Lately I've been doing a TON of second-hand clothes shopping to give my wardrobe a major revamp for cheap. The place I did the most damage was on Instagram, where I delved into an entire buy-and-sell community with great style for bargain prices. But while out in New Westminster with my friends we stopped by a Salvation Army to look around, and right after buying this beautiful maxi skirt (my first maxi skirt ever, ahhh!) I put it on and swooshed it around for the rest of the day!

Nude Chiffon Maxi Skirt // No Brand - $5.99 from Salvation Army Thrift Store

Denim Jacket // American Eagle Outfitters - $5 (with trade) from an Instagram Boutique

Floral Halter // Garage - $3 (with trade) from an Instagram Boutique

Sunglasses // Raybans; Necklace // Forever 21 (not thrifted)

Something on my family's summer to-do list was to do more hiking because of our love for both the outdoors and exercising (though my parents enjoy the exercising part more than I do.) Our 9km hike at Garibaldi had been something we've planned on doing for months. After buying some hiking shoes, as well as completing a good intro hike up Grouse Mountain, we finally tackled the 6 hour (round-trip) hike during our annual Whistler vacation this past week.





We hiked up to Garibaldi Lake, an alpine lake and campsite with a 1,484m elevation. Though it is a much larger distance, I think the Garibaldi Lake trail is a much easier hike compared to the Grouse Grind. To bypass a very steep hiking route, the trail goes into a zig-zag to increase elevation quickly - though the entire trail is in a steady incline. The Grouse Grind is over 2,000 steps of stairs going upwards, which is why it is much shorter than this trail.







The moderate level of difficulty of the hike allowed me to take tons of photos and film some vlogs, though my excessive stopping is the reason why it took us 3 1/2 hours to get to the lake. "IT'S FOR THE BLOG OKAY!"

About 2.5 km away from the lake was a lookout point, which was honestly my favourite view in the entire trail. After taking a slight detour, we're suddenly on top of the world. You look to one side and there's a chunk of barren rock with half of it that's been eroded flat, and then you look to the other side and see the peaks of many mountains and the blue sky above it. I've never felt so small and insignificant, but also equally blessed and amazed. 






Getting back on track (literally), we continued our hike towards the lake. The terrain became a bit more "adventurous", as there were more rocks, roots, ups, downs, and the trail became slimmer, further surrounding us with flora.





We were beginning to get that impatient "are we there yet???" feeling when we suddenly started seeing glimpses of the vibrant turquoise waters between the trees. Finally, the trail started descending as we approached Lake Garibaldi.





It sucks my camera didn't always capture the vibrancy of the lake, but the second last picture above is pretty much true to colour. After checking out the beautiful campsites with the even prettier views, and using the not-so-nice outhouses, we ate lunch by the lake.





Unfortunately, going back down was a totally different story. My mom's bad knee took a real bad toll on her, and it becomes painful whenever she walks down inclined ground. It was 9km of downhill hiking, so instead of the ideal fast walk down the mountain we had to go extra slow for my mom's knee. The extra braking and slowing down hurt my feet and toes a lot, and it took us longer than anticipated to return to the bottom. Though we would love to do it again, my mom was in too much pain for her to want to relive it again. But maybe one day soon (if God wills it) we'll come back when her knee is better and camp for a few days!

And lastly, here's the vlog mentioned earlier! I went a bit crazy with the editing.


Check out my entire bucket list, as well as some details on The Bucket List Project.

On Thursday I had the opportunity to zipline across Queen Elizabeth Park. Ziplining is something I've always wanted to experience, and though it would've been a more 'bucket list worthy' experience if it had been somewhere else, it was still a great first experience worth mentioning.



The word 'across' is a bit of a overstatement since it's only a whopping 190-metres ride across, but hey, we were pretty high, and it felt really cool.




Two pairs (that's four people for people who don't wanna do the extra thinking) of us ziplined; the camera guys aka Colleen and I, and my madre and her friend Tito Al (who's visiting us for a couple of days and the reason we even bothered to zipline anyway.) Colleen's mama, Tita Ginger, stayed behind and attempted to take pictures of us, though the entire ride is literally 0.004 seconds long and we were done before her camera was finished focussing.


It's that strange feeling of sitting down on the harness, the same feeling you get when you fall back on someone for a trust fall, that I found the most exciting. It's kinda scary to trust your life on a piece of simple metal, and a defining moment was when I first sat back on the harness and for a split second felt like I was gonna fall on my butt. The feeling of practically floating while flying on an invisible airplane really is something I definitely underestimated. You don't feel like you're sitting on anything (the harnesses were surprisingly comfortable) and the only thing that reminded me I wasn't actualy floating was the sound of the clip sliding on the metal rope.

But I gotta say, my favourite part was when I was all caught up in zooming through the park, I was completely caught off guard when I hit the brakes and I thought I was gonna crash because I was going so fast
It really all happened in a flash, but it is way more exhilarating than it looks. I didn't even have time to comprehend what was happening before it was over, but luckily I filmed the experience and put it into a Minute Vlog.

Sneek Peak: Trilussa Pizza & Pane Foodventure

Queen Elizabeth Park

Sneak Peak: Ziplining At Queen Elizabeth Park (Bucket List Project)

Forty Ninth Parallel Coffee Roaster

(Check out my previous Foodventure to Forty Ninth Parallel HERE)

Stanley Park

White Rock Beach

You gotta love them oxymorons.