It’s been an incredibly busy fall. I’ve been working almost full time, weightlifting at Terminal City Training twice a week, training on my own, push training at the Richmond Oval about once a week, walking home from work when I can, working on a really complicated project, meeting up with tons of visitors, and more! OMG.

Everything is going really well though. I am not complaining about being busy at all.

It’s actually the one year mark of me joining Al’s weightlifting gym. I’ve added about 30 lbs to my press and benchpress, and 60 lbs to my deadlift and squat!! Sweet sweet noob gains. Group training is the highlight of my week, tbh.

Push training is also pretty fun. It’s a flat track with a metal skeleton sled on wheels and an emergency crash pad at the end. It’s fairly realistic, although the sled is quite heavy, and there is no chance of popping the groove. We can run as far as we want basically and then you drag your toes to slow down. Running bent over, while trying to accelerate a sled without actually putting much weight on it is very difficult!! I don’t think I will ever be a very fast starter but hopefully it’s still helping me get BETTER.

The Whistler skeleton season starts November 4th, by the way.

Scott walks home from work almost every day now. It takes him about an hour. It’s saving us a lot of money, and he gets his daily exercise. Win win! I walk sometimes, but definitely not as often as Scott. I did walk home from UBC once though, haha. It suddenly started taking 5ever to get home on the bus when the university students went back to school so out of frustration I decided to just walk home. It took 3 hours and it was quite boring and my knees hurt. But I will probably do it again if I’m at UBC again on a Friday.

We’ve been super lucky to have lots of visitors lately!

  • I met up for bubble tea with Anna, one of the German girls I camped with in Bowen, Australia while we packed corn and beans. She had been living in rural Saskatchewan trying to get her Canadian PR but the restaurant laid her off and she had to go home. What a bummer. She came through Vancouver on her farewell Canada tour and it was really nice to catch up after 6 years.

  • My friend Chris, from Halifax stopped through Vancouver too, on his way to his next WWOOFing place. I hadn’t seen him since 2007!! We went to the Richmond Night Market and ate takoyaki and fish sticks and deep fried cheesecake that made our teeth hurt. I was too scared to sit on the Throne of Rotato.
  • Leslie visited from Victoria (so nice that we at least live in the same province again!) for Thanksgiving. She helped document the whole spatchcocking the turkey project (more about that later), and get ready for our potluck Friendsgiving Thanksgiving dinner. We made tons of food and delicious cocktails (hello Automnal Cinnamon Apple Whiskey Sour!!) and had a really nice dinner. I love hanging out with old Ace Gang members.
  • And last night I met up with Catty and Samir who were in town for a conference. Again, I hadn’t seen her in years too! We went out and watched the Blue Jays game with Scott and then went out for ramen with Rosemarie and Lauren. All was good except for the Jays losing, and a super long hair in Samir’s ramen… blech.

Rosemarie is doing her last semester of uni now so she’s very busy these days, but we still try to squeeze in as much hanging out time as possible. We spent one afternoon making 9000 dumplings: some pork and some shrimp. We’re not very good at being able to seal them when the dough is thin so they ended up pretty pudgy… but very very very tasty.

We also went bouldering for free at The Hive, because we voted. They were supposed to offer more free days too but apparently it’s again election law, ha oops. I struggled because my hands are in such bad shape (dry and cracking… gross and painful), but Scott climbed A LOT!

How about that election eh? I watched the election results like Scott would watch the rugby world cup final, hahaha. So relieved we have a non-conservative government again. Scott was pretty happy about being able to vote in Canada for the first time too!

What else what else…

GE randomly threw a free nuclear medicine conference, which a bunch of us from VGH went to. They had a wine and hors d’oeuvres and we… had fun. Closed down the bar. The talks to the next day were pretty entertaining, and I learned a few new things too. It was fun to see a lot of techs from other hospitals that I hadn’t seen since being a student as well.

Scott won tickets to a Canucks pre-season game from work. We actually got to sit pretty close to the ice for once! They Canucks lost and the security people confiscated my bag of cherry blasters I tried to bring in. :/

We had another games day with Marjorie, Latif and Phil. We played King of Tokyo, For Sale (a super simple real estate card game), Galaxy Truckers, and an epic long game of Lords of Waterdeep with both expansions, which I won by 1 point. :D That’s my favourite game lately.

I got a haircut. It’s nice to not have so much hair. It took the girl 2 hours and 20 minutes hahahaha. Fun times at the Aveda Institute. At least is only cost $21.

Oh and like other years, we watched the AFL Grand Final at Moose’s Down Under. We had 20 people this year! Mmm those parmas were delicious. The game was not super exciting, but it was still fun, as usual.

Alright! I think I’m caught up. Until next time my friends!

Wolf in the Fog is a relatively new restaurant in Tofino that got super duper popular after winning an award last year. It’s a pretty big restaurant, with a surfy vibe, with mismatched thrifted dishes. They have an incredibly interesting cocktail menu, large sharing platters, and small dishes to choose from.

I had two drinks. The first was the Hanging Garden: gin, martini bianco, sorrel and lemon. It tasted awesome. It SMELLED awesome. So refreshing. Sorrel is my new favourite herb, it’s sweet and a little bit sour when you chew it, like a candy. The second drink was the Cedar Sour: cedar infused rye, lemon, thyme and egg white. This one also smelled amazing, like walking through a forest. It was a bit stronger, but very drinkable.

We ordered a whole bunch of food, hehe. Everything just sounded so good!!

Potato crusted oysters sounded so intriguing, but wasn’t our favourite. It had some kind of thick paste inside of it that was a bit stodgy. The potato was cool, but I think I just prefer my oysters raw.

We got a salad that had smoked trout, beets and a whole bunch of other things that I can’t remember now. Their menu is seasonal and the same salad isn’t on there any more! Oops. Anyway it was a good salad and they were pretty generous with the smoked fish.

We also got a squid dish that had grapefruit, cilantro, basil and sprouts. The squid was cooked perfectly tender, not chewy at all. It was lovely. Well balanced dish.

We also split an entrée. They were very accommodating and split the dish on to two plates for us. We had the halibut with gnocchi, sorrel, peas, pickled onion, and again more that I am probably forgetting. The fish was cooked perfectly and I loved the fresh lemony sorrel.

We were stuffed but still found room for dessert. We had the sticky date caramelized banana sundae and it was awesome. Sweet, salty, bitter, creamy, crunchy, warm and cold. Checks all the boxes.

Overall we were very happy with our meal and experience. They really do have helpful staff, who will help you decide things and get stuff split if you want. I would love to go back and try a few more of their unique cocktails for sure.

Wolf in the Fog Menu, Reviews, Photos, Location and Info - Zomato

After coming back from the hot springs we were a little worn out, kind of dirty, and MEGA hungry. We parked the car in the middle of Tofino and wandered around in search of seafood. The Fish Store and Oyster Bar (that’s the actual name!) was perfect.

I was having MAJOR indecision with the menu. I couldn’t stop flipping between the mussels and clams with bread, and the shrimp and scallops dishes. Like seriously I must have changed my mind 20 times. Eventually I just told the waitress that I couldn’t decide and asked her what I should get. She said that the shrimp and scallops dish was actually pretty small, and if I wanted she could actually get the cooks to make me the mussels and clams dish with a bunch of scallops too FOR THE SAME PRICE. OMG! Made my day.

So that’s my giant bowl of mussels, clams AND scallops, with a butter garlic sauce, and bread. It was SOOOO GOOD. It came with FIVE scallops on the shell! Plus probably 10 each of mussels and clams. Yum yum yum. I was extremely pleased. I love molluscs.

Scott got a Thai salmon noodle dish. He thought it was delicious. I don’t know what else to say about it.

They also have a small shop in the back of the restaurant. We bought a little bit of their smoked salmon to put on bagels for the next day’s breakfast. The guy was nice and rung it up as smoked tuna to make it cheaper too, awesome.

Overall we were really happy. Great service, great food. Highly recommended.

Fish Store and Oyster Bar Menu, Reviews, Photos, Location and Info - Zomato

It costs a bit to do a trip to the hot springs near Tofino, but I recommend it for sure! Here are 3 good reasons you should go:

Firstly, it’s got built in whale and wildlife watching. The boat ride takes about 1.5 hours each way, and they’ll look for whales and other animals the whole way there and back. September is the end of the whale season but we still managed to see a grey whale (no pictures, I was using my brain camera). We also saw a black bear (digging for crabs on the beach), cute floating sea otters, stinky sea lions, and bald eagles.

Secondly, the hot springs are so neat!! It’s about a 25 minute walk through the forest on a board walk to the springs. Then there a whole bunch of pools of (hot) water in between the rocks. The pools at the top are super duper hot, and then as you go down a bit further they get a bit cooler from the tide. There are plenty of places to lie down and soak. It smells a bit farty but not that bad.

Thirdly, there is a HOT WATERFALL!! Almost too hot to stand directly under. I enjoyed sitting half under the water and half in the crisp September air.

After a couple of hours our captain brought us back to Tofino. Everyone was pleased. It really was the highlight of our trip.

Few notes: It’s kinda dangerous, because the rocks are ultra slippery, but still ok. I managed it even with my PTSD from slipping on rocks in Thailand and getting 12 stitches, haha. Water shoes might help. Bring some snacks and drinks because you’re out for a pretty long time! The boat ride might be a bit rough. I was happy we went a calmer way back (but I guess less chance of seeing whales that route). And there are washrooms and change rooms at the hot springs.

tofino

tofino

tofino

tofino

We arrived in Tofino right at dinner time. We checked into our cabin and then headed into town. By chance we ended up on the pier right at the right time and saw a GORGEOUS sunset over the harbour. So nice.

ice house oyster bar

Dinner at the Ice House Oyster Bar overlooking water and the fading sunset. Not sure why this restaurant doesn’t have a Zomato profile, it was great! All their waiters have man buns and/or beards and are very enthusiastic.

I had a cider mule (BC Rumrunner cider w/ fresh lime, house made ginger syrup and vodka) that was huge and very tasty. I love when cocktails aren’t tiny things!

We shared this cold seafood platter that came with ceviche, smoked halibut, clams, crab and shrimp. The smoked fish and ceviche were particularly great. We also split a challah bread pudding dessert.

tofino brewing co

I really like the glasses from the Tofino Brewing Co. Actually lots of things in Tofino are wave-themed: the pedestrian crossings, the bike racks, etc. Cute.

Tofino is pretty awesome. It’s relaxed and beachy with tons of awesome food options. We spent a lot of time chilling out at our cabin or the beach just staring out at the ocean, watching surfers and paddle boarders and dogs and campfires. Our cabin was right on the water and it was lovely to hear the waves crashing on the beach all the time.

wild pacific trail

One day we drove down to Ucluelet to walk the Wild Pacific Trail. We did the lighthouse section and part of the coast section. Both very nice walks, quite easy on well made trails, with beautiful ocean views. We kept looking for whales but didn’t see any.

Ucluelet was verrrrrry quiet, and the lunch we had there was pretty terrible, so neither of us really liked the town, especially compared to Tofino. Also the drive between the two towns is ultra boring.

ocean village resort

ocean village resort

Cross stitching on our porch while watching yet another gorgeous sunset. Not pictured: glass of wine. Perfection.

It was sunny every day, which was great (but no storm watching). Too cold to swim though. I was planning on surfing, but kept procrastinating, until the last day when I woke up early all ready to go… until I checked the surf report and saw that the waves were 1 foot tall. Dang it. It was dumb of me to assume that the waves would be the same (good) every day. :/

Another trip highlight was the hot springs, but I took so many pictures I’ll have to make it into another post. Plus I have three more food reviews that I’ll have to make into separate posts too. Tofino overload, sorry not sorry!

wildside grill

We made most breakfasts at our cabin (bagels with cream cheese and local smoked salmon or tuna, OM NOM NOM), but the first morning we went to Wildside Grill.

I ordered the breakfast tacos (fried eggs, cheese, chipolte mayo, salsa, guacamole, lettuce, cilantro and green onions in a corn tortilla) and Scott got huevos rancheros (two overeasy eggs, cheese, pinto beans and salsa roja, guacamole, cilantro and green onion in corn tortillas). They were sloppy deliciousness. The eggs exploded with runny yolk. I liked the breakfast tacos slightly more than the huevos because of the freshness of the salsa, but both were definitely great.

Apparently Wildside Grill has the best fish & chips in town, and possibly better fish tacos than Tacofino, but we didn’t have enough meals on our trip to make it back. Next time!

Wildside Grill Menu, Reviews, Photos, Location and Info - Zomato