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I decided that we need to try more of the restaurants around our house. There are a whole bunch of (apparently) awesome restaurants within walking distance yet we ordered DOMINOS one lazy night?? WHY?? Anyway so now I’m making an effort to try some of the places close by. We live in a bit of a Vietnamese area so there are dozens and dozens of pho restaurants all within a couple blocks. Mui Ngo Gai has a 91% rating on Urbanspoon and pho sounded great to soothe my cold a couple weeks ago, so we walked there for dinner.

Our pho feast! Scott ordered the rare beef pho, and I ordered the rare beef and well done beef pho, because I hate ordering the same thing as anyone else, yet wasn’t in the mood for tripe or beef balls. It came with the usual plate of fresh veggies and herbs. We also got some crispy spring rolls to share.

My pho was delicious!!! It burned my face off though. Entirely my fault… I added 1 spoonful of the chili oil, decided it wasn’t spicy enough then added 3 more??!!! I am dumb. I also added fish sauce and more hot sauce. Ha. It did the trick of clearing my stuffed nose and soothing my soul though.

The spring rolls were also nice. Crunchy and tasty with a nice sauce.

I would definitely eat here again, but maybe only 1-2 spoonfuls of chili oil!! PS they also sell bubble tea.

Mui Ngo Gai Menu, Reviews, Photos, Location and Info - Zomato

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What to do when you need to kill an hour in the West End? RAMEN! I’ve heard Kintaro gets mega busy but we were there right after opening and were able to sit right away. We had to eat at the counter, but to be honest I always enjoy watching cooks work.

Scott ordered the shoyu ramen with rich broth and lean BBQ pork. He liked it, but didn’t consider it life changing.

I ordered the cheese ramen because of my “everything is better with cheese” motto. But…. it was weird. You can only get the cheese ramen with light broth, but I chose fatty pork. They do not skimp on the cheese. There is a ton of shredded cheese plus a big chunk as well. It made the ramen super heavy and filling. I really really really enjoy cheese but this ramen wasn’t great. I think if I went back I would order something more classic.

Kintaro Ramen Menu, Reviews, Photos, Location and Info - Zomato

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1. The Katrina Roll. From Rosemarie’s BYOI (bring your own ingredient) sushi birthday party a bajillion years ago. This roll had salmon, shrimp, avocado, cream cheese and yam. YUM YUM. Other ingredients included banana, mango, smoked salmon, tofu. This was a very fun party.

2. I won a scholarship for my performance in second year at BCIT. I don’t know what criteria they used but I’m v happy that they picked me!

3. I have been working a lot since I got back from Calgary. I had a few more weeks of training and am now covering holidays. Hooray for March break being two weeks long here! I don’t have anything in April or May yet but fingers crossed that changes. If it doesn’t perhaps I will go back to the data centre for a few weeks. Once summer arrives I will be ok, since I am already scheduled to work almost every week.

4. Superstore had very little produce today due to the truckers strike. Things are going to get very interesting if they don’t resolve that soon!

5. The pollen report website is working now and says HIGH every day. I feel relieved that I wasn’t just exaggerating things.

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This past weekend I competed in the BCBSA BC Championship Race up in Whistler. It was a big race for all the different levels of skeleton and bobsled to wrap up the sliding season. Provincials! We had official training on Friday night, then heats 1 & 2 on Saturday, and heats 3 & 4 on Sunday.

There were 7 of us sliding from corner 3. Our coach said we would do a consistency race since we are all different sliding levels. The person with the smallest time difference between their slowest and fastest run would win. Maybe not the best way to calculate consistency in a four heat race, since the track had quite different conditions each day, but that’s what they decided on.

Training went fine, and my first and second runs were okay. They weren’t my best runs ever by any means, but they were very consistent. I was sitting in 2nd place with a time difference of 0.12 seconds after heats 1 & 2. Unfortunately my third run was very very slow. The ice was very soft and there was snow on the track. My gap widened to ~2.5 seconds!!!! For my fourth run I just tried to slide something in that (very large) window between my first couple runs and my third run, which I did. But that 2.5 second difference put me out of the running for medals. Bummer.

Ah well, it was still fun hanging out with all the other sliders. No one crashed and everyone had a good day. All in all it was a very enjoyable race experience. I will have to wait till next year to try and get my first skele medal!!

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The Weather Network Vancouver pollen report website STILL says “pollen station not in season” yet my eyes have been burning and my face has been itchy for a week now. I swear I’m not imagining things!!

I will start my own Vancouver pollen report.

Thursday March 13th, 2014

Pollen Level: EXTREME HIGH!! 9 sneezes out of 10!! Horrible!! TAKE 20 ANTIHISTAMINES NOW!!