Afrikadey Calgary 2012 "Tuku's Perfomance"

Unlike Vancouver,from my point of view Calgary has a lot of multi-cultural events happenning every weekend. I was lucky to attend the Afrikadey event which took place at Prince's Island Park located close to the downtown Calgary area. Afrikadey Calgary is a smaller version of Afrofest in Toronto. There were different vendors selling African goods from clothes,jewellery and African cooking ingredients and all. Lucky for me my favorite Zim artist Oliver "Tuku" Mutukudzi was one of the performers.

 I was singing along throughout Tuku's perfomance,only hope he had been given a long time to perfom.

 Tuku and The Black Spirits put up a good show for the slot they had to play. 

The Senegalese guy put up a good act too.something different and great music too.

Amato Gelato

Hot summer nights call for two things, comfy loose clothes and something to cool one down. After a long day outdoors, watching a soccer game there was no better way to wind down. We headed out to the only place I know that serves the best gelato and ice cream in Calgary. I know I know I'm new after my move from BC to AB but I know one thing for sure this is the place to visit for anytime dessert.

 I'm not so much of an ice cream person so I ordered the Mandarin Gelato. It had a sweet and tangy taste to it which I liked. Amato Gelato never disappoints me when it comes to my gelato.

131 Water Kitchen & Bar

Decided to chill out with friends on Saturday and we thought of taking a stroll around Gastown and maybe have a couple of drinks. Thanks to friends who take random strolls around Gastown or have hung out there a few times we were able to pick out the bar 131 Water Kitchen & Bar.

We got there around 9:35pm and we managed to secure a place by the patio.Drinks were refreshing,company was great and we were doing a lil of people watching here and there. I had a Strawberry Margharita,loved it, Tin had Long Island Iced Tea and my other two friends had a Pitcher of Sangaria.

Gastown reminds one of a lil town in England with all the street lights,bricked sidewalks. Its like you have stepped into some little town in England altogether.

If you happen to be in Vancouver and decide to hang out in the outskirts of a somewhat busy place I would suggest you go to Gastown. Gastown has numerous kitchen & bars ,restaurants to choose from.

All Things Summer

It's officially summer and that means there are more outdoor activities to do. The weather has not really been the best as it has been pretty much rain throughout this past weeks. High up on my summer to do list is visiting as many restaurants as possible to try the various cuisine Vancouver has to offer. Vancouver has a diverse culture and a diverse culture means a wide range of cuisine to try.

To kick of my summer I decided to try Persian food. I had always heard that Persian food was really great but had not tried it. I decided to take the test for myself; unfortunately I could not find a good Persian restaurant with a reasonably priced menu for the student budget I work on. Luckily I have a good friend who also likes eating out and he had been recommended to this Persian restaurant in North Vancouver which had a reasonably priced menu, he highly recommended I try it as it was really worth it. Knowing my friend's sometimes specular tastes I hesitantly agreed to try it. My friend could not come out with me the day I decided to go try the place. Fortunately that weekend my friend  was celebrating her graduation so I decided to go with her and a few other friends to the Persian restaurant.

We set off for the short drive to north Vancouver. As often happens when you go to a new place you inevitably get lost and this is what happened my friend had given me the wrong name he had told me to go to Casbah restaurant instead of Cazbah; little did I know that the difference actually mattered as it turned out that they was also another restaurant with a similar name to Cazbah; I knew from the moment we got to the wrong restaurant that it was not right Thank God for google maps. My friends were getting impatient with me as they thought we were lost. Due to the beauty of google maps (What would the world have been without it?????) we soon found the correct  address luckily it was about 2 blocks from where we were.

Unfortunately we had not called to book a reservation so we had to wait outside for about half an hour as it looked really busy. In my mind I hoped this restaurant would be worth all the wait. Our time finally came and we got seated at our table. The waiter came with the menus and gave us. They had a very diverse menu from their starters to their desserts. We soon ordered our starters as we were now really hungry and it was approaching 10 pm. We ordered egg plant which was served with Pita bread. It was ok not great when we had it. We soon ordered  our main courses,us being Africans we did not want to try new things so we went for the safer options of Chicken, beef and lamb. To our surprise it barely took a long time as our food was ready in about 15 minutes.

When the food came we all looked at ourselves dumbfounded by the big portions that were in our plates. For the price coated on the menu it was definitely worth the drive to North Vancouver. We soon started eating our main courses, it consisted of a Skewer of Boned Chicken Kabab Served with Basmati Rice and Grilled Tomato with Cesar salad and roasted Alberta ground beef, the food was really well cooked the chicken was tender, the lamb tasted really good, its the best lamb I have had in Vancouver so far in my short time here. I was barely halfway through my meal when I felt I was full. I still had dessert to eat but I decided to for go it as I was really full. No one amongst my friends finished their food as the portions were really big even though we were as hungry as a bear which as just come of hibernation. We paid $12 each including tip for our meals which was really worth it

Everyone left satisfied after getting their money's worth of food. I would highly recommend this restaurant to those who would like to try Persian cuisine for the first time as it is value for your money and  the waiters are really friendly. If I was a food critic I would give it an 8 out of 10. But before you go I highly recommend you book a table as they are usually really busy. It is worth the short ride to North Vancouver especially during the summer when you have plenty of time.

Vancouver Night Life

Some people view the night life in Vancouver as dull and boring without much excitement but for the 9 or so months I have lived in Vancouver I have enjoyed every minute of it. Who could forget the hustle of having to leave the bar early to catch the last sky train at 1:16 am. The Vancouver night life is multicultural and multidimensional. There is definitely a place for everyone be it young, old, homeless, rich, famous etc. From Au Bar to Red Room every night club in Vancouver caters for your musical taste. Hold on a minute before I go all nuts about the best night spots in Vancouver. I'm actually gonna talk more about the experiences I have had in " Van-Stadum".

Mmm Vancouver, It just wont be Vancouver with out that famous and distinguishable smell of weed. Every were you go you just cant miss that famous smell which has given Vancouver the cheeky nickname we like called "Van-Stadum". But I'm not here to talk about all the weed smokers in Vancouver, by the way it seems everyone in Vancouver smokes pot. Vancouver night life starts quite early in terms of night life activities compared to other places I have been. As early as 7 pm you can see the ladies trotting downtown in their numbers, some coming as far as from Surrey just to enjoy this unmissable night activity. It just wont be the mid evening sky train without young pretty women with layers and layers of make up smelling all different kinds of perfumes and colognes in the sky train.

As the clock hits 8 Vancouver explodes into life with the beautiful lighting  now fully on and replacing daytime. The late night office works start to be replaced with young ladies and gentlemen in their night life gear which usually comprises for ladies a short dress showing plenty of cleverage and other body parts complimented with some high heels and for the guys a pair of jeans with a pair a Nikes or any comfortable dancing shoes complimented with a shirt or t-shirt. Depending on the weather that night people might carry their coats. That brings me to one of the most annoying things when going to clubs in Vancouver, Coat check, Oh how I despise coat check. Having to pay that $5 coat check fee at a club just feels like a robbery to me. I'm not trying to be cheap its just that it pains me when the night club squeezes every little penny from my wallet especially considering their no credit card policy accompanied with high bank charges at their mobile ATMs.

The clubs really start rocking after 11pm as the Djs start to play music which lets you wanna party all night. The beautiful young ladies start to dance their asses of the dance floor at the same time taking multiple shorts of tuquiela and vodka to keep active. This goes on till around 1 am when the slightly sober people start to think about transit and how they are to get back home from a long night of partying. The numbers in the night clubs decrease significantly as people heard out to their various busstops or train stations but not before grabing a slice of pizza at Mega Slice pizza or Romanoes which has become sort of an after clubbing tradition as people try to fill their stomaches after a hard night out of partying. The taxi business also starts to boom as those left buy their buses try to get back home. As down approaches and a new day arrives the streets suddenly become empty with a feel young drunk girls with their make up now messy being the only sight at dawn. As the sun begins to rise, the cycle restarts all over again.