As a child Cataleya (Amandla Stenberg) witnesses the murder of her parents in Colombia and manages to get away from the people who wanted to kill her. Escaping to America and with the help of her uncle, she (Zoe Saldana) grows up to be a deadly assassin with one mission: to kill Don Luis (Beto Benites), the person responsible for her parents' deaths. However, things get heated up when Cataleya's lover Danny (Michael Vartan) inadvertently alerts the FBI investigating the assassinations related to her call card of Cataleya's whereabouts.

Colombiana is a non-stop action movie with a bit of romance thrown in. It was the perfect revenge movie. It was really intense. I loved watching Cataleya perform the impossible assassinations: everything was so coordinated and depended on split second decisions or getaways. She was like a super woman (or Xena warrior princess): untouchable and deadly. It was great to see such a strong female lead. I thought Zoe Saldana looked too thin though! It didn't look like she had any muscles at all to be an effective assassin. Besides that the movie had great music and an awesome pace. You keep looking forward to her next assassination with great anticipation. The ending is kind of bittersweet thought but overall I loved it!

Colombiana is currently out in theatres everywhere.   

The Pink Salmon Festival was on Sunday and I went to check it out with M. This festival was to celebrate the return of the salmon and promote pink salmon as a sustainable food source. A total of 1.5 tonnes of free salmon were barbequed and served in generous portions to hungry visitors. The site was pretty busy as expected.  

  
Robert Clark, Executive Chef of C Restaurant served the salmon with Nori and some kind of delicious crumble on top with coleslaw and a small bun. This one was my favourite though they were all pretty good.

  Ron "Rockin' Ronnie" Shewchuk served his with a mustard BBQ sauce and green salad on the side.


Here's my plate after all that. I didn't think that it would be this much! If I'd known I wouldn't have eaten lunch before heading down there.




The most popular thing there (besides the food) were the pink flying fish-shaped bubbles created by the Canadian company Flogos! They were so cool. We were walking toward the park when we saw these things floating around and didn't know what they were at first. Then I exclaimed "OH! It's a fish!" and we followed the flying fish to the festival site. Hahah it's pretty ingenious!

The annual TaiwanFest sponsored by Telus is happening starting this Saturday September 3rd to Monday September 5th.  This free event is dedicated to promoting Taiwanese Arts and Culture. There will be dance performances, lectures, music, food, games and many other fun things to do!

Location and hours:

Vancouver Art Gallery Plaza
801 West Georgia Street

• Saturday - 12:00 pm to 10:00 pm
• Sunday - 12:00 pm to 10:00 pm
• Monday - 12:00 pm to 6:00 pm

Granville Street, Downtown
800-600 block Granville Street

• Saturday - 11:00 am to 8:00 pm
• Sunday - 11:00 am to 8:00 pm
• Monday - 11:00 am to 6:00 pm

Roundhouse Community Centre
181 Roundhouse Mews (Davie & Pacific)

• Open Daily - 12:00 pm to 6:00 pm

Source: http://taiwanfest.ca/

Went to the Vancouver Aquarium on Saturday to see Birds Up Close. I haven't been in a long time and it was busy! There were a huge line up to get in. I watched the dolphin show first. Spinnaker, Helen and Hana put on quite a show for the large crowd.



Later on I saw Helen play with her food throwing it up and down with her mouth. You can watch it in the clip I took.


In the Birds Up Close free flying show, the trainers brought out a turkey vulture, horned owl and bald eagle! All the birds are beautiful and majestic. I loved to see them flying. Tried to capture a photo of them with their wings spread as they landed but it's harder than it looks! I have a clip of Darwin the owl flying but Youtube is not cooperating with me. I'll try uploading it again later tonight.







Elsewhere in the exhibits, there weren't too many changes but that didn't prevent me from taking a bijillion pictures!