I'm already a little behind with this updating! Just going to summarize our last two days in Vancouver.
July 5, 2008
Joyce's Wedding! Went early with Joe and Patty to go and help Joyce set up.
That's us grabbing breakfast at the White Spot before heading over to Granville Island.
We set up really fast, so Jamie and I had some time to walk arond the island a bit.
Jamie took a lot of wedding pictures, but we haven't had time to sort them yet so I'll put them up later. Suffice it to say that we all had a good time.
July 6, 2008
Joyce and Dave hosted a BBQ a Kitsilano Beach, and we had great weather for it.
After that, head out for dinner with the whole family, then to Grace's for cake for Auntie Jolie's birthday.
And that concludes our quick stop in Vancouver! Next post, the start of Japan!
About Me
Jamie and I arrived in Vancouver early on Friday morning, and were picked up by my cousin Joe and his wife Patty. Next stop was for some food and coffee. Patty had gone to work at 4am before coming to get us! We went to Moxie's for brunch, and were served served portions that felt like way too much.
I think Mr. Pancake was upset that I couldn't finish my plate.
After that, we went back to their place to drop off our luggage, played a few rounds of Rock Band, and then head out to meet my other cousin Grace (Joe's younger sister) so that us girls could go and get our nails and toes done. Joyce (cousin getting married, youngest sister to Joe and Grace) met us there and we had our nails soaked, filed, shaped, and painted. The boys joked that they were sad that we hadn't asked them to see if they wanted their nails done.
Went to the mall to walk around a bit and pick up some last minute things (batteries, make-up, etc). I saw this fun little ride, and it was a nice little flash from the past.
Baby Kermit is so cute!!
Went out for dinner with Joe, Patty, Grace, Greg, and Sophia, and were joined by Joyce and Dave afterward. It was a great time!
Today is the wedding, so I'll update again soon!
And yesterday, PushPULL's fourth season came to a close as we played to a packed matinee audience. Doing 5 shows in 4 days is pretty demanding, and I have a whole new respect for those who perform night after night, and have to give the best performance ever each and every night.
Our show this year was more technically demanding than our previous shows, and everyone seriously brought their level up. On Saturday night, after doing a matinee show earlier that day, I thought I was out of gas and wasn't going to make it, but with everyone around me all excited, and then hearing the buzz of the audience; we were all somehow able to dance our hearts out.
My body is seriously tired now though. The theatre isn't designed for dance shows, so the changerooms are about 3 flights of stairs up from the stage. I've probably run up and down more stairs this past week than I usually do in a month. My legs hurt. A lot. But it was all totally worth it! Thanks to all the dancers - I had an amazing time and I can't wait until next season!
It's show week! 'After Hours' is now supposed to be ready to go. Or rather, we have two more tries before it has to be truly ready to go. Tomorrow is going to be dress/tech, and then Wednesday will be our full dress rehearsal, and Thursday is opening night! Exciting times, huh? This year, I have to admit to feeling a little un-ready. The degree of difficulty of the pieces has gone up from last year, but the amount of time for us to get things right hasn't, so I feel like I'm missing a lot of nuances to certain pieces. I'm not forgetting any steps anymore, but there are little tiny details that I wish I could get just right every time.
And after the show is over, I'll have about a week and a half before Jamie and I are off to Japan! I'm going to try and blog here while I'm traveling and show you all the places that we visit. Yes, I know this is going to be my third trip to Japan, but I just really like going there. Besides, there were still places that Jamie and I wanted to go to, or other foods that we wanted to try. Plus I get to practice my Japanese, which is something that I hardly ever get to do.
Tick, tick, tick....Can anyone else hear the countdown to showtime?!
This morning I was listening to the radio and a commercial for a Boston Pizza promotion came on. They were advertising some Italian special, and the ad was sung in an operatic fashion by some contralto with too much vibrato, which would have been amusing...EXCEPT they set it to the music for Carmen, which is a FRENCH opera. Written in French, by a Frenchman.
I was instantly turned off by the ad and wondered just what uncultured buffoons came up with that commercial. After a few moments of calm, I wondered if perhaps I was being too critical since it is just Boston Pizza, and not the Canadian Opera Company. But still...I can't help but have a not-so-favourable impression of them now.
Am I being too much of a snob?
Today, for the first time in my life, I got stuck in an elevator. I was stuck in my building elevator for 40-45 minutes at the P4 level. The crappy part about that was that my cell phone wouldn't work. So, pressed the 'Call for Help' button. I cannot tell you the number of times I got hung up on. So, I kept pressing it until someone finally answered and told me to just hang on. Like I could even do anything else. In the meantime, I can hear the building fire alarm start to go off, and figure 'Just great. If this was a real fire, I'd be stuck in here.' So, I press the call button again to see if someone can at least update me on what's going on. I get nowhere - another hangup. I sit and listen to some music. Then I can hear that the fire alarm has stopped, so I figure that the elevator should be okay soon. Wrong. I wait...and wait...and the elevator buzzer is still going despite the building alarm being off. So, I press the call button again. The ultra helpful person there tells me that the other 2 elevators are fine, but elevator 1 doesn't seem to be working. And I'm yelling at this point that "Of course it's not working!! I've been inside elevator 1 for the past 20 minutes!" So uber helpful person tells me to hang on, at which point I get hung up on. Again. I let another 10 minutes go by before I hit the call button again cuz no one even told me if someone was coming or not. At this point, a different voice comes on, so I yell into the panel that I'm still stuck in elevator 1, and could someone please let me know what's going on. This person, who in retrospect was probably part of the fire department, told me to try and stay calm, and that they were sending people down. Three songs on my iPod later, I hear someone on the other side yelling "Hello!", so I yell back. Five minutes later, the door is pried open, and I'm greeted by the sight of 3 firefighters. They asked me how long I'd been there, and were pretty surprised to hear that it'd been that long. They apologized, though it wasn't their fault, and asked me if I was okay. I was fine, but mostly a bit pissed that no one let me know what was happening. After I got to ground level, I called Jamie and we've decided that we're going to report this incident. There were a lot of things that weren't handled properly.
Man...I'm glad this week is over...
Okay. I'm totally failing at this blog thing. I often really don't know what to write! I think today will just be a point-form list of things that I've been up to lately.
- Celebrated the arrival of the Year of the Rat by doing a TV gig for a Roger's cable show called Daytime - York Region. Driving there was crazy thanks to all the snow we've been having
- Went to parents' place for super-awesome dinner for Chinese New Year
- Getting ready for Dragon Ball, which is happening this Saturday. Looking forward to having that done
- Still doing Skule Nite choreography. I need to come up with something to the Pokemon theme song (I'm still thinking about this one). This is definitely going to be my last year of SN - I'm not enjoying it like I used to, and my patience for dealing with the cast is getting shorter as I get older. I totally yelled at them the last time I saw them
- Knitting! This is mostly documented over at Yarn for Brains, but I've been enjoying myself with it greatly
- Saw the Spice Girls in concert with Ian. Great way to relive my younger days (haha!). And Posh Spice totally fails in the singing department. The back-up dancers were amazing though
- Trying to keep up with my Japanese studying - this isn't going so well because I don't always feel motivated
- Wanting a holiday cuz the daily grind is starting to get to me