Christmas Party.

As a requirement to this evening’s Christmas party at Manuela’s, I had to bring something home-made to the pot-latch dinner and it had to be something uniquely traditional from my country of birth. But because she specifically specified that it may not be from your home country because, and I quote, “since we all consider Canada to be our home now”, I was at a loss as to what to bring to the table since, well, Canada IS my country of birth AND the only country I can call home to.

And so I sent the following email:


I'm absolutely in for your Christmas party on the 24th! If I drink too much Glühwein however, I may have to stay the night!

Aside from my apparent drinking problem, I have yet another predicament. Canada is my country of birth and I still consider it home as well. I made Canadian Butter Tarts last year and thought about baking something else this year from my big book of Kanadisch Kooking Kollektion. But if anything Canadian is forbidden, I guess I could pretend to have just come off the boat from Japan and create a holiday inspired gingerbread sushi. Or how about my Ferrero Rocher maki? Turkey-yaki?

Please tell me that you'll make an exception to the rule for me so that I wouldn't be the only one eating my new creations.


And like the time I went to see my doctor to write me a note excusing me from physical education class in high school, I was excused. Phew! Ferrero Rocher maki does sound pretty good though... I could just hear everyone at the party saying “Monsieur! With these Rocker maki’s, you’re really spoiling us!”

And with that, I slaved away in the kitchen for hours beating eggs, adding sugar, cinnamon, yeast, salt, vanilla extract, soy milk and flour, kneading the dough until it turned elastic. While waiting for the dough to rise, I had sliced and diced McIntosh apples, marinated them in a sugar and cinnamon mixture, and baked them in the oven for about thirty minutes. I took a tennis ball sized clump of dough and flattened it out into a shape of a beaver tail, flash-fried it on a cast-iron pan of canola oil, flipped it into a bowl of sugar and cinnamon mixture, spread Nutella on one side, added the juicy baked apples on top, and dressed it with a little bit of lemon juice.

And voila! Twelve Beaver Tails! The result turned out pretty good considering that this was my first time eating this Canadian pastry and making it too. With comments like “Délicieux!” and “Excellente!”, it was the talk of the party and most everyone asked for the recipe.

From poutine to beaver tails, we Canadians sure know how to eat healthy.

It wouldn’t be a Christmas party without playing Secret Santa, so after desert, we all huddled around Manuela’s ginormous flatscreen TV tuned to the Fireplace Channel and took part in playing wichteln, drawing numbers from a bowl and claiming our prezzies. I won a keychain Maglite with chocolate!

Thanks for hosting such a great party, MSG!

Lantern Festival.

I went out tonight to the Chinese Gardens with the Vancouver Photography Meetup and friends for the Lantern Festival. While waiting for Tracy and Yuko to show, I ran into Jamie and James of the defunct Vancouver Social Club and their new child in a stroller. Jamie was all big in the belly with a second child on the way.

Lanterns were everywhere inside the gardens, as was to be expected, and really gave the place a different feel all together. Some of the more interesting ones were of the paper stars hanging from the trees and the lotus pods floating on the pond. The cranes around BC Place Stadium looks something like a crown. Having this reflected on the pond inside the garden along with the glass condominium towers nicely juxtaposed the modern with the classic.

PLAY! A Video Game Symphony.

I can honestly say that the last video game I’d played involved moving around a hungry yellow face around a maze eating dots, lemons and cherries and trying to avoid the ghosts that would follow me around. This was when Google paid tribute to the 20th anniversary of Pac Man earlier this year with it’s interactive Google logo on the homepage. Aside from this one-off, I’d never really been all that interested in games, and for the life of me, can’t understand why or how others can spend so much time with RPGs, first person shooters, and the like.

With absolute certainty, I can say that my childhood upbringing has a lot to do with my disinterest in games; not having ever owned an Atari, ColecoVision, Nintendo, or a SEGA video game console. I was also a bit of a sore loser as a kid and not competitive in nature so it’s easy to understand why I may have avoided playing as often. That’s not to say that I’ve never been exposed to video games, however. I have memories of playing Duck Hunt and Mario games when visiting friends, or playing Tetris on a GameBoy during a family road trip. But with regards to the games that are currently available on XBox, PlayStation, Wii or on a computer, I just don’t see the point and dismiss those who play them as someone who needs help.

While my views on consumers of video games haven’t changed, an appreciation for game developers and musicians commissioned to write music for games had emerged when I learned that the PLAY! A Video Game Symphony was coming to down.

Learning about the names and faces of notable composers, many of whom are Japanese, opened my mind to appreciate their craft. PLAY! was an immersive experience attended by a full house of gamers. Three large screens hung above the choir and orchestra pit projecting videos of games from Super Mario Brothers, The Legend of Zelda, Halo, Final Fantasy, World of Warcraft, Kingdom Hearts, and many more, interspersed with live video feed of the orchestra and the conductor. The audience was encouraged to cheer, whistle, and applaud throughout the performance. And did we ever!

I was so impressed by tonight’s performance from start to finish that I went out and bought a CD/DVD album and a program guide as a memento of this occasion, then stood in line for autographs from composers Michael Curran and Geoff Knorr (Civilization V), Oleksa Lozowchuk (Dead Rising 2), and orchestra conductor Andy Brick. I was also given a free copy of a 2-disc album soundtrack to Civilization V while queuing.

I shall never forget about tonight’s wonderful musical performance.

As I sit here now browsing through eBay for the original Nintendo Entertainment System complete with the gun, Duck Hunt, and Super Mario Bros. game, I think this video game symphony may have been my foray into the world of video games, twenty-five years late.

VO: Lucia di Lammermoor.

I went on a little outing in Steveston with Jaygan, Timela, and Jonathan in the afternoon. The breeze made for a chilly day but was still bearable under the heat-lamped patio where we ate lunch. I went for a stroll along the boardwalk with Jonathan afterwards to take in the scene of Steveston Village and captured the beautiful sunset as it slowly sunk under the Fraser River. The Blue Hour is one of my most favourite time of day for photography.

In the evening, I got together with Stephanie and Sonia for another evening at the opera. Tonight was for the opening performance of Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor; a common storyline which runs parallel to Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet.