My Birthday

" Happy birthday to me...Happy birthday to meeee....". Yep, today is my birthday and that's mean I got to be the Queen of the day! Today I can asked for anything and everybody has to do what I say, hah! I made this rule a long time ago because if I don't do this, birthday won't be a special day. This rule only applied for adults, for Kai Kai.

It only applied as long as his request is safe and healthy. No bathing with candies! So since today I get to decide what we all going to do here is what I think we should do today, first of all, I want to go to Grenville Island Public Market. I love this place so much! For me, a person who loves to cook and eat, this place is like a treasure chest. Every time I go there, I always found something new to eat right there or to buy, bring it home and use it for my cooking experiment. For foodie, this place is a must see in their list if they come to Vancouver for a visit.

I wish I have tons of money and I will buy a property near this place then I don't have to go to grocery store, it would be a lot more fun if I just have to walk to this market or take a tiny aquabus to come to this place. Yes, there are several ways to reach this place, by car off course, by bus, by walking, and the last but not least is by aquabus. This aquabus also can be booked for a mini tour. How fun is that? At one time, when we had guesses came to visit, we brought them to ride this aquabus and just had a mini tour start from English Bay until near Science World.

I think it takes about 40 minutes for round trip. It doesn't cost that much, but I could not remember the exact price. Oh, I found this interesting website from Kat Kam, it tell you where to go if you come to visit Vancouver and it even has a live webcam with the view of English Bay and Kitsilano area and a little bit of Grenville Island too.

From this webcam it says you can also enjoy the International fireworks called the Celebration of Light. Every summer, Vancouver has a fireworks shows done by many different countries. They do this on a schedule so it's not happen in just one day. Since I life far away from this place, I never really seen it. I wish I know this webcam before. So I can see the international fireworks festival. I heard that China kept giving one of the best firework show, my cousin who saw it said that she saw China made firework in the shape of a dragon on the sky, I wonder how could they do that? It must be amazing sight!




Okay... let's go back to what happened today. Since this is the high of the summer season, the parking lot in Grenville Island is really packed. If you want to come here, one good tip is come early in the morning, around 10 AM, this place already open by 9 AM if I am not wrong. Or you can do like I do. Pray for a parking spot like you are on the brink of your death...just kidding...no, not really...My mom taught me this, that I should involve God on EVERY thing in my life, big and small, including parking! I may not always get what I wish, but for some reason, God gives me parking spots 90% of the time. Don't know why. I told my cousins and friends, if they really have to go to a mall or other places when it's super crowded, they can take me with them, so I can pray in the parking lot for us to get the nearest parking spot to the entrance door. For this ( the nearest spot ), my prayers works for about 50% of the time. Don't believe me, check my previous blog about my son's birthday party at the Aquarium. I prayed so that our 2 cars can find spots at the Aquarium on Canada Day, and guess what? Our 2 cars get spots BOTH at the nearest entries of the Aquarium. How cool is that? So, in about 5 minutes we find our spot.


First we walked to the public market to eat my birthday cake(s), yes plural. I know that having a gorgeous birthday cake is really fun, but it also fun to eat several different cakes right? When we got married, I ordered our wedding cake from Jaciva, a bakery store in Portland that specialized in chocolate. The cake is chocolate ( off course ), then first it was covered with marzipan and then layers of white chocolate fondant that they mold like fabric covering the cake. Absolutely beautiful and taste really great too! Let me get side track a little, one time, for my birthday, Richard asked me what do I want, and I told him that I want just the smallest cake version of our wedding cake and he did get me the cake. Richard is not big on giving me gifts but he did try to make me happy on our special occasion like birthday, valentine, and anniversary day.



After we get our fill with sweets, both Richard and Kai Kai wants to eat something salty so we grab pizzas. Originally we want to eat German sausages but the line was so long so we decide to eat pizza.

From there, I went to buy fresh mozzarella cheese made from buffalo milk ( is the best! ) and cow's milk, then some raviolli, black fettucini ( made from squid ink ),
black olives, fresh pandan leaves, candy coated fennel. There is always something new in here that I have never tried.



After that I want to go to the children water park that is still in that area ( near the kids' market section ). Today is hot for Vancouver's standard, it's around 30 Celcius, what better thing to do on a hot day if not playing with water? So after I slatther Kai Kai with sunblock , I let him ran like crazy while I followed him around with my camera. Richard choose to stayed under the shade while feeding La La, today I don't have to worry about La La, I just do what I like best, watching my children happy and take pictures of them!











After spending 2 hours in that water park, it's time to go somewhere else. We made one stop on a used sport store first but from there we head down to downtown because I want to eat dinner at the revolving restaurant at Harbour Centre. There is a lookout place on the floor below the restaurant level. Just to let you know that when you go to this restaurant you don't just pay for the food, you also pay for the view so expect higher than normal price for the food. But on Sunday, they have a sunday brunch buffet that I think really good deal for this kind of location.

For my meal, I order fresh mozzarella and tomato salad with balsamic vinegar dressing. Why do I order this when I just bought fresh mozzarella in the market? Inspiration off course. Then for the main course, I order blackened halibut with mango sauce. I think both meals are so easy to prepare individually, I can do it myself, but what I need to learn is how to put everything together and how to present them so beautifully.





Here are the views taken from the revolving restaurant ...