travel Archives - Page 8 of 8

In Airplane Meals

Allegiant Air: Bellingham to Las Vegas

April 4, 2014

Allegiant Air had a package deal to Las Vegas from Bellingham and it was time for a family vacation. A lot of people take advantage of their cheap packages. You pack a heck of a lot more if you fly out of Vancouver.

A lot of Vancouverites, just drive down to Bellingham to take a flight. Seriously, you save so much money.

The Bellingham International Airport is quite small, so you need to walk outside past the gate to enter the plane.

The plane ride was about 2.5 hours and you get some nice view of the mountains on the west coast. I don’t really know where I was since the plane didn’t have those digital maps on the plane.

The flight did not provide any complimentary snacks or beverages. All items, you will have to purchase with your credit card. They do not take cash. Don’t expect much from the Allegent Air. They are quite known for their delays and lack of service.

Luckily, when didn’t have any delays on our flight, but the plane before us had mechanical issues, so their flight was delayed 5 hours. Always make sure you have a buffer of time just in case something like that happens.

As the plane got close to Las Vegas, you can clearly see The Strip. The buildings are so huge, you can see them from so far away. Granted, the airport is only about 10 minutes away from The Strip.

Website: www.allegiantair.com

In Cafe

CGV: Finding Movies in Pohang, South Korea

March 5, 2014

Finding a movie theatre that showed ‘Frozen’ in English was quite tough in Korea. Some places had it dubbed over, but since I don’t understand Korean, we had to find a place that had the movie in English with some Korean subtitles.

CGV is Korea’s largest cinema chain and they also have some locations in China and North America. I’ve never been to a Korean movie theatre, so this was an adventure. You can pick your seats before you purchase! Kinda similar to Canada’s Cineplex VIP Theatre, but without the added cost.

You buy your ticket at the counter and then you can grab some snacks at the food counter.

As we were here about an hour before the movie started, we thought we would head into the CGV cafe to get some refreshments and have a seat. Korean’s love their coffees and cafe’s, so naturally, there is one inside the movie theatre.

You line up at the counter and they will take your order. The menu is in Korea, so if you can’t read, you can be like me and get someone else to order for you.

There’s lots of seats to sit down and just chill before the movie doors open up.

I ordered a latte and it comes from the machine. Nothing really special about it. There wasn’t a lot of strong coffee taste to it as they added in a lot of milk. M’s mom ordered a iced coffee but told them to take it back because it didn’t taste like coffee at all. It was mostly milk.

Korean’s have a passion for coffee, so I’m not sure why they are serving sub par coffee. Quality is probably lost cause it’s a chain.

Popcorn could have been a bit fresher. A little tad stale.

Noah and Captain America posters look quite similar.

I didn’t take a picture of inside the cinema because I had this weird feeling that someone would think I would be pirating the movie. The quality of the theatre was fine, but not as large as I would have imagined, but that’s probably because Pohang is a smaller city compared to Seoul (obviously).

The CGV Cafe sucked, but that’s what we get for going to a Cafe inside a movie theatre.

Nonetheless, we still enjoyed ourselves and was quite impressed with ‘Frozen’. Highly encourage you check it out.

Address:
235-4 Deoksan-dong (93 )
Buk-gu, Pohang-si, Gyeongsangbuk-do
South Korea

Website: http://cgv.co.kr/theater/theater/Default.aspx

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In Resort

The Painted Boat Resort: Exploring the Sunshine Coast

June 7, 2013

It has taken me a long time to explore the Sunshine Coast. I’ve always assumed it was very far away from Vancouver, but it’s only about 2 hours and 30 minutes away from Downtown Vancouver. When I got the invitation to go to the Painted Boat resort, I couldn’t say no.

The drive up was incredible, especially Davis Bay Pier outside of a small town called Sechelt. The trip does require a 40 minute Ferry ride from Horseshoe Bay. 4 adults and a car cost us about $120 on BC Ferries, which also includes the return trip too.

Once you get off the highway 101 and into some smaller streets, you will arrive at The Painted Boat Resort.

We checked-in to our villa at the reception area, which is located right beside the spa. We loved the entrance way of the spa and thought this place would be an awesome place for a girls getaway.

There are about 30 villas in the resort right by the harbour. The weekend we came for a visit, it was a mix of sunny skies and periods of heavy rain. You can definitely tell in the picture.

Despite the mixed weather, the view is very calming. It’s great to get away from the city and just relax for the weekend.

Accommodations

We were put in to the Sakinaw building in Unit #6, which is the upper level of the villas. It has a nice view, but I’ve heard there are no bad views since everything overlooks the water. Our particular unit has 2 bedrooms, a loft, den, gourmet kitchen, and a balcony.

We walked inside and we were just amazed. This beats any hotel. It was like being in a nice home that’s not yours. Everything you need is essentially there. The kitchen has stainless steel appliances and is stocked with all the necessary items. We didn’t do any cooking since the only place around here for groceries was at an IGA a few minutes away.

Nice high ceilings with a loft at the top. The loft just had a sofa couch, a tv and a balcony.

The view of the living rooms, kitchen and dining area from the view of the loft.

The balcony has a table with 4 chairs, a BBQ and 2 other lounging chairs. We really wanted to BBQ some pork belly when we saw the BBQ.

Hidden in the fridge was a bottle of white wine and some small pastries. A nice touch to begin relaxing for the weekend.

The master bedroom has a king size bed, a tv, a soaker tub, and a really large bathroom.

The second room is smaller and has a separate bathroom in the hallway.

There is access to a pool, a gym and a hot tub. Its located in the middle of the resort.

There isn’t too much to do around in the area. We found the area called the Pirates Bluff and thought it was a trail, but it was just a very small hill. Exploring is always fun. The immediate resort area isn’t too large, but you can travel a bit farther to town, which is just one road with a few coffee shops and an IGA.

The Restaurant

The purpose of the trip was to visit The Restaurant at Painted Boat Resort. They recently re-opened on May 1st with their new Head Chef Marcus Bugoy. He brings his passion for modern cooking techniques and ability to create delectable French inspired dishes to The Restaurant’s new menu. As the restaurant is known for its coastal cuisine, it’s cool to see the blend of tastes.

The interior isn’t very large but can seat about 70 people. The view over looks the water and docks.

A basket of bread arrives at the table and there were 2 kinds – one was regular and the other was olive bread. Olive bread is always yummy!

An Amuse Bouche arrives from the chef at the beginning of the meal. When we were there, it was a truffled egg custard topped with fresh spot prawns. It was a nice item to start the meal and stimulate the palate. It’s light and has a subtle sweetness from the spot prawns.

West Coast Mussels ($15) comes with a toasted baguette on top. The mussels were very plump and has a nice light curry sauce to it. It was perfectly good. Highly recommended.

Duck Confit & Ham Press ($13) has a carrot & cardamom sauce on the bottom. M gobbled this right up.

Chilled Pea Velouté ($14) also has spot prawns, buttermilk, and mustard tuille. The blended peas did give the soup a bit of a gritty texture, but is enjoyable on a hot summers day.

Albacore Tuna ($15) has squid ink aioli, egg yolk, herb salad, and radish. It’s a very pretty dish. The tuna tasted very fresh.

Heritage Chicken Breast ($26) has a mushroom puree, vegetables, potato pave, and a sherry glaze.

Butter Poached Lobster ($34) has fava beans, lobster tortellini, and a warm tarragon vinaigrette.

Ribeye For Two ($69) comes with crispy bone marrow, pomme anna, beans, truffle béarnaise, and chimichurri sauce. This was definitely a meal for two. Each person gets their own set of sauces, and plate of the pomme anna and the vegetables.

The downside of this dish is that it does take a bit of time to make. When we were there, it seemed like there was a fair amount of people ordering this.

The ribeye was very tender, but it’s also due to the fat content of the ribeye. This particular piece was quite fatty, so we had large globules of fat. We just ate around it. I am not an expert on different cuts of meat, but if we knew it was this fatty, we would have chosen a different dish.

We had it cooked to medium rare and was cooked perfectly, too bad there was so much fat.

I ended the meal with a latte. It wasn’t anything fancy.

We had to save room for dessert. Looking at the menu, there were a few items that tickled our taste buds into wanting to consume more. This is what happens when you’re on vacation, you want to eat everything.

Chocolate Ganache is what M ordered. The liked the different textures of chocolate incorporated into the dish.

Panna Cotta was much prettier than we would have imagined. It doesn’t have that usual look. It has a berry puree on the bottom and lots of fresh fruit on the plate.

Housemade Ice Cream was another option on the dessert menu. You get to choose up to 3 different ice cream choices. I don’t remember what the flavours were but it wasn’t the usual chocolate or vanilla. It’s was something a little more exotic.

Chef Select Cheeses was what I ordered. I just wanted to be a bit different from the rest of my friends. The cheeses change depending on that they have available. I never had cheese as a dessert, so this was a first. I don’t remember what the cheese were but they all had different textures and flavours, some nuttier, some sharper, and it all paired with something on the side.

Overall, we did enjoy our meal. The dishes that featured seafood were a hit. If you are coming to The Restaurant, I would highly recommend choosing a seafood dish. Might as well since you are dining right by the sea and this restaurant is known for their OceanWise dishes. If you are looking for other dining options, there isn’t any other places at the resort.

As the sun set in the distance, we relaxed watching some TV and chatting in the villa. We would have taken a dip in the pool or hot tub, but we felt so full after dinner. If you are stay here, definitely take a swim as the sun sets. What makes The Painted Boat Resort stand out is that they are trying to be as sustainable as possible. They urge their guests to recycle and as well as making it smoke-free.

Breakfast baskets was hidden in the fridge. We had bagels, croissants, danishes, salmon, jam, orange juice, yogurt and granola. It was nice to have first thing in the morning before checking out so we didn’t have to scramble thinking about where to eat.

Overall, we had a great time on the weekend here and will definitely be back. One of our friends thought it would be a great place to have their wedding. We had good fun teasing them about it. Being here was like home away from home. It was very relaxing and peaceful.