Today I got to go to an advanced screening of I Am Number Four courtesy of Virgin Mobile!

I Am Number Four is based on a the book of the same name by Pittacus Lore (pen name of James Frey and Jobie Hughes) and follows a special teen "John Smith". Unlike other teens he is actually an alien from the planet Lorien on the run from other aliens called Mogadorians. They destroyed John's home planet but not before he and 8 other children and their guardians escaped. These children are special since each of them possess special powers called Legacies. Now the Mogs are hunting them down one by one in sequence (Don't know why...I guess I'll have to read the book). They've killed three already and John is Number Four. Because of this John and his guardian Henri have to move around a lot. Their latest move takes them to Paradise, Ohio where he falls in love with a girl from school named Sarah, an avid photographer. This makes it all very complicated since his powers have started manifesting themselves and the Mogadorians have picked up his trail...Now John must learn to control his powers to protect the ones he cares about.

I did enjoy it...it kind of reminded me of Smallville and a little bit of Dark Angel where instead of escaped mutants being hunted you have escaped aliens with superpowers. I loved the action and the story is interesting but the movie leaves A LOT of unanswered questions. Like what's in the box? What's the significance of the symbols? Scenes in the trailer don't even make it into the movie! I guess Dreamworks leaves it very open so that more movies can be made. I do want to learn what happens...Time to go to the library!

I Am Number Four is out in theatres on Friday February 18th. 

Lunarfest was one of the main attractions downtown during the Olympic games. Last year it was lantern trees, this year it is a lantern aquarium! It was a very long line up last week to get in and I saw it was a long line up last Saturday as well. The Vancouver Aquarium was also there with Beebop the Beluga whale and there own display of sea life such as DELICIOUS LOOKING prawns, crabs, seastars and different types of fish. I took a picture of the prawns so you too can see how delicious they look.

We finally got inside, after oh maybe a half hour wait. I was quite pleased with the display. The lanterns were very pretty hanging from nets and I liked the LED light curtain too. It was white the frist time I went. The second time it changed colours! There were also 3D white paper cut outs of sea life on display after the main display. Those were pretty cool. I liked the flying fish the best.
The Public Dreams Society also put on a parade both weekends. Basically they put on magnificent costumes and walked down Granville street to with drummers leading the way. I LOVE the fish head man! So pretty! The jellyfish man reminded me of some one in Alice in Wonderland.  He talked in a funny whimsical Wonderland-type way. LOOL

After the Olympic events I met up with some friends to go to see Illuminate Yaletown. (It was a very full day!) Thank goodness it stopped raining! Mother nature did a little illuminating of the sky before the sun set too. It was very beautiful sky after a heavy rain. There were a lot of interesting displays on. This was the second day Illuminate was on and there were ice sculptures that were already melted. =( I really liked the Factory - it gave me a laugh!

I never realized that Vancouver had so much things to do before! I'm flying through my bus passes like crazy!

Wow, a year passed by so fast! Yesterday was the one-year anniversary of the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic Games! Because of this there was whole lot of celebration downtown! Unfortunately it was POURING RAIN! Typical Vancouver weather I guess! But that didn't stop a lot of people (including me) from making the trek downtown and taking part in the celebration! We unfortunately missed the opening celebration in Robson Square because the buses were full and skipped us. We went to investigate anyways and there were a lot of people lining up to get autographs from the Olympic athletes. We also ran into someone we always seem to bump into at these sorts of events! There was street hockey being played on Granville despite the rain. Many of the indoor events had a long lineups such as the Vancouver Art Gallery which offered free admission. Lunarfest had a relatively short line in the morning and early afternoon but the lineup exploded in the evening! Canadian figure skater, Patrick Chan was also there in front of McDonald's signing autographs. We had to wait in line so long in the freezing rain. My feet all wet but I got a photo with him and he autographed my McDonald waterbottle! Yaaaay!


If you missed out this weekend don't worry there will also be another mini celebration (for the closing ceremony), the TD Bank Winter Carnival, on Sunday, February 27th, 2011 from 12:00pm until 4:00pm at Robson Square.

From Prada to Nada is a romantic comedy about two sisters with vastly different personalities who are left penniless after their rich father dies. Olivia is materialistic one and Nora is the bookworm. They are forced from their home by their half-brother's girlfriend - the brother they never knew they had. The girls end up in East Los Angeles with their aunt. There they try to learn about their Mexican heritage and find love...in an absurdly short amount of time!

Apparently this movie is based on Jane Austen's "Sense and Sensibility". I haven't read the book yet but I bet I would have gotten more out of it than this movie. The plot was just all over the place it tried to fit in their brother's story but failed miserably and the relationships that formed were very rushed. If you are looking for a light movie with no real sustenance then you don't have to look any further but don't expect to enjoy it that much.

From Prada to Nada opens in theatres in Canada tomorrow, February 11, 2011.

Yay! Welcome the Year of the Rabbit! Chinese New Year was on Feb 3rd this year but the annual parade was held last Sunday. This was the first time I attended (that I remember). I wasn't planning to go but I saw so many articles about it online that I couldn't resist. Plus I LOVE Lion dances as you can probably tell by all my pictures. The parade started at noon at the Millennium Gate on Pender Street and route is about 1.2 Km long. It wasn't just Chinese participating, there was Vietnemese (their new year also is on the same day), Natives, Irish and all sorts of others! It was very cool. The parade lasted about 2 hours but the poor Lion dancers had to keep on going because ALL the stores hung up lettuces for the Lions to eat and they have to do it for luck! So they didn't finish until about 4pm! My sister met up with me after the parade ended and we went to Tinseltown to "walk the flower street". It was very crowded and there were a lot of shows going on but it couldn't beat the parade! I had to wake up super early to go to church first so I was kinda exhausted by the end of the day. But it was absolutely worth it!

Oru at the Fairmont Pacific Rim will be our last DineOut this year. I need to save some for next year! I took my family out yesterday night. My photo taking wasn't that great. It was very dark and I'm still fumbling around with the controls lol. Anyways, my mom loves seafood so when picking a restaurant, there always has to be scallops. And Oru had scallops AND lobster in its main! We ordered everything on the menu except for the Braised Yellow Lentils. I tried the Sake Kasu Sablefish for appitizer (recommended by our waiter) and oh it was so delicious! Pick the sablefish if you are going to go to Oru! Tender, moist and seasoned just right. Lovely appitizer. It seemed we waited for our main course for a while though. I guess they expect many patrons to drink and talk but we were all getting hungry and there was unfortunately no bread basket to snack on because it is a Pan-Asian restaurant. For the main course my dad tried the Tandoor Roasted Lamb Loin and the three of us had the Roasted Scallops & Lobster Dumpling. It was so yummy! My dad didn't like the squash risotto that came with the lamb but I liked it so I helped him finish it. I love risotto. It was slightly on the richer side though. I was going to try the Coconut Cheesecake but I opted to try something different and went for the Vietnamese Coffee Pannacotta. I really enjoyed it! It had a very strong coffee taste which I liked.

We parked in the underground parking lot. It is $6 if you have a meal there. Just visit the concierge in the lobby and pay there. Unfortunately there was something wrong with the machine in the lot and we couldn't get out! It was funny because we saw someone else have the same problem when we were heading inside so my dad was worrying about how we are going to get out. Luckily someone came down to rescue us. Hopefully it is fixed now.

Overall it was a lovely evening. I enjoyed dinner and I would consider revisiting if I was in the area again.

Here is Oru's full menu:

Room is a story about love, innocence and learning told through the voice of five-year-old Jack who lives with his Ma in Room. Jack was born in Room and has lived there his whole life. It is everything he knows. But to his mom it is a prison that now has grown too small for the both of them.

I finished Room a week ago. It is a very good book. So good that I found myself reading into the wee hours of the night dispite having to work the next day. Donoghue writes a very compelling story through Jack. The story is told in a child's innocent voice which made me feel closer to the characters than I would have if the story was told in Ma's point of view. In the beginning the reader know no more than Jack. As he describes more and more, you piece things together and you realize that this big Room he depicts is not very big at all. There were many things in the beginning you have no idea what Jack is talking about. You discover the world as Jack discovers it. You feel as he feels. When you finish the book you will go "wow, that's deep". That is how I felt.

I went to Dine Out again yesterday night. This time we went to Ebo Restaurant which is in the Delta Hotel in Burnaby. I think hotel restaurants tend to have better menu and service and their Dine Out menu was only $28! The dinner was exceptionally good and our servers were very polite and knowledgeable. Each dish was explained to us when it was brought out (except for the dessert because it was a different person) and that made it much more interesting!

Dinner started off with a bread basket. I love bread and it always pleases me to have a complementary bread basket. Our party tried all the dishes except the Beetroot and Goat Cheese and Cream Spätzle with Butternut Squash. My favourite dish was the Roasted Baja Scallops. They were large and tasted amazing! The presentation of the dishes were very nice too. Each plate was like a work of art. I had the tuna for the main course and it was awesome and filling! It didn't look like much but trust me, everyone was very full by the end. I finished off with the Warm Apple Crumble. It contained a biscuit and cute little (and tasty) peach jelly cubes. We all agreed that we wanted more cubes in our desserts.

I highly recommend Ebo. I enjoyed the dinner very much!

Here is their full Dine Out menu:

I'm betting that it'll be six more weeks of winter seeing that the cold air that is lingering around Vancouver doesn't seem to want to go away! I'm so cold in the morning that I don't want to get out of bed!

 It's not preventing my flowers from starting to bloom though! Yay! Last year I planted a whole bunch of bulbs in the front yard. This spring should turn out to be very colourful. I am eagerly awaiting the spring! Snowdrops are blooming in the garden for a few weeks now and I see that daffodils are starting to come out of the ground! Some of my lilies are also starting to poke out of the soil. I'm so excited! I think I will buy some more snowdrops though. One here and one there doesn't give a lot of impact. I want clumps of snowdrops!
When the weather is warmer I'll have to plant my "rescue" plants as well. They are the ones that I bought for a dollar or less at Canadian Tire when the planting season was over. Hahah I know I shouldn't have bought plants to try to revive but it was so inexpensive and I had a coupon for $5 off so it wasn't that much. I'll have to start weeding too. Those pesky weeds are coming back in again!