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July 14th was Scott and my first anniversary! Scott got me some flowers and candy and I got him some CFL tickets for this Friday. Then we went out for a fancy dinner at Tojo’s. We ordered the 5 course and vegetarian omakase which basically means ‘trust the chef’. It was exciting and delicious. I had been looking forward to this meal ever since we moved to Vancouver. Tojo is one of the top rated restaurants in Canada!

To drink I had a cocktail with sour tangerine and guava that was super tasty.

1st course: I had a tuna tartar thing that was super light and smooth and fluffy and soft and delicious. Scott had a spinach salad that he liked a lot but it was very tiny so he was sad.

2nd course: I had octopus. It was decent, not rubbery whatsoever. I’m sure that is pretty much as good as octopus gets. Not my top choice of seafood really. Scott had a seaweed salad, which was ok, but maybe a little plain.

3rd course: Yellowtail with some stir fried stuff. Quite tasty, but cooked fish < raw fish, in my opinion! Scott had a croquette that I don’t think he liked very much because it was not very Japanese.


4th course. Picture stolen from travelwithamate.com

4th course: OMG delicious tuna thingies. From the menu: Red tuna wrapped in nori seaweed with a light tempura crust, served with sour plum sauce. The slices of tuna were perfect looking: raw in the middle, cooked around the outside. PERFECTLY flakey. Scott got a mushroom dish that he liked a lot (finally).

5th course: SUSHI! Yay! Both of ours were really good. We each got a variety plate, which is what I always wish I could have at sushi restaurants but is usually not an option!

My plate had a raw prawn sushi (blech), yellowtail sushi (om nom nom), a piece each of Great Canadian Roll (Atlantic lobster with asparagus inside with smoked Pacific salmon on top), Spicy Tuna Roll, Golden Roll (crab, scallop, salmon, and sweet shrimp rolled in an egg crepe), and the most delicious piece of sushi I have EVER eaten:

Pacific Northwest Roll (West coast Dungenss crab and avocado inside-out with scallop and flying fish roe on top).

Scott’s plate had two of those bean curd pillows with rice on the inside, a few pieces of a roll with pineapple and lots of other veg inside, and a few pieces of a roll that was wrapped in cucumber instead of seaweed.

Sorry for the terrible pictures, we didn’t bring the camera with us to dinner.

Then for dessert we had ginger ice cream with tasty citrus fruit on the bottom, and a pannacotta type thing that tasted good but I didn’t really like the jelly texture.

Overall I was very happy. Scott’s wasn’t very good value though. We both left full, after about a two hour dinner since you have to wait a bit in between each course. It was a fun experience and maybe when we’re DINKs we can go back. Maybe Scott will eat fish by then.

Can’t believe we’ve been married a whole year! It’s passed by quick.

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I have been churning through the audiobooks lately. A good story really makes the work day pass quickly!!

Books I Listened To:

  • the rest of Something Rotten – Jasper Fforde
  • First Among Sequels – Jasper Fforde
  • The Help – Kathryn Stockett (interesting)
  • Water For Elephants – Sarah Gruen (liked it, haven’t watched the movie yet… the movie might ruin it for me)
  • Assassination Vacation – Sarah Vowell (did not find this very interesting since i have little interest in american presidents)
  • The Girl Who Played With Fire – Stieg Larsson (liked much more than the first one in the series)
  • The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets Nest – Stieg Larsson (good in some parts, incredibly boring in others)
  • Divergent – Veronica Roth (yes yes! very similar to hunger games, but i think i liked it better. read this!)
  • One Day – David Nicholls
  • Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society – Mary Ann Shaffer (i recommend this one as well. about post wwII, in letter format)
  • The Death Defying Pepper Roux – Geraldine McCaughrean (would be a good story to read to your kids at bedtime)
Books I Read:
  • A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier – Ishnael Beah (very interesting! this guy has gone through the unimaginable)
Next:
  • Metamorphosis – Franz Kafka
  • She’s Come Undone – Wally Lamb
  • ???

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Every Ottawaian (sp?) knows that Canada Day in Ottawa is the best. I planned our trip so that we could spend Canada Day there! And this years’ party did not disappoint. I had a top notch day.

We started off the day with Rosemarie, busing downtown and going to the Museum of Nature to look at bugs and freak animals. After that we went to the hill to see the crowds.

Her and I scarfed down a poutine surrounded by people all crowded around trying to get a glimpse of Will and Kate. We didn’t see anything really, only on the video screen.

Then she went off to meet her friends and Scott and I went to a party at Leslie’s for beer, Canadian music and patriotic snacks.

After a few hours of that we headed back to Parliament Hill to stake out a spot for the evening concert. We met up with way more people and had quite a large group. I thought the concert was actually better than usual. I had actually heard of some of the bands (ha) and even heard a new guy that I really like (Dan Mangan). There were acrobatics and drumming too.

Scott and I snuck out about 20 minutes early to race around to Major’s Hill Park where we grabbed a nutritious dinner (a popsicle) and watched an unobstructed view of the fireworks. Noice.

It took us ages to get home due to some unusual bus patterns but we made it home (reunited with Rosemarie) where we scrubbed off the sweaty filth of the day and ate a midnight snack of two kinds of cheese and two kinds of crackers. Awesome.

Ummm then the next day (the last day), we did some frantic packing and a quick coffee with the scrapbook ladies and then Jill drove us to the airport. Our flight back was uneventful.

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THURSDAY did errands and packed up and sorted a lot of stuff from my old room. Scott and I made banh mi for dinner and then we rushed off for games night at the Haberl’s house.

Tons o’ games. Tons o’ friends. Homemade salsa (thanks Natasha!) and beer and cider and champagne.

At one point we had THREE simultaneous games of Settlers going on. Awesome.

There was also birthday cheesecake for David and I. :D

quality picture taking Katrina :/

Finished the night off drinking games and beer pong and then crawled up to (the ultra comfy) bed.

It was a really fun day. I especially like that all my friends are becoming friends with each other too! Thank you Monica for planning it.

Next morning I didn’t feel that great but we had to come home fairly early to catch dad and Kate to say goodbye before they left for the cottage. We did a little more box sorting and C-Day planning and then Rosemarie, Scott and I bused downtown for Canada Day. Stay tuned for the next entry!

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On Wednesday we went to Calypso water park. It was very cold (about 14ºC if I remember correctly), cloudy, and it even rained quite hard for a while. But a combination of warm water, a lot of stairs, and great company meant we still had an awesome day. There were NO LINES. I think the max time we had to wait was about 5 minutes, and really most of the time we just climbed right in. We got to try every slide, and lots more than once.

We climbed SO MANY STAIRS. It was especially apparent after climbing the new slide tower two times in a row with no breaks. Rosemarie calculated that we climbed the equivalent of about 170 stories throughout the day! OMG! No wonder my legs were all wobbly.

Mandatory water park shot

The new waterslide tower. 10 stories tall!!

AQUALOOP!!!

4 toilet slides (2 with tubes, 2 without)

Family slides are the best slides

Mega racing, and two mega wedgie inducing slides

The park was soooooooo busy. Haha

Oh and the lazy river, kids play area, and crazy wave pool were also awesome. We went in those about every 4 slides or so to warm up.