas potluck gathering at Uncle Woshun's. It's a fun night. Unfortunately we didn't bring our camera so we didn't take any pictures. Aunt Lydia gave me an artist set with oil and water color paint. She hinted that she wants a new painting.

We had a quiet dinner at home on the 25th since almost all restaurants were closed. We bought some fresh stuffed pasta for dinner. I invited Rose to join us since her family is away during Christmas. It's been a while since we got together and we had fun listening to her cruise adventure in Hawaii.



On boxing day, we had a potluck dinner with Bernard's side of the family, including his mom, sister Catherine, her fiance Norm, sister Agnes and her boyfriend Glen. I made Shitaski stuffed with squid paste, which was a hit. Catherine's prawns with green beans was also very delicious. We took pictures after dinner. It got a bit confusing as to which camera to smile at because we had 3 cameras going at the same time.


We didn't do much during the holiday but did go for a walk at Deer Lake during one of the dry afternoon. It got dark so early, it was only 4:30 pm but the sun started to set. Below are two pictures taken by the lake. The tall buildings on top of the hill are high rises at Metrotown and the area on the slope used to be a women's prison but now it's a big townhouse complex.




Here's a pictures of me saying hi to two huskies. They belong to a guy that lives in a big house by the lake.


It was cold so our walk lasted only about 20 minutes or so. We decided eating warm food at a restaurant was a much better idea and two of us lazy bums quickly went back to the car.

We ventured out again on a sunny day to Cypress moutain - not to ski, but just take a few pictures. It was a clear day and at the view point we got a nice view of the whole city as well as Mt Baker in the States.



The sunset casted a golden glow on our skin.








After leaving Cypress mountain, we decided to eat in West Vancouver because of the huge amount of traffic crossing the bridge. We were pleasantly surpised to find a Steamworks restaurant in the Park Royal Mall. We shared a pizza and a pasta dish, which were delicious. We walked around Home Depot in the mall after dinner and found a small chandelier that we thought would fit perfectly in the eating area. They didn't have anymore stock but we managed to find it at another Home Depot. We installed the chandelier right away. Bernard did most of the assembly. It looks more cozy than our old halogen light.


I spent the last two days of vacation doing a watercolor painting after blowing the dust off my paint blushes. My watercolor paints were so old that most of then dried up in the tubes and I couldn't squeeze them out! I was quite rusty as well so it took more than a day to finish the painting. I wasn't totally happy with it but it's a good start.