Road Trip

I did it! Today, I drove all the way to Vancouver B.C. using my own car. It was my first road trip ever and I survived to tell you all about it! HeHe. It was supposed to take me 3 hours to get to Vancouver. I left the suburbs at 8:35 a.m., and arrived at the border at 10:15 a.m. You do the math and please don't tell my parents. LoL.

My detailed itinerary:

Chinatown: All I wanted were legit DVDs of Meteor Garden I and Meteor Garden II. Did I find them? Yes! Did I get them? No, because all of them didn't have English subtitles. I am so heartbroken about it. I was this close, yet so far. *SIGH. Anyway, to mend my broken heart and ease my frustration, I ended up buying the F4 Fantasy Live Concert DVD. Wait, did I just say that out loud? Please strike that from your memory. LoL. My biggest "I didn't buy it" regret: there was this set of PVC figurines and I think they were supposed to be F4. It would've been perfect to send to Pen, but I opted not to buy it, thinking that the $10 should be used instead on the MG sets that I thought I was going to find. Well, I was wrong on two accounts. Blah.

Galing-Galing Filipino Restaurant: I'm so proud of remembering where it was. Since my brother was always the one who drove to Vancouver, I always left it up to him to get us there. I don't know the address, I just knew it was on Broadway Street. Well, my cousin and I found the restaurant and I had my pork BBQ on a stick. Yes, I am willing to drive 160+ miles to eat a stick of BBQ. Didn't I say we are deprived here in Seattle? HeHe.

Robson Street: It was shopping galore. This was my first time there because whenever I was with the family, we never checked out downtown, much to my dismay. Anyway, while my cousin splurged at Zara, I splurged at Esprit. Our one and only Esprit store in Bellevue closed two years ago so I was way too happy when I saw the store in Vancouver. I bought two pairs of pants and a track jacket. Yes, that is splurging to me. Anyway, the sales clerk there knew that I was Filipino. I was quite impressed. That was the first time I was asked by a stranger if I'm Filipino rather than Chinese. Nice! Besides by MG sets, my other mission in Vancouver was to buy a Vancouver Starbucks City Mug. Did I find one? Of course not! I visited 3 Starbucks on Robson (reminded me so much of Madison Street in Seattle, where there are 3 Starbucks next to one another!) and I came up empty-handed. I stopped by another Starbucks on Hwy 99, they didn't have it either. I even drove to Richmond and they still didn't have it. Blasphemy for real! (Attention: Ayeza! LoL)

Goldilocks: I had a slice of Brazo de Mercedes and a glass of sago't gulaman for merienda. I swear, I thought I was in heaven. LoL.

Parker Place: My last hope for MG sets was in Richmond. My cousin and I knew there was an "Asian strip mall" there so it was up to me to use my super duper galing memory skills to remember how to get there. It turned out that my cousin and I were talking about two different Asian malls. Parker Place was not the one that my brother and I went to before, but good enough for my MG hunt. Dood, my cousin was right: it was an Asian mall for real, complete with a lot of Asian people. Seriously, you would think you're in Asia. Although, I found no MG sets with English subtitles (yet again!), I was giddy. I saw some F4-looking guys that got me smiling. I swear, F4 has changed the way I view Chinese guys. LoL.