Beautiful Calgary

Before it became an old history, I do want to talk about my trip to Calgary, Canada recently(hmm… a while ago). When hubby announced that we are going to Calgary, I was thinking “What kind of place is that? I never heard of it.” Later I recalled one of our friend once mentioned about this city that if she get to choose, she will want to live in Calgary and she described it as a big city with high rise building but not as big as NYC and not as crowded but just a very nice place to live in. Hmm?

Now, we see it for ourselves and I have to say I fell in love with Calgary. It’s a very well-balanced city I should say, it feels like home, there are times that I felt like I’m walking in KL because they are so many oriental faces, most of them are from Hong Kong and in certain area, there are many Japanese too. Basically they have very healthy mix of many races, and you don’t see obvious separation. They are very well mixed in the society.
I’m a city person, I always love high rise building and especially enjoying looking up at the city light at night. But a big city as busy as NYC can also mean lower quality of life. Calgary has both the view, energy and the quality of life…

We stay in the downtown area so that we can conveniently walk to the US Consulate. This trip is for business purposes but we grab the opportunity to travel around a little bit. Bicycles are everywhere especially near the high rise buildings. Looks like most of them ride the bike to work.

Calgary is a very clean city, I heard they are the 5th cleanest city in the world, I was thinking to myself, this city is already super clean, who gets the first place? Maybe you have to consider the size of the population too relatively.

Most of the building have beautiful sitting area in the front or the back of their buildings.

We were wondering where are the people? We see many buildings, it cannot be that empty, and it’s lunch time.
And there you go, everyone is inside the buildings. They have what they call the elevated walkway, or the crosswalk between most of the building so they do not need to leave the building for lunch or dinner.
On the second floor of most buildings are restaurants, food court, malls, boutique…etc. So, in the winter they do not need to put on and take off their coat and walk in and out of the building like us, they can stay inside, keep warm and still walk through the whole downtown. Nice! Brilliant idea. Of course NYC can’t follow that, we are always scare of bomb, remember? You don’t want to connect the buildings, sigh.

They have many nice seating area everywhere inside the building, and not bench I’m talking about, they are nice beautiful sofas. Everything is very new and clean in this city. FYI, for privacy purpose, we’re not allowed to take picture inside the building, we didn’t know until the guard came to us, LOL!

I think they have more Starbucks than US. Well, we can’t help to stop and have a cup of our favorite Pumpkin Spice Latte!

We both think this is by far the vacation with most satisfying meals. Of course being a vegetarian is not always without challenge in terms of getting food. But in Calgary, we find it very easy to get fresh healthy vegetarian food and the people are very happy and willing to modify their recipe for us. Even this kind of fast food, I would not dare to try in NYC, but this one here is FRESH and delicious. We also found a very nice vegetarian restaurant with Hong Kong style food.

It’s so relax to stroll along the unique shops.

Chinook Centre is the largest shopping mall in Calgary. It is really HUGE and the food court/cafeteria is big, new, beautiful, and fresh. There’s soooo much things to see!! I skipped all the retailers that I can find in US, pick those that sounds most interesting, it’s still impossible to visit all of them. However, I was still lucky to grab some stuffs that I need with a very good deal.
By the way, we noticed Calgarian are majority good looking with lean body.

The Prince’s Island is 5 minute walking distance from our hotel. A very beautiful park. A stroll along the river and bridge complete our day.

From Calgary, we rent a car and drove to Banff National Park. The scenery along the way is indescribable…
And when we reach there, and as we walk and observe the beauty of the nature’s masterpiece, we both have the same feeling that we human are indeed so small…
The amazing part is we are so small yet we are so smart and powerful in creating all the technologies that enable us to reach places on this earth like never before, but we human can also be rather destructive in many ways…
Whatever it is, we’re totally taken away by the grand & magnificent view at the Canadian Rockies.

A view taken from the cable car.

There are more places that we really want to visit but with the limited time, we didn’t get to go, we will have to go back again one day. I wish I can bring my parents and family along in the future.
To view more pictures go to my Facebook.

Spa Castle 2009

It was hubby’s birthday last Wednesday. I took him to Spa Castle for a treat. It's just 25 minutes away from home. We figure that there are so many places in NYC that we haven't explore, so we are not going away this summer.
I give them 4 stars out of 5 because the food are a little too expensive. I think it should be more reasonable. And I think they are quite cheap to offer just one set of uniform which will easily get wet, you have to wear it when you are not in the pool. Nevertheless, the service are great and the idea of hassle free for everything is a plus, you don’t need to bring anything with you around, just pay for the services, food and drink with the watch they gave which will also open your locker. Smart!
More importantly, it is very well kept and VERY CLEAN.

When you are inside the building, everyone has to take off their shoes and walk around barefoot just like we’re at home.

They have Jacuzzi, hot tub, ginseng pool, jasmine pool, kiddies pool, aqua bar (where you order drinks and sit in it), hinoki bath…and others. There are many different types of sauna for example, jade sauna, salt sauna, LED sauna, music sauna….etc.

There's sleeping area where you can take a nap after the sauna and hot bath. Definitely feel sleepy after the massage. Our first private room massage. We have 2 Korean masseurs who speak Chinese. It surprised us, they are not convince I’m Malaysian, they said I look like Korean… The experience with the massage? so so…not as great as we expected.

Smart idea too for them to charge more on weekend so it won’t get too crowded, so for those who can at least take a day off or go after work is better. USD35 for weekday and USD45 for weekend, you can stay as long as you like, it open from 6 am to midnight.

By the way, not a place for people who feel uneasy being naked around other people. You have to take off everything in the shower area and pool area inside the locker room, of course, only ladies in this area.

Vegetarian BBQ trip to Bear Mountain State Park

Anytime a trip to get away from the city is definitely refreshing to the soul and body. Pictures speak a thousand words… Here’s some of the pictures of the BBQ trip to Bear Mountain, a state park at New York upstate, rising from the west bank of the Hudson River. I feel so lucky to be able to enjoy this beautiful place and I’m very thankful to all of those, my friends who had working hard in putting their efforts together for this vegetarian BBQ gatherings. Not only the foods were great but knowing that we are enjoying food without hurting lives and environment is even better!

We heard about global warming so much in fact some people say they feel numb about it already…but we should not because indeed we are really in a state of EMERGENCY now. Human has been abusing the only place that they can live in – the planet Earth.

Below is an excerpt from The Huffington Post:
Eating As If the Climate Mattered, by Bruce Friedrich
United Nations environmental researchers released a report that everyone who cares about the environment should review. Called " Livestock's Long Shadow," this 408-page thoroughly researched scientific report indicts the consumption of chickens, pigs, and other meats, concluding that the meat industry is "one of the... most significant contributors to the most serious environmental problems, at every scale from local to global" and that eating meat contributes to "problems of land degradation, climate change and air pollution, water shortage and water pollution, and loss of biodiversity."

I was talking to my brother on the phone the other day, he said there’s a release of a list of countries that may sink or swallowed by the increasing water cause by the melting of the arctic's ice. Many activists have go around and passing the message that recycling are not the only or the fastest solution, what actually help the environment to recover faster is the decision made on your plate! If only everyone will leave a piece of meat, even just once a week, it will make a great impact. Human tend to start react only when the problems are right in our face. We are smart creatures, that’s why we are able to predict and already foresee the consequences of our actions, we can change because we care.
I was watching a discussion about the environment and how going for meatless diet can help on the TV the other day….the thing is even if someone say they don’t care about the environment, the problem is now all the antibiotics that left in the animals’ bodies when they were slaughtered had taken a toll on humans’ health… Research has shown that the toxic found in the animals are way much higher than the pesticides found in the vegetables ( for those who say “oh, the vegetables are full of pesticide too..”).

Many times I heard people says, “Oh well, so many others are doing it, even if I change, not going to help much.” Just imagine if all of us think like this? Who’s going to do it?
Scientific research has proved that many animals are as smart and sensitive as we are. For more interesting facts, go to http://www.goveg.com/

My youngest brother is an environmentalist. I am so proud of all that he did and his perseverance. I remember last time when he asked me to bring my own bag to do shopping. I told him I still need the bags for my garbage/trash can. He told me that I wouldn’t need that many. So, I make an effort to bring my own beautiful ^^ reusable shopping bag from Whole Food, every time I went for groceries shopping. At first, we keep forgetting to bring it with us but now we are used to it, for almost 2 years now, I feel good whenever I save those plastic bags. Whole Food will refund $0.1o for every purchase that we made without using their paper bag or plastic bag, and the Chinese supermarkets were equally happy when we took out our own bag, they even asked us where to get the pretty reusable bag, hehe. We only take the plastic bags when we are really running low on supply for our trash can. ^^

Yummy vegetarian skewer! Enjoy food without cruelty! Go Veg Go Green…

Yummo!

Chatting away with my ex room mate, Emi…..just like old time.

Ivan and Ryan, both are veggie babies since they were in their mothers' womb.

More pictures of the trip here.

Please try from today onwards, be a vegetarian for at least once a week…
Eat Better, Feel Better!

The weekend at the Hampton

This trip of mine to Amagansett, Long Island was 2 weekends ago. I was busy and haven’t been able to talk about it.
Amagansett is next to East Hampton, both are places of the wealthy living in New York, they usually have their mansion or beautiful cottage in this part of Long Island.

Since I was there for my training, hubby thought it would be nice to meet me there and travel to Montauk together to see the light house, that’s at the very end of the island. And it’s just another 40 minutes to Montauk from East Hampton.
It’s really beautiful over there, I heard about Montauk a long time ago and we were talking about going there but we never been able to drag ourselves to travel there because it’s a 3 hours drive from New York City to the end of Long Island.
However, due to the limited time and it was pretty chilly, we didn’t spend that much time in the East Hampton but I will be going back there in the summer and we’ll share more of the pictures of the beautiful East Hampton.

This is part of East Hampton, it’s very quiet and peaceful. It reminds me of Europe.

On our way to the light house at Montauk.

Here’s the light house at Montauk, Long Island.

I think hubby’s photography skill has improved a lot.

We wanted to get closer to the water but it was very windy and chilly that Easter morning.

I was collecting some beautiful stones and pebbles, they are so round and polished.

And we will be back in the summer when the weather is much warmer…

My friend got up early in the morning and cut these daffodils from the garden for me before I left. They were lovely on my dinning table.