My friend Janine (my roommate from first year of university) was in town this week for work. I met up with her downtown to hang out the other day!

She had heard about Japadog from some other friends so we knew where to have lunch already. We went to the actual Japadog restaurant on Robson because it was a crazy weather day (we had hail, rain, sun, and snow all within a couple hours). The restaurant was packed but we were able to get a spot at a table by the time our food was actually ready.

We got the spicy cheese terimayo hot dog and the special avocado hot dog and split them both. Janine ordered us some melon floats and fries as well (not pictured). Everything was very tasty!! (The only negative I would say is that the avocado one had just a bit too much cream cheese and mayo.) The fries reminded us of something else but neither of us could figure out what. Maybe some kind of chip flavour or something? I liked them and would order them again.

Has Japadog lowered their prices or do the stands and the restaurant have different prices? Because I had Japadog once before a year or so ago and it was like $9.50 for a hotdog! I do remember the hotdog being a lot bigger. Now they are around $5-$6 and smaller, which is better, in my opinion.

Japadog Menu, Reviews, Photos, Location and Info - Zomato

I’m on holiday!!! And it feels great.

My feelings exam was fine. She made us do the short answer question before the multiple choice, which was really odd. She actually made us hand in the short answer questions mid-way through the exam, so you couldn’t even use the multiple choice for hints if you forgot everything, haha.

After our exam we all went to Crystal Mall (an Asian mall near my house) for lunch. I had a beef noodle soup in a clay pot. Sodi-YUM!

Scott came home on Friday. I made him a chocolate birthday cake and a ham dinner with lots of stuffing. (It was his birthday on Thursday). I gave him a Canucks hoodie before he left, and a pair of winter gloves (finally!) when he came back.

He brought me sooooooooo many treats!! Five different kinds of Tim Tams, Freddo frogs, my world maps bathing suit, Savoys (thanks Vicky!). He even brought me a piece of hazelnut cake from Ganache (where we got our wedding cake!).

me enjoying a piece of wedding cake for breakfast dessert

PLUS he ran to Trader Joe’s on his stopover in L.A. and brought back tons of stuff from there too!! I am so spoiled!!! The airport security took the spekuloos cookie butter though because they were hungry it is a “liquid”. What a bummer. I still don’t know what that stuff tastes like.

the Tim Tam portion of my stash

I’ve hid everything that is still sealed away in the cupboard because it’s too many treats to have at once. I will ration it out over the next several months.

It’s kind of crazy that it’s only been 3 days since I last posted yet I have so much I want to say.

1) I wrote my last difficult exam this morning. It was kind of horrible. Luckily I only have one more easy(ish) exam to go and then I’m DONE this semester!! I will spend all tomorrow memorizing feelings stuff and then Thursday around lunch time I will be officially on winter break.

2) We decided that Scott isn’t going to come to Fiji. :( It sucks, but Scott has another family wedding to go to next July. (I can’t go, again, because I have clinical). We agreed that it is only really responsible for him to go on one of the two trips, and he chose Australia. He also wouldn’t be able to get enough time off work for both even if we did sacrifice some of our savings. He IS still going to join me for the L.A. portion of my trip though, which is awesome.

3) I bought the LAX-NAN-LAX part of my flights! And now I will pretty much have my fingers permanently crossed until the trip is over. Fingers crossed that BCIT doesn’t go on too long of a strike, the hospitals don’t go on too long of a strike, my flights don’t get delayed/changed, it doesn’t rain the entire time I’m in Fiji, etc etc. I just keep reminding myself what Kate told me a while back: things generally work out for me. I suppose she is right. ;)

4) I found $8 Santa suits for Santa Skiing!! And there is skeleton the day after Santa Skiing! (BEST WEEKEND EVER COMING UP)

5) Ginger cookie fro yo sandwiches are a really freaking delicious dessert.

6) Scott gets home on Friday! Finally!

7) Sounds like Rosemarie had a great time in Melbourne. I made her a big list of all my favourite things to do there and I think she actually did each thing on the list! It must have been a really fun week and I’m so glad that Scott was able to (and is nice enough to) spend so much time hanging out with my sister. You can read her blog here: http://threepiece.wordpress.com/

Scott and I redeemed our vaneats.ca DD Mau voucher the other night. The package came with two half banh mi sandwiches (one grilled lemongrass chicken, and one crispy roasted pork) and a smoothie (we chose avocado) for $9.50.

The sandwiches were really really good. All the fresh veggies tasted great and the bread was crunchy on the outside and soft in the middle. The crispy pork one was definitely the best, but the chicken was still good too!

(By the way, if you haven’t tried banh mi sandwiches yet, you should! They’re Vietnamese. They typically have cucumber, pickled carrots and daikon, mayo, cilantro, some type of meat, and hot sauce on them. DELICIOUS).

The smoothie was good also. It was made with avocado and almond milk. The avocado taste wasn’t super strong. I liked it much better than the time Scott and I tried to make avocado smoothies at home.

It was a great meal. The package was enough for two people to split for lunch, or one hungry person for dinner!

I will totally go back to DD Mau sometime. I want to try their BBQ duck banh mi, and I would totally order the crispy pork banh mi again. YUM!

DD Mau Menu, Reviews, Photos, Location and Info - Zomato

We ate this a while ago but it was too good not to mention. Long weekend brunch at Red Wagon on Hastings @ Nanaimo.

On the left is my Crisp Pork Belly breakfast with delicious pork belly (under the garnish), poached eggs, hollandaise, grilled tomato, potatoes and toast. Oh I’m drooling again.

And on the right is Scott’s Pulled Pork Pancakes. In between each of the pancakes was pulled pork, and the syrup over it was Jack Daniel’s flavoured. It tasted great! Love that sweet salty combo.

We were both super happy with our meals. We had to wait a while for a table but it was totally worth it.

The Red Wagon Menu, Reviews, Photos, Location and Info - Zomato