ash and angela

Slideshow

2009-01-28T10:56:00.000-08:00

Here's the slideshow that we showed at the wedding:

Enjoy!

10:16pm Thursday January 15

2009-01-15T13:16:00.000-08:00

Yesterday we took the RER to Versailles to see the Chateau de Versailles. This is where the French royalty lived until the revolution. We saw all the sites where Kirsten Dunst and Jason Schwartzman did stuff in Marie Antoinette...oh yeah, and all those real kings and queens too. All the Louis'.

Can you tell I'm not a history buff.

Today we ate at the city's best creperie, Le Creperie Josselin. Ang had a jam crepe, and I had the Maraichere. It consisted of sour cream, spinach and cheese inside and a sunny side up egg and bacon on top. It may actually be my favourite breakfast food I've ever had.

We then headed over to the Jardin du Luxembourg and did a walking tour around La Sorbonne, the oldest school in France (since 1257 I think). We then headed over to Ile St. Louis and did a walking tour over there and partook of some famous ice cream. After doing some shopping on Rivoli, Ang and I headed over to Eglise St. Julien-le-Pauvre, one of the old religious buildings in the city for a concert featuring the music of Liszt, Choping and Mozart by pianist Miho Nitta. It was one of those cool moments to hear some amazing music played in this haunting old building and hear the notes reverberate around the room.

Two more sleeps and then we head home.

2009-01-13T21:32:00.000-08:00

Ang with her big choco.

Here we are at Fontaine de Vaucluse. I believe the Vaucluse is a region within the larger area of Provence.

This is a picture of the shopping district in Aix-En-Provence. Every store has a sale on right now...20, 30, 40, 50, even 70 percent off some items. We just liked how this shot perfectly captured the business of people doing shopping in an amongst the old walkways of Aix that probably once only held boulangeries and markets.

Me and Sausage at the market in Apt. Yes, I meant to capitalize Sausage as if it were its namesake.

Ang smelling a huge bouquet of lavender, one of Provence's major crops.

My rabbit stew and rice. Un Lapin Provençal avec riz.

This is my poorly photographed langoustine with two langoustine ravioli (bottom of the picture). Of note is how these little guys are stabbing themselves with their pincers. This was my dinner at a really nice restaurant in Bonnieux called L'Arome. I had an artichoke and bacon dish with a sort of chunky soup-like reduction with lardons to start, this dish as the main, a cheese course of honey drenched roquefort cheese (I think it was roquefort) in a pastry shell and then Crepes Suzzette for dessert. Ang had eggplant, red pepper and goat cheese wraps to start, some sort of jellified chicken thing for the main and then pistachio ice cream in a hard pastry shell for dessert. Her words: "I think it was the best dessert I've ever had in my life."

This is at the end of our meal at L'Arome.

We finally made it to Paris. This is looking at a little patch of water at the Bastille intersection.

This is my Andouille Tartine.

Yesterday, we tackled the Eiffel Tower, Arc de Triomph, Champs-Elysee, and Montmarte/Sacre Cour. We were power tourists. We also accomplished a couple other mini little goals of ours (well...mine): rode the metro, ate a plate of assorted charuterie for lunch, had a niçoise salad, had a drink at the cafe used in the film Amelie, walked by the grocer used in the movie as well and best of all, bought a chubby pigeon ornament. Thanks to those walking tour cards, we also walked by Van Gogh's house, the subject of one of Renoirs paintings, and a place where Picasso and Renoir used to hang out (the Lapin Agile).

At the cafe in Montmarte (called Tabac des Deux Moulins), I ordered a glass of white wine and Ang ordered a Limonade, though she speculated that Lemonade in France might be different than what we call lemonade in Canada. We had been walking all day, shopping along the Champs-Elysee, climbing the eiffel tower and we looked forward to just having a nice relaxing drink in the mid-afternoon. When it came to our table, Ang took a sip and exclaimed, "Wow!!!! that's refreshing!!!". She was hooked on this French style lemonade. To me it just kind of looked like San Pelligrino and a lemon inside (which, I might add is what we had to drink for lunch).

So I took a sip...and realized...it was 7-up.

Those French really know how to make a lemonade!

Okay, today we're off to Versaille to see the Chateau de Versaille. Tonight we may check out a trashy, chic bar mentioned in the tour cards. They have some live jazz. Could be fun. Could be a bust. We'll see.

Missing you all back at home but loving it here!

Pics

2009-01-13T00:54:00.000-08:00

Here are some pics:

Ang at the top of Menerbes in front of a cathedral from the 16th century.

Me in a snowy Menerbes on the first full day.

Ang on one of the roads into the Centre Ville de Menerbes.

Ang in apartment in Menerbes upon arrival.

More to come but we have a tower to go see. I heard it's pretty nice.

11:25pm - Monday, January 11: Paris

2009-01-12T14:25:00.000-08:00

A small little funky eclectic restaurant like something you'd see on Main or Commercial. We wanted steak frites. They had a special of steak frites, a glass of red wine and a coffee for 9.90 Euro. Pretty good deal right? Too good to be true right? Well, it was.

Th steak was stringy and undercooked and tasted like it was cooked on a grill that had never been cleaned. It was tough but soft all at the same time with the worst color on a steak ever. The fries were okay but undercooked, again, lacking nice golden brown color. The wine tasted like water that had gone bad. The bread that came with the meal was at least a day old (a major faux pas). Well, we saw that they had a standard coffee maker and so we thought that they couldn't screw that up.

They did.

It tasted as if they ground up their coffee beans, spilled the grounds on an old dirt trail and proceeded to scoop all of mixture into the brew machine.

Spew.

In a city where every second step is filled with the words, "Oooh, that looks like a nice restaurant! Let's go there," it's a marvel that for some reason we felt drawn to this spunky little restaurant. Maybe it was because of the 3 other tables that were seated with patrons or the fact that it's in a part of town with infinite competition, but we had high hopes for it. I can't remember the name of the restaurant because we ran out of there like the place was on fire but we know now: if it looks like it would fit in with restaurants on Commercial Drive or Main street, just keep walking.

This evening we went to see the Notre Dame and were pleasantly surprised to find out that they had a church service in progress. It was haunting and beautiful. Definitely one of the best tourist attractions I've ever seen. Lives up to all the hype to see it in person.

Tomorrow: The Eiffel Tower, Champs-Elysee and Arc de Triomph. Oh yeah, and buying a USB cable. Seriously, there are no electronic stores in Paris.

4:15pm - Monday January 11th - Paris (Rue. St. Gilles)

2009-01-12T07:15:00.000-08:00

Okay, so we're going to buy a USB cable so we can unload our camera and hopefully post a couple pics of our time here so hopefully by tomorrow, we'll have some pics.

We're in Paris in the 3rd Arrondisement, just steps away from the Picasso Museum and the Bastille Opera House. Our apartment is great: high ceilings, clean modern look, nice comfy bed, and warm. Too bad there's no running water! When we got in last night after fighting Paris traffic for two hours (yes, I drove in Paris and yes, it's intense), the owner told us that there was no running water because one of the pipes had frozen and burst. All day today, they've been in and out re-rerouting the plumbing on this side of the building. The other side works fine so we've been given the key to the apartment just one floor up so we can use the bathroom (toilet and shower). It's weird that, because of the language barrier, we don't actually know who this person is and where she is. Every time I come out of the washroom, I think I'm going to see her standing there completely freaked out that a scruffy haired asian man is standing in her bathroom.

We had a quiet night last night after a long drive to Paris so we got up early this morning to drop off the car and start exploring. We did two walking tours from the box of walking tours we got for Christmas from Garth and Jackie. On the tours we found some cool places that we ended up eating at. For lunch we went to La Tartine, famous for it's Tartines (open faced sandwiches). I had the Andouille tartine which I thought was just a tripe sausage. Turns out Andouille is not just tripe (cow's intestine) but it's pig...and it also includes the rectum.

Awesome. And delicious.

So for those keeping score at home, that's one dish of rabbit, one with Langoustine, and one with a pig's rectum.

Ang had the less disgusting, arguably more tasty, Eggplant and Red/Yellow Pepper open faced cheese sandwich.

Okay. We're going to go out for dinner and then going to see the Notre Dame all lit up at night.

A bientot!

1:09pm - Saturday: Apt

2009-01-10T04:09:00.000-08:00

We went to the market this morning in Apt. The market has been going on every Saturday for 900 years. It sprawled all throughout le centre ville, through the narrow streets and courtyards. We wandered in and out but because we're leaving tomorrow morning, we thought that it wasn't wise to buy much produce. Everything looked really healthy and delicious but we didn't need anything.

We did however buy lunch. Ang bought a large pizza (of the fluffy crust variety) and I ventured into unknown territory and bought some Lapin de Provence avec Riz. Rabbit stew with Rice. It was a toss up between the rabbit, le tripe, le canard or the paella. Even though the paella looked the tastiest, I thought it best to leave that for when I visit Spain.

I just had a taste of the lapin and guess what? It tastes like chicken.

Okay, we have dinner reservations in Bonnieux for tonight. Ang called to make reservations and she did an amazing job conversing with the man on the phone.

Tomorrow we head off to Paris for a change of pace. Goodbye French countryside...helloooooooooooooo City of Light!!!!

11:39pm - Friday: Menerbes

2009-01-09T14:39:00.000-08:00

It's the end of Friday night here in Menerbes and we have one more night before we head to Paris.

It's been a great time here exploring the region, meeting the locals, etc. Of course, meeting the locals when you live at the top of a hill with pretty substandard snow tires means that you are most likely meeting them as you're being pulled up by a cable attached to their jeep.

Our on Thursday was spent visiting Avignon, Isle Sur Sorgue and Fontaine De Vaucluse. Avignon is an old city and we were told that they have a market there so we decided to go there and explore. It turns out the market was a covered hall and everything had closed down by the time we got there at noon. The city was very old and run down and just downright lacked a certain charm found in other places in France. There was not one thing about the city that captured either of our hearts. Well, maybe the kabobs.

On our way back home, we visited Isle Sur Sorgue and Fontaine de Vaucluse. Both are along the Sorgue river. L'Isle Sur La Sorgue is a small town known as the antique capital of France. Too bad we got there closer to 1pm after a major snowfall. Pretty much all the shops were closed. There were some very nice looking shops with some beautiful pieces in the window sill but alas, snow: 1, Ash and Ang:0.

Fontaine De Vaucluse is just a little north on the river. It is a huge spring whose depths have never been fully explored. Very magical and mysterious. It's also magnificent, marvellous, mouthwatering but what it ain't...is mundane.

After the Fontaine, we drove home and found that the roads still hadn't been cleared. It's one thing to think driving in the snow is a piece of cake going downhill, it's another to go back up. The main road into town consists of three long steep grades with two sharp switchbacks. The first switchback, we were able to make it up but by the second switchback, we were screwed. A man and his wife (or possibly mistress?) in a jeep in front of us pulled over and helped push. After little success, a man and his family in a mercedes SUV came and he helped too. Things got worse and worse the higher we got, so much so that as we were almost nearing the town, we ended up having to actually attaching a cable to the front end of our vehicle to the back of the jeep to pull us up. We just barely made it...the weight of both vehicles with not enough traction made for a slippery ride.

Today it started to warm up so the snow was starting to melt a little bit. A great day for driving out to Aix-En-Provence and Marseilles.

On the way out to Aix in Cavaillon, we stopped at a boulangerie and got breakfast. I had a brioche saucisses (hot dog weiners baked into a declicious pastry and a slice of pizza. Ang had what was known as a "big choco". It was so big that there was no French word to describe how big it was. They had to use English. The pastry was bigger than her head and could make grown men weep with it's taste and stature.

Aix-En-Provence is a beautiful college town with towns of flavor and charm, in the city. The outskirts seemed too newly made up and contrived. But once in the heart of the city, it is one of the coolest shopping districts in the world. The main shopping area is through the small narrow streets of the old town. Modern shops line these old streets for a strange yet comforting juxtaposition. The hustle and bustle today was all part of Les Soldes, a 6 week govenerment regulated, nation-wide sale. 30, 40, 50, even 70% off some items. I bought a warm winter jacket and a scarf for 35 bucks and Ang bought a dress for under 15 (and we're not even in Paris, yet). We ate at a nice little restaurant on a heated patio called Le Terminus. It was recommended to us by an employee of a store called Agnes B. as a good place to eat lunch. We trusted her because it turns out that she had lived for 10 years in BC. Meeting us really brought her back to that time and she was very warm and friendly. It's quite weird how people from opposite ends of the world can have stuff in common.

After Aix, we headed to Marseille. We were already tired from all the driving and shopping but since we were already in the area, we decided to do a quick stop in. The quick stop in turned out to be a leisurely stroll along one of the most beautiful ports, with towering cathedral spires and endless sailboat lines crisscrossing every which way. We stopped in for deux grande cafe au laits and then headed back up the main drag where we did a little more shopping and a little more walking.

On our way back into town, we stopped in Cavaillon for a late small dinner. We ate at Manu and shared a chorizo pizza and a salad.

Whew!!!

What an action packed couple days.

I'm off to bed to wake up early tomorrow morning for a market in Apt, one of the biggest markets in the whole region.

Bonsoir!

2:05pm - Wednesday: Menerbes

2009-01-07T05:05:00.000-08:00

The wedding was a whirlwind. I can't remember half of it. What a blur. I do remember though how awesome of a day it was and that we were so happy to have so many people come out and support us. The Fairmont Hotel was nice but the time we stayed there was way too short. Barely had time to put our bags down before they needed to be checked in.

After about 12 hours in and out of planes and 8 hours on the road, we arrived in Menerbes last night to the most beautiful old apartment. It's a studio apartment...maybe about 500 square feet. The bedroom is up in a loft over the main living area.

We stayed up for a little bit sipping on the not-so-great bottle of wine that was here waiting for us from the caretaker.

Our plan for the day was to stay local and stay local we did! We haven't ventured out further than a couple blocks from the apartment because...yep...you guessed it: snow.

About a foot at least. In some wind swept areas, it's closer to a foot and a half. The owner called us here and said that it snows one day of the year and of course it has to be this, the first full day in France on our honeymoon. I guess it followed us from Vancouver.

So we've had to make do with the substandard boulangerie (bakery) in town here. The baguette wasn't anything spectacular and the criossant ang had was burnt. We also ended up buying some tagliatelle (dried, not fresh), some tomato sauce and 2 pork sausages to make for dinner tonight. It's not what we had in mind but considering the weather, people aren't going to be opening up the restaurants in town and the conditions aren't safe to be driving to a larger town.

Hopefully we can get to a market tomorrow and buy some fresh stuff.

It's hard to think that life is back to normal for many people this week because life here is so much different.

Take care,
ash

Whoa...time went by fast.

2009-01-04T07:57:00.000-08:00

Okay, so I last posted on Aug 13. So much has happened that I don't even know where to begin.

So I won't.

I'm sitting in the hotel room waiting to start getting ready. The big day has arrived. Can't sleep. Oh well.

Boom.

Outta here.

Moved! Sort of.

2008-08-13T12:32:00.000-07:00

Well, after a long and disjointed process, we're pretty much moved in to where we need to be moved in to and moved out of where we needed to be moved out of. It definitely wasn't just a simple point a to point b type of move. It was more like point to point b to point c to point d back to point c at the same time as point e to point c and both point d and e to point f. What's my point? I don't know.

We bought two chairs and a mirror from Homesense for a pretty good price. This means that we are almost set up with furniture. Other than a TV and a coffee table, the place has everything that it need to be functional. The couch we bought fits perfectly, the bedroom furniture fits great and the new chairs really round out a good sized sitting area. It feels really good to have it all set up in the right places.

The only that doesn't feel good is that by tomorrow we have to move everything from their spots into the centre of the room so that the painters can come in and finally give the place a new coat of paint. I know that it will be inconsequential in the long run as it will make the place look that much better and it's only a temporary inonvenience but after spending so much time unpacking and so much grey matter trying to figure out where everything goes, it's just a big annoyance to have to move everything again.

Anyways, we've printed most of the invitations already and they look great. Angela's brother, Allan did an amazing job on the illustration and design.

Finally, on a totally unrelated note, I think someone should buy this for me.

See ya.

150:07:29:30

2008-08-07T09:17:00.000-07:00

So the Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants 2: Now Even Pantsier was way sold out by the time we got to the theatre.

Oh well.

In much more exciting news, we have possession of our apartment. It's a 1 bedroom and den at 16th and Cambie in Vancouver. Ang works at 27th and Oak and I work at 2nd and Cambie so it's super close for both of us. We had word from our landlords that the place will have been freshly painted to cover up the holes in the drywall, and that the place will have been professionally cleaned. We were planning to start moving a lot of boxes over the weekend but the last tenant, being the jerk that he is managed to not completely paint the walls, do a horrible job of filling the drywall and leave so much of his stuff behind for us to throw out that the cleaners couldn't get anything done. The landlords have been awesome about it and really bending over backwards to rectify the situation but it has meant that our moving schedule was set back a few days. But as of this writing, the junk has been moved out, and the place cleaned. The painters are coming on August 15th.

We also bought a couch!! It was hugely on sale at Yaletown Sofa in Coal Harbour. The stock picture is below but the actual model we have is a charcoal indigo.

Okay, see you soon.

158:07:08:34

2008-07-30T09:50:00.000-07:00

Angela went away to Whidbey Island this past weekend. She came across a cute little tabletop gold bird that she ended up buying. Not really much "use" to it but it's cute and will add a little sparkle to our home.

When she came back on Sunday, we were just browsing through Pottery Barn and came across this cool lamp that also had birds on it that was massively on sale (over 60 percent!). We thought it would match the style of the other little bird so we bought it.

Here's the pottery barn picture of it from their website:

It's fun to start thinking about our new home and this is only the beginning.

Anyways, tonight we're going to see the Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants 2: The Revenge of the Pants. I got a free pass from work so you can't argue with that.

Engagement Pics

2008-07-23T08:45:00.000-07:00

I'm back from the greatest music festival in history, Woodsong. It's a family run festival on some acreage on Orcas Island in Washington. Just a bunch of families getting together to make crafts, camp, play frisbee and badminton and listen to great music. If you have a chance next year, you should check it out. Burke and Barbara (the couple that run it) are two of the most wonderful people you will ever meet.

I've posted more engagement photos in the gallery section of the website.

I think most of them are on Ang's Facebook gallery. I couldn't really be bothered to cross reference what was in there or not so I just uploaded the ones I like.

Enjoy!

Yo, homes.

2008-07-16T08:32:00.000-07:00

Last week, Ang and I decided to start casually getting a feel for the rental market out there just so we're not caught with our pants down close to the wedding with nowhere to live.

Well, we found this enticing listing on Craigslist: hardwood floors, in suite laundry, good location close to work....and kittens allowed! We contacted the owner and she told us to check it out during the open house last Saturday. Wow, what a nice place it is. So we filled out an application. There were quite a few people there but we actually found out that we had seen a play that the owners had produced, directed and starred in. Having this common ground was probably good for us and I guess helped make the application stand out from the rest of the pile because on Sunday, they called us and offered us the place!

Yay!

We told ourselves that if God opened the door, we would walk through it. So, come August 1st, we will!!

It's kind of thrown our previous plans for the next couple months off a little bit but it's nothing that a little finagling can't fix.

Also, we have our engagement photos back from Wayne and they look so beautiful. Well, I mean...Ang is beautiful. I look like a goof but...a pretty cute goof I guess.

Here's a sample. There will be more posted to the gallery on the main website soon.

I'm off to the Woodsong Festival on Orcas Island this weekend so there probably won't be many updates until next week. Not that anybody actually reads this thing....

Update: July 10

2008-07-10T14:26:00.000-07:00

The power is out in my building but I can't go home because there's still a chance that it'll come back on. My studio has backup power running so I thought what better way to waste power than to type a new blog post.

We've confirmed our florist for the wedding. That's fun. We're going with Balconi. They are located on West 2nd and their stuff is really nice. I know that probably doesn't mean anything coming from me because...well, it's me we're talking about. I mean the only real experience with flowers that I have is the experience of trying to wake him up from the top level of my band's camper van because we have to sound check.

Anyways, that's all from me.

Bye.

Scanning our first item

2008-07-06T15:39:00.000-07:00

182 days, 22 hours and 31 minutes....

2008-07-05T17:08:00.000-07:00

Wedding week was such a whirlwind I think we're just now catching out breath. The last half of wedding week saw us booking our apartment in Paris, meeting with Allan about invitations, finalizing our wedding website, shopping for paper and linens, meeting with the manager at Monks, meeting with Ev about cake, registering at 3 different places, and picking up a lot of decorations for the receptions. Whew!

Ang has bought her dress too. I would describe it to you or post a pic but I'm not allowed to see it. Sorry.

Instead, here are a some pics of us registering at a couple different places.

And after wedding week was finally over:

Wedding Week 2008

2008-06-24T21:58:00.000-07:00

Hi all,

So amongst orientation training sessions and a number of work-related appointments, Ash and I have officially begun our wedding planning week. Hasn't been as relaxed as we had hoped but it's working nonetheless. So far, we have looked at rings, met with our officiant, researched honeymoon details, and met with our florist. Pretty good for two days!!

Lots more to come...exciting times!

ash&ang

Welcome to the blog

2008-05-29T00:23:00.000-07:00

Hi and welcome to our wedding website.

The main site will give you all the information you need to know about our big day while this here blog will give you information that we felt compelled to share with you. There is a good chance, however, that you will not find anything in this blog that is useful, relevant or intriguing.

You have been warned.