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May 2nd – May 9th, 2016

Our flight from Vancouver to Glasgow was super cheap. I think it’s because it had a very long stopover in Halifax, which was actually perfect for us because I’d always wanted to take Scott to my old university town. We had enough time to take the bus into town, walk around the waterfront, have lunch with my old thesis supervisors (Kazue and Chris), get candy at the Freak Lunchbox, eat Economy Shoe Shop nachos, climb citadel hill, have a few drinks, and bus back to the airport. Perfect.

We went to Glasgow to visit Scott’s bff Jono and his wife Kirsten. They were awesome hosts. They took us into the Scottish highlands, where we had a wee dram at the Glenturret distillery, haggis neeps and tatties at King’s House Hotel, and took in the scenery in Loch Lomond National Park. It was lovely. Jono also took us around Glasgow itself, where we went into a few museums, ate some really delicious foods, and had a few drinks.

Scott and I went to Edinburgh for a day on our own. The castle was a bit out of our budget so we mostly just walked around looking at stuff and tried to find a restaurant that served homemade Scotch eggs (did not succeed).

Scottish food was something special. Jono made sure I tried everything. Highlights included: the most enormous plate of haggis anyone has ever seen, deep fried halloumi (delicious), macaroni pie (delicious), blood sausage, square sausage (salty!), cold grocery store Scotch eggs. They really do deep fry everything. Nom.

After Scotland we flew to London Stansted, and then took the train for 2 hours for the sole purpose of going to the Jorna Indian Restaurant. If you have not had the pleasure of listening to their amazing theme song, I have uploaded it HERE.

We ordered our food based on the song. Tasty saag aloo, creamy korma, and Peshwari naan. It was OK. TBH the best part of the meal was telling our waiter that we came all the way from Vancouver specifically to go to their restaurant. I think we blew his mind.

The next morning we took the train back to Stansted to fly to France to start our camino!

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Ever since I saw a massive group of friends celebrating a 30th birthday in Fiji I’ve wanted to do the same. I managed to convince 12 people (me, Scott, Rosemarie, Lauren, Natasha, Helenka, Marjorie, Lateef, Lani, Ilyssia, Leslie and Kyla) to rent a beautiful Airbnb place in the Riviera Maya. It wasn’t the easiest thing to coordinate people coming from 4 different cities, but it ended up being SO SO awesome.

Highlights included:

1. The house/pool. The house was perfect. It had everything we needed, enough beds and rooms for everyone, tons of space. I loved going in the pool every morning and evening. Plus we saw iguanas, lizards, coati, and cool birds all right in the backyard! Airbnb win!

2. Snorkelling in Akumal with turtles, barracuda, squids, and more.

3. Empanadas and bioluminescence/stargazing in Puerto Morelos.

4. Collectivo adventures. So happy that we had Marjorie to negotiate on our behalf.

5. Cenotes @ Kantun Chi. I still can’t believe that it was not overrun with tourists. Besides us and Louis CK (seriously) there was almost no one else there! The water was so clear and deep and refreshing. I absolutely loved it.

6. “Exploring” the Tulum ruins. Not really. It was too hot.

7. Cooling down in the ocean. Thanks Lauren! 😜 Swimming was so so good.

8. Tulum beach was amazing. Brad and Marita met us there. Brad’s wedding ring fell off but after 20 minutes of diving Natasha actually found it! It was amazing.

9. Just general horsing around with friends. This picture was immediately after trying to take a multi-person water jumping picture. You may have seen some of them on Facebook already.

10. El Fogon x2 because it was so tasty. We ordered a giant platter for everyone to share. Thank you Scott for going out to pick it up both nights!!! Tacos, meats, cheese, nom nom nom.

11. Rose and Lauren’s new nicknames: El Baño and Señor Baño. Also Dukoral. It definitely seemed to help prevent ‘gastrointestinal distress’ in those of us who took it.

12. Helenka’s jesus lizard impression. It is accurate!

13. The group. 😊 I had so much fun with everyone. Thanks guys.

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Dad, Rosemarie, Scott and I roadtripped to Listowel, to squeeze in some visits with grandma and grandpa, Aunt Joanne and Uncle Terry, and Maggie and new baby first cousin once-removed Violet. It was a quiet visit, because my grandma isn’t feeling well at the moment, but full of good chats. Rosemarie and I decorated grandma’s lawn dolls for Paddyfest.

Then Rosemarie, Scott and I bused to Toronto for more famjam. We had dinner with Auntie Hsi and Auntie Pai and Uncle Norman, and then the next day we had lunch with grandma and grandpa Chi too. Unfortunately grandma is not doing very well, but thank goodness grandpa seemed great. One cool thing is that I am now re-connected with my aunt and cousin who live in Germany and now we’re going to try and visit them while we are in Europe!

We visited the Steamwhistle brewery with Dylan O, and then went on a DIY cider crawl (with an epic ice cream sandwich stop — I had Froot Loop icecream with a chocolate cookie). Scott and I couchsurfed with Zsofi and Dylan D (who are doing awesome things these days!!) and Janine and Tony (so nice to see her again after so long, and to meet her fiance). Thank you for letting us crash with you, it was great.

Scott and Rosemarie flew back to Vancouver to go to the Rugby 7s and I went back to Ottawa with dad. They dressed up in stingray costumes and flags and cheered for Australia and Fiji in Vancouver, and I squeezed in second visits with Natasha, MEP and Paul, more eating, and more Brier curling watching with dad and Kate.

It was sad saying goodbye to dad at the airport. :'(

I imagine we will come back to visit next next summer. Like July 2017ish.

And now I am in Whistler. I got the bad news while I was still in Ottawa that my skeleton sled was broken beyond repair and that I would have to switch to a new sled if I wanted to do these last races. That sucked (and still sucks). But, I did 2 runs from corner 3 on the new sled on Wednesday, and moved back up to the top yesterday. My first run yesterday was HORRIBLE, no control whatsoever, pretty much every corner terrible. I bit my cheek really hard even with the mouth guard. But then Jane Channell :) helped me check my balance point again and turns out I was off by like 2 inches (which is huge). So my second run went better. Still not great at all, but at least better. I actually got a new top speed on the second run (132.1 km/hr), even with a run full of flaws. The ice was FAST last night.

I’ll do two more runs in official training tonight, and then it’s a four heat BC Championship race on Saturday and Sunday. The tentative plan so far is to take Monday off and go back to Vancouver to do some errands, then come back for Tuesday OT and then race in Canadian Champs on Wednesday. Although we shall see how it goes day by day.

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Umm so I procrastinated blogging for far too long and now I have A LOT of things to catch up on. Like, huge life changes. O_O

UPDATE TIME!

  1. Scott got laid off.
  2. We decided to move back to Australia.
  3. I quit my job.
  4. We sold everything in our apartment and moved out.
  5. Currently in Nepean visiting papa.

The last month was crazy. It was really stressful to sort all of our life belongings into what we still needed, what we would ship to Australia, what to sell and what to donate or throw out. Al while I was still working almost every day. Hopefully we didn’t make any mistakes. Scott did an excellent job of managing dozens of Craigslist posts and we were able to sell everything.

I finally finished my crochet blanket, with like 3 days to spare. It’s so big!! It took me two years to finish. We have vacuum packed it and put it in the boxes to Australia.

Anyway so last weekend we flew to Montreal. We watched Dan-Que perform in a story telling show and took in a few Nuit Blanche exhibits. We hiked up Mont Royal and walked through underground tunnels. And ate and ate. We had bagels, smoked meat, Portuguese chicken, arepas, kouign amann and probably even more I’m forgetting right now. Thank you for all those great recommendations Facebook friends.

And now we are in Ottawa! It was tight but we managed to spend some time with a lot of my favourite Ottawa people. :) We went tubing (Scott crashed into a fence with his face and did 18 flips in the air, and got a fat lip), curling, escaped from an escape room, watched Eddie the Eagle, ate ridiculous amounts of dessert, and played A LOT of games (Careers, Clue, Scattergories, Quiddler, Wizard, Five Crowns). Fun!

UPCOMING TRIPS

  1. Listowel & Toronto
  2. Whistler for my last skeleton race ever :'(
  3. Epic roadtrip (Washington/Oregon/California/Nevada/Arizona/Utah/Idaho/Wyoming/Montana)
  4. Playa del Carmen, Mexico
  5. Walk across Spain (Camino de Santiago)
  6. Miscellaneous Europe (Glasgow/Ipswich/Rotterdam/Lund/??)
  7. Thailand

Approximate arrival in Melbourne, Australia: mid-July 2016

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Vancouverites are so lucky when it comes to sushi.

Ask me what my favourite sushi place is and my answer is something like “Cheap sushi? Fancy sushi? Mid-price sushi? Am I with people that like mayo? Do I want to be able to have conversations? Any neighbourhood?” and so on. It is impossible to narrow it down to one.

Sushi Oyama is my favourite mid-priced, mayo heavy, Burnaby sushi joint. Ha.

We’ve been here many times before.

Rainbow roll. Tamago, tuna, salmon, tai, tako, ebi, avocado, mayo. Basically a bit of everything! Very delicious.

Sound trap roll. Cucumber, avocado, eep fried prawn, tuna on top, tempura bits, mayo. Too much mayo in my opinion though, and I am a mayo fan! And weirdly sweet.

We also had yam tempura but it was not very photogenic. Tasted good though.

Sushi Oyama Menu, Reviews, Photos, Location and Info - Zomato