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We went to have dim-sum. This kinda food is south China cuisine so it is not the normal for her. They seemed to like anything which was a meatball, thus shumei, hakkgow, and wonton dumplings. They also seem to like the crunch in egg rolls.

We later headed to Metrotown. Of the many shops I showed her, one was CHQ arcade. I think I had throughly impressed her with my ability to play Drummania V. I also showed them to Crystal Plaza, which should help her reinforce the fact that there are many places that are Chinese here.

We stopped in Red Robins for food. It seems they like the BBQ Whiskey Burger, Beef Quesidesa, and the Freckled Lemonade (lemonade with strawberries in it).

Now, I was cleaning up the hard drives of all the movies and files that were getting piled up. I had Chinese movies for my mom, I had movies which Alexanderia had me get for her. I had also just received an MSN message from my friend John, who had left my house an hour earlier and just arrived at home, speeding down the highway at 140 km/h.

From what I gather is she saw me with the MSN on, which of course she assumes I am up at night for the same reason. Without a word she goes back upstairs and locks me out of the bedroom. Her reasoning is that the computer people are more important than her. I haven't fully grasped her emotion spectrum yet, but I have been told that if she does not say any words, I am to assume she is having a period (women's special days).

So my reaction is this is one of those "special days" and I should leave her alone and let her be. Well, I was wrong. Apparently, there was some unwritten rule that I needed to be with her when she goes to sleep. Of course, this doesn't help me when she doesn't say any words before when she is going to sleep, not even a "good night". But like most problems, we have communicate to find and resolve the problem. Thus in the morning, I finally got out of her, this hidden rule about going to sleep. I thus need to change my night owl computing to daytime hour computing. As the saying goes, "same bad show, different channel, and we'll be back after this commerical break".

Anyway, she does like the berry yogurt that Tim Horton's has. She also doesn't care too much about English Breakfast Tea but she likes the Peppermint Tea.

For dinner, I decided to try IHOP since they really haven't had that kinda breakfast. Well, the meat skillet is popular although Ami hates the eggs. She seems to love the bacon. And since they both love strawberries, the strawberry syrup and the strawberry crepe was an instant hit, even though the pancakes were not that exciting.

However, what made the evening exciting was the amount of incompentance at the Richomnd No. 3 IHOP. The Sprite pop dispenser ran out of syrup so it only pumped out carbonated water (Club Soda). The waitress dropped a Coke on Harvey's lap. The same waitress almost killed herself when she slipped on the wet floor. They were doing separate checks and they still screwed up who had what. However, in the alight of all these bad things, a good time was had.

Anyway, we ended the evening with some Knight And Day. I let her try kalamari with tartar sauce. She seems to like that and the onion rings in that sauce too.

In a talk with Dylon and his wife Christie, he commented on how when they got married, he had to buy new everything. New bed, sheets, covers, sofa, etc... Well, I actually put together my own new bed, new sheets, new pillow cases that mom bought in Hong Kong especially for marriage. My sister bought us a set from Ikea the week she arrived as a present. Guess which one she liked? The NEW and FASHIONABLE one from Ikea. Yes, even though the other ones were brand NEW still in the package from Hong Kong and other linens from Bay, Zellers, and Wal-Mart were NEW bought last week. It was because my sister gave them to me a gift she has recieved them as new. Now, to an otaku, I say "who gives a shit". It is a bed; primary function: to sleep on. It isn't a fashion accessory that my friends or anyone else for that matter will see so who gives a flying fuck what colour the sheets are or what design or what style the pillows are. Especially at night when you turn off the lights, now how in the hell you suppose to see what colour it is? Pillow; primary function: Put your head on when you sleep. Yup my bed is functional, my pillow is functional; mission completed... Well... that assumes you are the only one using the bed... Sigh, I suppose this is a lesson to the rest of you, when you buy new linens and sheets for your newlywed wife, make sure to give them to a friend to give back to you as a gift so she gets the illusion that it is NEW and FASHIONABLE. Or else, you will be like me cursing, "FASHION? What a load of crock!"

So, as best as I could, I left my communication channel open and allowed her the chances say something in case it was not a "special" day. I never know, maybe I did something out out of the ordinary but I don't know.

For dinner, we tried a Japanese restaurant, Sakana. It was your typically expensive Japanese place. Since sushi was not my palette, I ordered the beef okimiyaki and chicken teriyaki and the beef udon. Not that I was surprised, the beef was the most popular with the girls, skip the noodles, the flour and the vegatables.

On today's menu is "all you can eat" sushi. Yea, why eat sushi again this week? Well, we are in Metrotown to meet up with someone. Strangely enough, once I am here, I bump into so many of my old customers from the store. It is eerie that I am as well known like the American Express card commerical. Anyway, aside from that, we tried Taisho for the Japanese food. I quite enjoyed the food, since I strictly avoided the sushi and went straight for the chicken and beef. My favourites were the kaarage, teriyaki, and the ebi sunimono, and since it was all you can eat, I stuffed myself. Of course, Ami complained that I was going to get fat. Her favourite fish was salmon and tuna.

We met up with King to have a nice chat at Starbucks over a Taizo Passion Tea. Good stuff but way to strong for me. Ami seems to enjoy the Black Tea over the Passion stuff. They spoke mostly in Manderin for most of the meet which is good for her.

Alexanderia was sifting through more of my DVDs and she came across a winner, Police Academy. This makes a lot of sense to her and the visual comedy really had her going. I had to borrow the box set from Victor which she will spend the next few days throughly enjoying.

We also went to Cypress Park but it was not a clear sky day to get a good view of Vancouver, However, it was good enough to show her that Vancouver is relatively flat. It is a good look out point on a clear evening too.

Our last stop was Shannon Falls. Great spot to go to, however, because of the slightly colder temperature, the glaciers are already freezing up the water, thus the waterfall doesn't have as much water as it did earlier in the year. The other good thing about the cold is that it has killed off most of the mosquitos and flies.

She did comment that the air was clean out here.

For example, my driver's license was not good enough to show it was me, they needed my passport. Oh great, I am sure if organized crime and terrorists could forge driver's licenses they couldn't possibly fake passports. They also needed proof of my residence, and the address on my driver's license wasn't good enough. They needed a property accessement or landlord/tenant agreement. HAHHA what a joke. Oh, I go and buy a condo or house near the school I want her to go to. Oh there is my property assessment. Or, hey buddy, I am your tenant and you can be my landlord, I rent a 1"x1" square in your house near the school for 1 penny a month. How bogus. Oh, the school might check... OH, yea. As if they have the extra effort to get a search warrant, to check that I am there. Oh by that time, after she is enrolled, I "could" be evicted, then what? You gonna kick her out of her school because the family got evicted out of their place to stay? Even more bogus. Last time I checked, harboring my own child what not a crime. Anyway, like most free government services, they are not perfect. They leave themselves opened to be scammed. It isn't in anyone's best interest to argue logic or principle about it, just use it or abuse it as you see fit.

As for electives, we were allowed to choose 5 electives. Ami and I chose, Band (piano), Cooking, Keyboarding, and stage craft. We will let her choose the last one herself. When she saw cooking, she didn't want to take that one. She asked, "Who chose that one?" I said, "Your mother... too bad....". She has interest in being a fashion designer, however she didn't like any of the art classes or drafting classes or the textile class. In the end, she decided to sign up for choir.

So all and all, it was a pretty tough day for a first day at school.

This day started like most others, I had to work early morning. My shift was to end at 2:00 pm and then we were to go to Lougheed mall to do some Boxing Sale Week shopping. I picked out some DVDs at Wal-Mart, she picked out some clothes from Fairweather. We had a great dinner at Red Robins, which gave her two of her favourite foods beef and strawberry lemonade. Sounds pretty normal, even better than normal. Then at 10:30pm, we were getting ready for bed, much like the day before and the day before that. So I tell Alexanderia to go to bed too, but she was told that she could stay up till 11:00pm. She was watch some F.I.R. music videos from the DVD player. Needless to say, she goes running off to mom to complain and thus begins a complete reversal. She gets mad at me for trying to effect some kind of curfrew. Sigh, this is where one could say, almost got some!