Summer in Boston and Cape Cod

This summer, I made a short trip to Boston and Cape Cod with my mom.  It was a nice little break from work and we had very nice weather to go along with it.  We stayed right by Copley Square.  On our first day, we walked along the Public Garden, through Boston Common, along the Freedom Trail and visited some of the historic sites.

Short Trip to Victoria, BC, 2014

In the beginning of June, my mom came over to visit me in Vancouver, so I thought it would be nice to take a short trip and ride the ferry over to Victoria.  Victoria really is a very small city.  We arrived around supper time, and checked into the Fairmont Empress Hotel.

Pigging out in Vancouver - Part 2

After spending five months in Vancouver, I had a lot of time to try out a ton of awesome restaurants.  Here are the noteworthy:

Homer Street Cafe and Bar
I went to this relatively new restaurant a couple of times because it was located in Yaletown, walking distance from the hotel I stayed at.  They specialize in rotisserie chicken and other rotisserie meats.  I also ordered fish dishes from here when I wanted a healthier options and the meals were always enjoyable.

Victoria Day Weekend 2014 in San Francisco

San Francisco is one of those cities that we don't mid visiting every couple of years.  With Napa just an hour away and lots of great places to eat, what's there not to like?  2hung has a few friends that have recently moved out to San Francisco, so we took this opportunity to visit them along the way.

We started off the weekend with a nice breakfast at Craftsman and Wolves.  This is a beautiful cafe with delicious pastries in the Mission District.  They make a savoury muffin called the Rebel Within which contains a soft boiled egg in the centre.  It costs $7 but worth every penny.

Pigging out in Vancouver - Part 1

Ever since I started my project in Vancouver in February, I've definitely been pigging out and eating a lot of good food.  Here are some of my new finds and an old place revisited.

Ramen Jinya
I was trying to find a ramen place that was a closer walk from my downtown hotel, but most of them are situated on the West End except this one which is located in Yaletown on the other end of Robson St.  Still about a 15min walk from my hotel but slightly closer than the other choices.  I had the tonkotsu ramen with black garlic oil and the gyozas.  The soup was very tasty and I liked their noodles.  The gyozas were good too.  I go there often.

Snowboarding in Whistler 2014

In late March, 2hung, my brother and I made a trip to Whistler for some snowboarding fun before the season was over.  This was our first time in Whistler and the mountains were awesome!  The peak 2 peak gondola was so high and so scenic.  I'm not good at snowboarding at all.  Originally, I was going to snowboard for two days, but it ended up that one day was quite enough for me.  Here are some fun pictures that we took on and off the mountains.

Honeymoon #3 Part 2 - Venice, Florence, Rome

After our stay in Monte Carlo, we flew over to Venice to continue the Italian portion of our honeymoon.  We had only allocated one day/night in Venice, and with our hectic transportation schedule, it really wasn't enough.  Especially with the little accident that 2hung had in the canal (kekeke), we had even less time.  It was also why we had to start taking pictures with my cell phone during the time we spent in Venice and Florence.  Nonetheless, we still had a great time!

Family Day Weekend 2014 in Seattle

Now that I'm on an assignment out in the West Coast, we took the opportunity to pay a visit to Seattle over the Family Day weekend.  The only reason I was excited about visiting Seattle was because I really wanted to go to the first Starbucks store in Seattle and buy some memorabilia.  Yes, I am a Starbucks snob.

Honeymoon #3 Part 1 - Paris, Nice, Monte Carlo

I finally had the time to sit myself down and write a post about our real honeymoon to Europe in late October of 2013.  It was 2hung's first time in Europe and we visited Paris, Nice, Monte Carlo, Venice, Florence and Rome.  First, let's talk about what we did in France and Monaco.

We stayed at The Westin Vendome which was located steps from the Tuileries Metro station and maybe a 5-10 min walk to the Louvre.  I still remember stepping out of the Metro station and the feeling of awe at the sight of Paris.

Day 1:
We spent the first day in the Jardin des Tuileries, taking pictures by the pyramids at the Louvre and sightseeing on the Ile de la Cite.  Strolling through the garden was so relaxing and the surrounding buildings were so beautiful.  We enjoyed walking by or through it almost everyday that we were there.

Glimpses of Baltimore

Since I had been in Baltimore for over 6 months, I wanted to put together a photo collage of all the places I've been to, food that I've eaten and shopping that I've done.  Baltimore is a nice city especially around the harbour where my team stayed.

Exploring the US Capital - Weekend in Washington DC

I finally found myself some time to write a blog post today.  Ever since we returned from our honeymoon, I've been busy studying for the PMP exam.  Luckily that's all over and I passed, so I'm now officially PMP certified!

2hung and I went on a trip to Washington DC back in September literally the weekend before the government shutdown, so we were able to visit the many Smithsonian museums and enjoy the city.  DC was a pretty fun weekend visit for us.  There were lots of places to see and lots of great restaurants.  The weather was quite nice so at first we set out on foot and thought we could just walk or take the transit everywhere, but soon we realized that the city was way too big and even getting from museum to museum was quite tiring, so we made use of their bike rental system called Capital Bikeshare.  It was quite convenient and wasn't very expensive.

July 4th Long Weekend 2013 in NYC

I don't think there's a better place to spend July 4th long weekend than in NYC.  I can never get bored of a weekend filled with eating and shopping with good friends.  We started the day off on the wrong foot by forgetting my laptop at home, so we had to drive all the way back home to get it after we had reached the airport.  This caused us to miss our flight by minutes.  I can't believe they didn't wait for me even though I'm Super Elite!  Good thing there are many flights from Toronto to La Guardia so we were put onto the next flight out.

We had missed our reservation for Minetta Tavern (I have been wanting to try their black label burger for so long!), so we went to have pizza at Joe's instead.  After pizza, we headed to Soho to try our luck at scoring a cronut at Dominique Ansel's bakery.  Of course, we were out of luck, but I did get to try a few other things: DKA (Dominique's Kouign Amann), chocolate eclair and freshly baked madeleines.

Attending My First Ever Destination Wedding - Punta Cana, Dominican Republic 2013 (Honeymoon Part 2)

I'm trying hard to catch up on all my blog posts.  After our West Coast tour of Canada, we left immediately the next morning to attend the destination wedding of our good friends Yvonne and Henry in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic.  This was my first time attending a destination wedding, and it's part 2 of our honeymoon.  There were so many people attending the wedding, kids, adults and seniors.  I think we took up 1/3 of the plane!

We stayed at the Barcelo Bavaro Beach resort which had an adult section and a kid section.  The resort was huge with a golf course, water park, shopping, tons of restaurants, the whole nine yards.  The kid section seemed to be the more updated side and had more amenities than the adult section.

Road Trip to the Canadian West Coast - Banff, Jasper and Vancouver, 2013 (Honeymoon Part 1)

After the wedding, we went on a road trip with my parents and my eldest brother Sam to the Canadian West Coast.  We flew over to Calgary and then did a road trip from Calgary to Banff to Jasper and then onwards to Vancouver.  It has been a long time since I've gone on a trip with my dad and big bro, so it was very nice to have spent some bonding time with them.

We spent one night in the Fairmont Banff Springs Hotel.  They put us up in the Honeymoon Suite all the way up at the very top of the hotel.  We had to climb an extra set of stairs to get to our room and inside our room, there were more stairs!

Girls in NYC 2013

My wonderful maid of honour and bridesmaids helped me plan my bachelorette trip and there's no better destination, nowhere more fitting than a trip to NYC.  I'm so glad that all three of them flew down and we spent all weekend doing some of the things that I love best: eat, drink and shop!

First it was a trip to Woodbury Commons Premium Outlets, in the snow!  I don't think I've ever seen Woodbury this dead, but the snow is not an obstacle for hard-core shoppers like me and my girls.

I think on this trip, every girl spent more than they had anticipated due to my influence - I apologize to the husbands.

Winter in Winnipeg 2013

It was a long, cold and snowy winter in Winnipeg.  With the temperature dipping down to below -40 degrees Celsius, it was some of the coldest weather that I've ever experienced in my 20+ years in Canada.  It was cold enough for snow sculptures and skating along the Red and Assiniboine Rivers.

Wedding Shopping in Hong Kong and a Side Trip to Macau

Spent part of November and December 2012 in Hong Kong doing a lot of wedding shopping.  I managed to get a Chinese dress in Shenzhen and an evening gown in Prince Edward.  I also got my wedding invitations printed and bought a whole bunch of little things needed for the wedding.  Of course, I always save time for good food and also took a side trip to Macau.  Speaking of weddings, look at this teddy bear themed wedding that I ran into at the Intercontinental Hotel during my trip.

Here are some highlights of the food I had in Hong Kong.

Vancouver Style

This year we missed Thanksgiving at home because 2hung and I took a weekend trip to Vancouver.  The main objective of the trip was to get our engagement photos taken by our wedding photographer Sandy Tam because she happened to be in Vancouver that weekend.  We had the perfect weather those four days and besides the photo shoot, we were able to fit in lots of outdoor activities and of course, lots of food!

California Love Part 2: SoCal

The next morning, we drove out of Napa and made our way south towards Southern California.  We drove along the Golden Gate Bridge back to San Francisco and headed for the I-1, which is the highway that runs along the beautiful Pacific coast.

 We stopped by the Lands End Lookout point for a amazing view of the ocean.

 

 

California Love Part 1: NorCal

Spent about 9 days in California this July.  I've been to California before but never spent this much time exploring the Golden State.  This time we flew into San Francisco, drove to Napa and Sonoma, then drove south along the coast to LA, Newport Beach and San Diego, making a stop first in Paso Robles.  First stop was Northern California.
We arrived in San Francisco and spent the day exploring the city.  We took the cable car over to Fisherman's Wharf.  It was a lot fun to stand on the edge of the cable car going up and down the hilly streets of San Fran.