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My calendar for the next couple months just went from empty to exciting. I’ve got some great events coming up in Vancouver that I am really looking forward to.

1. Canadian Video Game Awards – April 20th, 2013 – Vancouver Convention Centre

Scott and I are lucky enough to get to attend as VIP again, thanks to Janine (my roommate from way back in first year of university). And this time she will actually be there!! This is more fun for Scott but I am also looking forward to the free wine, cool demos, and Canadian B-list (C-list?) celebrities.

2. Eat! Vancouver Food + Cooking Festival – May 24th to 26th, 2013 – BC Place

Eat! Vancouver is back!!! This was one of my favourite events I have been to EVER! It only costs $14 if you buy your ticket online and is totally worth it. Last year Rosemarie and I ate so much we had to waddle home. We ate more than 50 samples! LOL.

There will be tons of vendor booths giving out free samples and if you still have room in your stomach you can buy appetizer-sized plates of food from local Vancouver restaurants for a couple dollars each. There will be a wine, beer and spirits tasting area, and this year there will also be a special area dedicated to gluten-free food. If you want to take a break from stuffing your face you can watch demonstrations and seminars by Food Network celebrities and chefs!

And when you leave you get a goodie bag filled with more samples and lots of coupons! If you love food, you really should go to this festival. (BTW, my spiel is a little long for this one because this year I get to attend as press! Go blog go!)

3. The Society of Nuclear Medicine Annual Meeting – June 8th to 12th, 2013 – Vancouver Convention Centre

This last one is a bit nerdy. The Society of Nuclear Medicine is the American professional association for nuclear medicine techs and doctors. Every year they have a big conference and this year we are so lucky because it is in Vancouver! AND students get to attend for free!! I think it will be along the same lines as the Society for Neuroscience conference I got to attend in 2007 and that means lots of posters, vendor booths, talks, and other science-y delights. It will be really interesting to see how far the rest of the world has taken nuclear medicine because Canada is actually very behind in it in a lot of ways. I am excited!

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Oh man the last week was hectic. I had to make a thousand lists to stay organized. But here we are, at the airport ready to fly to L.A. for a couple days (then Scott flies home and I head to Fiji for 2.5 weeks!) I managed to finish everything except half of one lab which I guess I’ll finish up when I get home, in April. I am really excited for roller coasters tomorrow and relaxing on the beach next week. I hope I didn’t forget to pack anything! Blog posts will probably be pretty sporadic for the next few weeks but I’ll be back with lots of stories and pictures soon enough.

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I’m going to be going back into some old posts and fixing up the broken links and pictures. I’m not sure if stuff will pop up on your Google Reader or not, but if it does, I’m very sorry and bear with me I will try and wrap it up today. Thanks.

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So way back on the 17th we left for Hawaii. A car ride, two planes, two buses later, and a lot of sweating later, we arrived at our little room in Kailua. Instead of staying in Honolulu we opted to rent a spare room in a much quieter town. We had no idea what it would be like but luckily it was OK.

We spent the majority of our vacation relaxing in different places. Oahu is BEAUTIFUL with its lush green forests and huge interesting looking mountains. Plus sunshine every day and very little rain.
We also spent lots of time looking for the perfect food: cheap, tasty, different, vegetarian options.

We went to Waikiki beach a couple times, and beautiful Kailua beach right near where we were staying almost every day. It was very windy there though.

Us at Waikiki.

We snorkeled in Hanauma Bay. It was good, lots of fish, but pretty crowded.

We went to Wet N Wild Hawaii for a day and had A BLAST. So many slides and so much fun. Also Scott is an excellent person to go to a waterpark with because he carries the raft!

One day on our way back to our room we stumbled upon a farmers market with lots of produce and nice food. We bought some chipotle taro dip, and I had totally yummy ahi (seared tuna) with 8 pounds of garlic. There were also some Hawaiian music players and a bunch of local hula dancers! Neat! It was really cool because it wasn’t tourist oriented, just their normal market.

One night we ended up at a really fancy sushi restaurant. We sat at a bar and had our own sushi chef in front of us who would make us anything we wanted. It was pricey though so we didn’t get anything too crazy. I had delicious tuna rolls, and a thai shrimp one. Scott had weird vegetarian sushi with 8 million types of veg. Oh and the sushi chef let me try this cool eel sushi roll that had thinly sliced cucumber instead of rice. Yum!

Most of our trip we took the public buses around everywhere. They were pretty unreliable, but we were on holiday so it wasn’t the hugest deal. We rented a car for the last two days though and that was really fun. We drove all the way around the island each day, up to the North Shore via Giovanni’s shrimp truck and a bakery for chocolate haupia pie, checking out new beaches and LOST filming locations. We went to Waimea Bay expecting huge waves and surfing, but apparently in the summer it is flat as. Like as flat as a lake. It was crazy.

Super flat North Shore.

One beach we stopped at had heaps of giant turtles close to shore, munching on the stuff growing on the rocks. We could see them really clearly and it was really special.

We also stopped at THE WORLDS LARGEST MAZE… in 2008. I was pretty excited about this, since I did this big project on mazes back in grade 12 and still hadn’t actually been in one. We had a card and were supposed to go around and find 8 different stations. Scott and I went our separate ways… wandered for about 10 minutes and bumped into each other. Neither of us had found any! We separated again. I wasn’t really having fun any more. I found two, mostly because of loud children with parents who had maps, and then bumped into Scott again. He had a couple as well, but neither of us were having that much fun at all so we left, haha.


Scott’s impression of the maze.


Delicious delicious shave ice with ice cream and beans.


Awesome Hawaiian sunset.