Spending Chinese New Year in Canada

I can't believe it's been 6 years of spending Chinese new Years in Canada! It's been getting more and more boring and depressing every year...

When we first migrated here, we still went out for dinner, visited family and friends, etc...As the years passed, the only few relatives we have here all of a sudden decides to ignore us (lucky we still have 1 or 2), friends move back to Malaysia, sister goes to university, mom and dad gets older and becomes more pessimist and naggy, I start working, I became vegan, and so on...So as you can see, I did not do anything special this new years, not even a dinner with my parents. My parents had a fight with my sister on CNY eve because she decided to and paid for a New York trip with her friends in February without asking for permission. (Honestly, I don't think my sister even needs to ask for permission anymore, since she's 22). They were REALLY, REALLY, LOUD. And the phone call took place when my dad was driving on the highway. Umm, not so wise. I can't even talk to passengers when I'm driving!(I start to sway the car and don't look around for other cars). All in all, this chinese new year was not so great.

Many of my friends from Malaysia also migrated(temporarily) to UK, Australia, etc, to study. For many of them, its their first year away from family and have to spend cny alone. So, friends, I feel your pain (and empty pockets, cuz there's no more visiting people to collect red pocket!). However, I got a surprise yesterday(a pretty good one), when I was mindlessly facebooking and saw a picture of my old CHS classmate from Malaysia who went to Australia wearing a hoodie from McGill University in Montreal. Most Malaysians do not come to Canada to study, let alone someone who've migrated to Australia! I was soooo happy I wanted to jump up and down and sing out loud. I've been waiting for so long for someone I know to come here. Finally!! (Actually, I met another Malaysian who came here to York university who happened to know one of my friends from primary school cuz they train for rhythmic gymnastics together. Talk about coincidence!) I'm soo getting her to visit me in Toronto! :)

Anyway, my cny rant is done for now. I am going to persuade my mom to get a dog because she is so lonely and sad here, plus she has nothing to focus on now since she doesn't work anymore(used to in Malaysia), all she does is complain about me, which is why I try to get out of the house as much as possible. She really needs a puppy :(

My gymnastics journey :)

Just made this video when I realized how far I've come since my first gymnastics class...:)

Merry Christmas and new skills!

Merry Christmas! I've been spending so much time in the gym (circus and gymnastics), training and working, I completely forgot to blog. But here's some new stuff that I've been working on! (I also got my aerial cartwheel!!!)

My side aerial :)

Cirque knee hook

from the side

from the bottom :P

Inverted split

Inverted split, even version

Contortion handstand

contortion handstand #2

I you haven't watched this, you should! Vegan Meal Time (Epic Meal Time Parody)

They have some other ones too! go check out their channel on youtube :)

Not so wise wisdom tooth

I've been having a nagging gum pain due to one of my wisdom tooth trying to erupt lately, so today, I've made the decision to get it removed after many months of doubt because the tooth was close to a nerve so if i could hold off then that would be ideal, but I've had it! I couldn't even enjoy Veggielicious because I couldn't bite without pain...I wonder why they call it wisdom teeth...They aren't all that wise, all they do is cause pain and cavities...

I got off work early (did I mention that I started work at Wholefoods and stopped working at Feelgoodguru? Long story short, transit took 2 hours and the ex-manager seems to like to pick on me. She is now a regular employee because Moira, the owner decided that she didn't need a manager. ;)) to get to the oral surgeon's clinic. It seemed scary at first because they put me on an IV drip for sedation (which didn't really work for me because I was as clear and awake as when I finished a good workout), blood pressure cuff, oxygen mask for my nose, and some other stuff on my fingers. Turned out that the whole procedure only took about 5 minutes or less! I was not dizzy at all even with the sedation thing.

I got home after that and realized that I FORGOT TO ASK FOR MY TOOTH! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.......:(
I used to have a tooth collection when I was younger. Whenever one comes off, I put it in a jewellery case x) Then one day it fell on the floor and all the teeth went flying. I couldn't find all of them...It was a very sad moment, and I stopped collecting teeth ever since then. But still, I want to see what a wisdom tooth looks like! x(

This is simply a picture found on google. They have really large roots O.O no wonder it bleeds so much.

Anyway, since I couldn't eat anything for now, I used this as an excuse to do a juice cleanse :) I had beet apple ginger carrot juice when I got home, and for dinner I had a weird but delicious juice made of green pepper, carrots, bokchoy, cabbage, spinach, kale, and GARLIC. It was the first time I've ever put garlic in my juice, but it turned out really good! Besides, its garlic season now! :D

A dose of laughter a day keeps the doctor away

As you know, Veggielicious had been going on for a week now (1 more week to go). Meagan and I decided to go to The Beet organic cafe yesterday to try their special for Veggielicious. It turned out to be a really, really hilarious day! I laughed so much there were times when I laughed til there was practically no sound coming out LOL!

First of all, we were planning to meet at Finch station at approx 12.45, but I had to stay a bit later to coach, so I told her I was running late. Turned out that she was running late, too! She was taking Steeles East bus, I was taking Steeles west bus, and lo and behold, we arrived at the station at the EXACT same time! Talk about coincidence!

So, at the Beet--

Their special- Organic Walnut Mushroom Brown Rice Burger with Cucumber, Tomato and Dill Curry Mayo on an Organic Kamut Bun, Served with Side Green Salad, Choice of Vegan Cookie, and Kombucha Mimosa. for  $15

We also ordered their avocado and tofu wrap with a butternut squash and apple soup. It was good, but the avocado that they gave us was BLACK. (Meagan didn't realize that and she was eating it until I stopped her). I complained, but all they did was scrape off the black ones and replaced it with new ones. Bad customer service. Tsk tsk.

Me, Meagan

Almond butter thumbprint cookie, included in the deal. It was so. good.

After that, we wanted to go to Sweets from the earth to get their deal, but they were closed :( Bye bye flourless cashew cookie...

Then we decided to drop by The Sweet Potato (apparently,vegetables names are very popular) health food store to check out what they had. We kept walking for some time until all of a sudden we realized that we were walking in the opposite direction of the store! If I was walking with my mom, she'd be yelling at me. But we laughed it off and just told ourselves walking is good ;)

Since we were close to high park, we decided to go to Foods for Life since their stuff are really cheap (kale chips for $5.99). Little did I know that when we were chatting and I told her I hate it when I get to a place and its closed, I would be jynx-ing something! Sure enough, they were closed when we got there. Ah well, walking is good x)

Since we're already at high park, might as well drop by Green Thumb mini market. They sell really cheap organic produce! I was "browsing" beets, trying to choose the biggest bunch, and Meagan was browsing spinach, trying to choose the better deal. I grabbed a few bunches and wanted to ask her which one is the best, then she came to me asking me which spinach is better LOL! We were laughing so hard people are probably looking at us like we're crazy, but hey, when asians shop, they always want to get the best bang for the buck!

Teenagers who like grocery shopping. We like being weird ;)

The funniest(fine,there's one more after this)part of the day was when we went into the subway on our way home! We were supposed to take the northbound train back to finch station, but we went into the wrong train! When we went in, I asked Meagan if its the right train, and she told me it is. A few seconds later we looked around and realized it was the southbound train so we rushed out just in time for the doors to close behind us! It would be really funny if we got it on video LOL!

When we arrived at the platform waiting for the bus, I took out my phone from my backpack planning to text my mom. While I was reaching behind for it, I was talking to Meagan at the same time, saying that "One time, I dropped my phone..." and before I could finish my story, my phone slid off my hands and fell on the floor! Again, we had a good, long laugh about that ahahahahaah.....

I went to her house to wait for my parents, and while I was there, I found out why she was late this morning and had to come back early. She was baking and it was already late, so she popped out some cupcakes that she baked and ran for the bus, not having anytime to clean up all the mess, one of them being spilling cupcake batter all over the oven because she was using silicon baking trays and they were not wobbly. (I learned that the same way) xD

All in all, it was a super fun day and here's a very, very, funny video to end of this post!

Vegan Mofo 2012 and Veggielicious!

October is an exciting month for vegan bloggers, because its Vegan Mofo time! This year I signed up on time so I'm included in the list :D yay!

Veggielicious is also going on right now for 2 weeks in Toronto, so lots of yummy food reviews coming soon! Whoohooo! Stay tuned, lots of fun coming up! :)