We use to walk by stores that sold apparel with our the Canadian maple leaf on it and we thought it was lame to wear any “Canadian” gear. Now with the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, I’ve never been so proud to be Canadian! I honestly didn’t care nor felt any excitement for the Olympics until the morning of the opening ceremony on Friday and now I’m beaming with Canadian pride. It`s amazing how your perspective can totally change in one day.
My favorite quote so far is by Walter Gretzky when he said his parents were European commoners and back then, they would’ve never been able to participate in an Olympic torch relay. But here in America, everyone can because we are all equal.
Like Becca said, our opening ceremony cannot compete with Beijing because we don’t have over a billion people to tax nor do we have such a rich and awesome history like China’s to brag about but I think we did a good job [displaying Canada's culture and history] …except for the girl who butchered our national anthem. Anyway, I doubt anyone could beat Beijing (they rocked it!) unless the Olympics were held in North Korea where Kim Jong Il would imprison his people if they don’t give a spectacular performance. 
It’s true, we live in the best country in the world and the most livable city in the world. 
Sure, we have a retarded prime minister and an extremely expensive real estate market but at least we don’t live in a place where there are constant terrorist threats and a smoggy skyline. We are surrounded by clean air, beautiful nature and lots of opportunities.
I think the Olympics is what every city needs. Beijing made me proud to be Chinese and Vancouver made me proud to be Canadian.
A couple of days ago, my girlfriends and I were talking about planning another massive gathering where there will be NO DRINKING involved.
Ideas that popped into our head (both winter and summer activities):
- Bowling (which somehow evolved into drunk-bowling, so scratch that)
- Skating (except it gets boring after 5 minutes unless you go drunk-skating)
- Snowboarding (except Vancouver hasn’t been getting any snow)
- Cross-Country Skiing (benefits the girls who doesn’t snowboard except not everyone has snow gear)
- Camping (except we won’t be able to avoid drinking and some of the girls don’t want be be using dirty public washrooms… I’d rather go in the bush with a leaf too)
- Movie Night (since we haven’t done this in a while)
- Dinners (except we do this a lot already)
- Kayaking (except last time N & I had such a miserable time when we were too cold, wet and tired to fight the strong current and our BFs and the guide ditched us because we were too slow)
- Biking at the Stanley Park Sea Wall (except for the tandem + shoelace + crashing into a wall incident last summer)
- **Hiking (take advantage of all the trails BC has to offer)
Knowing us, we’ll probably end up at a club. 
What are some things you like to do with your friends… that doesn’t involve drinking/partying?
- Anonymous blogging. I don’t blog about my personal life as much as I use to but I’ve jumped back into it and it’s going to be fun. Do you think I don’t write enough “personal” entries on 24C?
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HK Style restaurants. I love going to Hong Kong styled cafe and restaurants. Hearty, MSG-filled Chinese comfort food in a relaxing environment where you can be as loud as you want is the best! My favorite is currently “Kings Park” in Richmond on Westminster Hwy (except their Lemon Tea sucks ass). It’s also near Tsim Chai Noodle House and Banzai Sushi… two of my favorites in Richmond.Off topic, but when my grandpa was dying in the hospital he kept requesting two things: [the best] wonton noodles from Tsim Chai Noodle House and KFC. 
I’d walk to Richmond Centre to get KFC for him then sit sadly in the corner watching him eat because I always forget to buy some for myself… so my grandma would feel bad and give me a piece (grandpa’s eyesight was really bad by then). When I’m dying, I’m going to request the same plus loads of poutine. - T&T. The best supermarket in the world!!!!!!!!!!!! That’s an understatement.
- Pointless games. Like all the ones from Last Day of Work. So mindless, time consuming but so addicting! I guess 95% of games are pointless and are a waste of time though when you can be doing something better… like watching Korean dramas.
- Spending hours at the gym. Most of the time I go in, do my thing and then go home; no lingering, socializing, slacking… like it should be. Once a week (usually on a weekend), I like that I get to take my time working out and not having to worry about rushing to things afterwards (which almost always fails as I frantically rush out of the gym because I forgot about something).
- Grape Juice. My dad just bought some because I think he’s going through a grape juice phase too and I just drank out of the carton. Shhh don’t tell. I swear I’ll down the rest tomorrow.
- Jersey Shore. This is the most pointless, trashiest show ever with the ugliest and nastiest guys and girls. It’s kinda like watching Tila Tequila’s drama unfold over Twitter… their pathetic lives are our entertainment. Now all I need is some popcorn.
- That we’ve never been to Mars… or any other planet. As I kid, I use to indulge in astrology books (the one with lots of pictures) because I was obsessed with the universe. There were lots of “theory” books about missions to other planets and I always thought they were real… you wouldn’t be able to imagine my disappointment when I learned that we’ve never done it. Any of it.
The moon doesn’t count because it’s lame.
Age learned: 12 - The location of Korea. I always thought it was down there near Vietnam/Cambodia but I was shocked to see that it was a TINY ass country inbetween China and Japan. How can so many perfect-looking guys come out of this tiny speck on the map? Not fair.
Age learned: 15 - The sort columns in iTunes. The sort columns are the best things ever because it makes iTunes a breeze to use. I feel like a major asshole for hating on iTunes back when I didn’t know how to use it properly.
Age learned: 20 - How to spell “anonymous.” I never knew (or cared) how to spell it until I started using it a lot especially when I blog. To tell you the truth, I haven’t memorized the spelling despite looking it up 97549675643x times.
Age learned: Never…
