Last year, to celebrate Lil Sis’ birthday in some style, we went on a road trip to Detroit. Yes, Detroit.
We couldn’t help it. We had never been to. We weren’t thrilled with the notion of going to cities we had been to before like Montreal and Ottawa. And “nearby” cities like Chicago, New York, Boston and Quebec City aren’t so nearby. She found the hotel (Westin Detroit Metropolitan Airport) which I successfully Pricelined for cheap. A former colleague had just set up in Ann Arbor so we could visit him …

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When NPY booked my ticket to leave Toronto on December 23, the busiest day of the year at airports, we wanted the 7:00 p.m. flight but the last sale-priced seat sold and we crossed our fingers and got the 6:30 p.m. flight although I get off work at 5:30 with little leeway as I am in a support division.
Things could happen like the director closes shop down early. Or I would learn during the day that my flight had been delayed. Or I book leaving work a …

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I was back in Vancouver for a whirlwind 48 hours over the weekend to take care of some stuff and as much as the flying exhilerates and energizes me and I try to use it to “gain five extra hours” on my life, I was a little dazed from the non-stop schedule. Both Toronto and Vancouver feel like home; in both cities I see people I love. I see NPY over Skype which is not the same as being there in person but then I see him …

Since our New York dineout experiences were largely at Asian food establishments (at least one meal each of the six days we were there), I posted about those meals under Dineout Reviews: Asian food in New York City (2011 Edition) on the other blog. Here are the rest of the meals we had.
Shake Shack (Midtown, Times Square)
We could see the new midtown Shake Shack from BiNK’s apartment and determine that at the time we got into New York and the Times Square area at 2-ish, there was no line out …

Vancouver is usually all fine and right and we pride ourselves on being city slickers folk, especially I who aspires for bigger and better. But it took just about half a day of getting away from the same-old, even to a slower pace, to kick ourselves for not striving for out-of-city excursions more often. Last weekend, we spent a few days on Vancouver Island with Victoria as the target. But we took a ferry to Nanaimo instead of planning a Vancouver-Victoria return trip and spent the first afternoon driving down …

What a nice weekend we spent in Seattle just before Valentine’s Day! We were a small but fun group consisting of two couples and one more guy and girl. For me, some of the best parts revolved around food and drink. We stayed at the Sheraton downtown which one of our friends so kindly donated his Starwood points to lower the daily rate and we relished the opportunity to stay downtown–we didn’t even (gasp) go to the outlet mall!
Our rooms were on the 33rd floor (a Preferred Guest Level), giving …

One more Hong Kong post, this time in my Dineout Reviews format. Why should I apologize anyway? What has definitely been a “regret” of mine–because I can’t take a good experience as is and am intent on finding life bittersweet–was the dining out. There is so much more I want to do: street-style dining, really fancy HK-style Western, tea buffet at the Hyatt (esp after TFP’s post), etc.! But we did have some really great meals, concentrated in the last few days, funny enough. This really is just an excuse …

You wouldn’t know it but the days leading up to my departure from Vancouver to Christmas in Halifax every year are stressful and sad for me. It’s not that I particularly relish spending my hard-earned vacation days in Vancouver city–it’s just that I haven’t done it even once in the seven Christmases that have gone by since I’ve moved here (five Christmases I have not spent with NPY). It’s kind of getting hard. I’d like to spend Christmas in Vancouver just once and then have the freedom to Christmas just …

Due to the mad dash of an itinerary I plotted out for me and NPY over the course of two weeks, we ended up staying in four hotels between Beijing, Hong Kong, and Macau. We got quite a range of experiences!
Oriental Bay International Beijing Hotel

This 5-star hotel on Beijing’s second ring road was not as ill-situated as I originally thought. It was very close to 皷樓 大街 subway station and the immediate area offered some restaurant and shops variety.
The first thing we realized was how a China 5-star hotel …

My first shopping experience in China was at Silk Market, a “seven-storey shopping mecca”. Our tour guide didn’t seem enthused that we would make our way there during our free day but I wanted to visit this tourist spot with no other preconception than my aunt’s written instruction, “Bargain at least 60% off”. 60% off, really? The poor merchants! But I was not willing to be a sucker tourist, although I may as well be, with no conversational skills whatsoever in Mandarin.
Walking into Silk Market was like walking into a …