Maria In Vancouver’s Typical Weekend

If there’s one thing humans share in common, it would be that giddy feeling of always looking forward to the weekend. In almost every office in every corner of the world, when the hour hand of the clock points at 5pm, everyone gets up and celebrates! The idea of lazing around without a care in the world in your pyjamas for the next two days and being able to catch up on sleep is priceless. We would wait for the weekends like the way we would wait for our favourite friend to visit us. The weekend is all about our desires and us — it is our chance to have some time for ourselves by leaving behind all responsibilities and obligations in our lives.

Ahhh…weekends! Maria in Vancouver lives for the weekends. For Maria, the whole point of her week is the weekend. On Monday mornings, Maria’s mantra is: “only four more days to go, witches! I’ve got this!” For her, weekends mean more multi-slacking and less on multitasking. Maria actually works six days a week — Mondays to Saturdays. She’s a self-confessed workaholic; she just loves working, believe it or not! She handles the membership sales for her Partner and Significant Other’s fitness club. However, she makes it a point that her Saturdays won’t be as jam-packed as the rest of her weekdays.

Let’s take a glimpse of Maria in Vancouver’s typical weekend.

Fridays. Maria’s weekend starts on Fridays at exactly half past five in the afternoon. Indeed, thank God, it’s Friday!

5:30pm PST: Maria and her Significant Other whom we shall name Mr. X.O. (as in Mr. Hugs and Kisses, d-uh!) go to Granville Island Public Market, which is just around the corner from where they live. Granville Island Public Market is an indoor upscale market in Vancouver,  which features a fascinating assortment of colourful food and produce stores, showcasing handcrafted products and the very finest in food and beverage. All fresh from the ocean, the oven or the field. The indoor market is open seven days a week from 9:00am to 6:00pm. Here, a plethora of artisan cheeses, meats, breads, and produce can be found. Famous chefs come to Granville Island Public Market to source items for their menus.

Maria and Mr. X.O. go to Armando’s Finest Quality Meats where they buy Vancouver’s best steaks. Armando’s Butcher Shop is owned by a Filipino family. They’ve been an award-winning family butcher shop since 1983. As much as possible, Maria tends to patronize and support fellow Filipinos and their businesses. Armando’s butcher shop offers a wide variety of meticulously sourced premium quality products. 

At Armando’s, you can buy Canada’s Prime Graded Beef and certified Organic AAA Beef, which are aged for 35 days, locally raised, grass fed, grass finished and free range! They sell Tajima Wagyu, which is among the most marbled beef in the world. It is 100% Japanese and NOT cross-bred with any North American Angus. Armando’s also sells 100% Milk Fed Provimi Veals, Berkshire Pork, White Stripe Lamb, Duck (Magret, Foie Gras), and Specialty Turkey. 

Maria and Mr. X.O. buy two pieces of Tajima Wagyu for dinner. They also buy cooked corn cobs, cherry tomatoes, blue cheese and leafy greens from Granville Island Public Market. They go home and put their groceries away in the fridge. Maria and Mr. X.O. only eat once a day (dinners), and mostly it is either salads with seafood or soup — five days a week. On the weekends, they also eat once a day, but they eat meat for dinners; it’s their “cheat days.”

6:30pm PST: Maria and Mr. X.O. go back to the Fitness Club. Maria finishes her work. She usually books three to four clients between half past six in the evening to half past seven. Maria tours her clients around the club and sells them a year’s worth of membership. Maria loves selling! Maria had years of experience in the hospitality industry, which gives her an edge when it comes to customer service, sales and marketing.

Maria learned that when it comes to selling, you must have 100% faith in your products in order to be convincing. You have to walk your talk. Specifically for the fitness industry, you must be passionate about exercise and staying fit. Maria understands fully the prospect or customer and his or her unique needs and how an offering fits into that picture. She is fully invested in the offerings she represents, and her passion can be contagious for customers and prospects. Her primary goal is to not allow any prospect to leave the fitness club without buying a year’s membership. Maria sells around 50k of membership per month — she has a quota to achieve.

8:30pm PST: Maria and Mr. X.O. close the Fitness Club with their staff. They go home and prepare for dinner — home is just a block away from the Fitness Club. Maria prepares their dinner. Her cuisine specialty is the Balsamic Steak Gorgonzola Salad with Grilled Corn. She sets their dining table for two. After preparing dinner, they take a quick shower together. Maria and Mr. X.O. dress up for dinner — even at home. It’s been their weekly Friday tradition. 

9:30pm PST: After dinner, Maria retreats to the den or as she would like to call it, her “woman cave or woman space”.  There, she writes her next article for her weekly column for Canada’s largest and only Filipino-Canadian newspaper distributed weekly all over Canada, the Philippine Canadian Inquirer. She types on her trusted companion, Apple’s MacBook Pro, which she has aptly named, “Shakespeare.” For the next two solid hours, Maria indulges in her passion  — writing. 

Maria writes to hear herself. She creates, constructs, and shares her experiences to own them. She believes that writing from a commitment to the idea that actions and words have consequences — defines the world through words.  Maria also reads the works of other female writers. She needs to hear what others of her own sex had to say even as she makes her own voice heard. For Maria, female writers are not soloists; female writers are actually a part of a chorus writing to be heard out loud. She believes that female writers should not be in competition with each other, rather, they must uplift and support each other as they share a common passion. Mr. X.O., on the other hand, relaxes by watching the news. What can one say, men are much simpler!

11:30pm PST: Maria wraps up her Friday night by taking a much deserved hot bubble bath with a glass of her favourite wine, Clos du Bois from the Russian River Valley of the Sonoma County, which has intense aromas of Gala apple, ripe pear and Meyer lemon with notes of warm and toast, brown spice. It also has a brilliant silver straw hue.

12:30pm PST: Some “Adult time” with Mr. X.O. This part has to be heavily censored! ❤️❤️❤️ Sorry, but not sorry!

Saturdays. Maria goes full blast on her weekend! There’s no person who doesn’t love Saturdays. Maria is no exception. Saturday is her first day of her weekly break and she gets to do what she really wants to on Saturdays.

9:30am PST: After 8 hours of sleep, Maria and Mr. X.O. wake up and take a hot shower. Maria makes it a point to always have 8 hours of sleep daily. Maria and Mr. X.O. start their Saturday with a cup of Awa Bancha Japanese Fermented Green Tea. Then, they drink a mug of hot lemon water. Maria also drinks a litre of bottled Italian sparkling water from her favourite grocery store, Whole Foods Market on West 4th. She drinks at least three litres of sparkling water a day. They also drink 16 ounce of healthy smoothie made of kale, avocado, spinach and bananas. Maria and Mr. X.O. don’t eat breakfasts.

10:30am PST:  Maria and Mr. X.O. head to the Fitness Club. The Club actually opens at 10:00 am on Saturdays but they have staff to open for them. Maria usually books three to four clients between 10:30am and 12:00pm. She gives club tours to her clients and sells them a year’s membership which is $500 Canadian a year per membership.

12:00pm PST: Maria takes an hour and a half break during lunchtime. She uses her break to do some exercises. Maria does cardio, weight training, and stretch exercises. She starts with the treadmill for 30 minutes followed by the stationary bike for another 15 minutes. She does weightlifting for 15 minutes and finishes off with stretching for the last 30 minutes. Just like everyone else — Maria suffers from “Quarantine 15” — a new term for 15-pound weight gain during self-isolation. The year 2020 hasn’t been kind to many of our waistlines! 

1:30pm to 3:00pm PST: Maria takes a further  hour and a half break and goes to Federation Gallery at 1241 Cartwright Street in Granville Island, which is just a block away from the Fitness Club. There, Maria loses herself in the splendour of Canadian artists and their masterpieces. Every Saturday afternoon, Maria goes to an art gallery and indulges in some art therapy. Just quite recently, Maria was happy to see the amazing watercolour painting of her good friend and former hotel colleague, Francis Marte. Incidentally, his “Indian Head Farmer” watercolour painting bagged the Second Place in the Federation of Canadian Artists — Active Member Exhibition.

4:30pm to 5:30pm PST: Maria goes back to work at the Fitness Club and manages to squeeze in two more clients for a club tour.

5:30pm to 6:30pm PST: Maria goes to her favourite salon for her weekly hair appointment. There, she gets a hair massage, a hair mask treatment, shampoo, and a blow dry. But the real reason why she goes to the salon every Saturday is because of her hairdresser’s adorable pug, Edison. Maria spends an hour playing with Edison, cuddling and hugging him. While at the salon, Edison, the pug, loves to take a nap wrapped in her arms. She always brings Edison chewable treats! Maria goes to the salon, not just for her hair, but to get her weekly dog therapy from Edison.

Maria is a dog-lover. That’s an understatement actually. Maria used to have two dogs in the late eighties and early nineties. One was a mix of white Japanese shitzu and a poodle, Miss Mopsy and the other one was a brown teacup poodle, Chocolat. They were like Maria’s children. She loved and spoiled them. Until death separated them. Both dogs died of illnesses — two years apart. Maria was inconsolable and vowed never to replace both Miss Mopsy and Chocolat.

To this day and true to her vows, they both remain irreplaceable in Maria’s heart. She hopes that one day, she will get the strength and courage to be able to take care and love another doggie. For now, it’s a weekly date with Edison, the pug, every Saturday afternoon. It’s like your relationships with men. It’s when you have scar-tissue relationships, and it was so traumatic that it hinders you from having a really serious marital commitment again. Maria can’t help but ponder: “Will I ever have the courage to take the plunge and commit again?” Mr. X.O. and Maria are already living together — is there a point or even a need to legalize it? The “m” word has pretty much scarred Maria.

6:30pm PST: Maria goes back to the Fitness Club and closes the club with Mr. X.O. With their staff.

7:00pm PST: Maria and Mr. X.O. head home. They take a shower and get ready for their Saturday dinner date. For Maria and Mr. X.O. — date night is important — it fosters communication, increases feelings of intimacy, decreases the chances of taking each other for granted, decreases stress, and builds deeper attachment.

8:00pm PST: Maria and Mr. X.O. go for dinner outside. Every Saturday, they go to their favourite restaurants. It’s either Le Crocodile — a long-standing destination for Michel Jacob’s traditional French cooking in an elegant space or Giardino’s —  an Italian cuisine in a classy, Tuscan-style dining room with vaulted ceilings, a courtyard & a bar owned by the gregarious and legendary Vancouver restaurateur Umberto Menghi. 

Then there’s Bishop’s, where inspired plates are crafted with seasonal British Columbian ingredients in an intimate atmosphere. Another favourite is the Bluwater Cafe, Vancouver’s definitive destination for seafood, widely known for its excellence in celebrating the extraordinary flavours of BC. Bluwater Cafe is also consistently awarded “Best Seafood Restaurant” in Vancouver and recognized for its unparalleled service. 

Other two favourites are Cincin and Five Sails. With acclaimed Chef Andrew Richardson at the helm, the menu at CinCin represents the plentiful flavours of Italian cuisine. Each dish is prepared with fresh, thoughtfully selected ingredients sourced from the region’s best suppliers and transformed into a parade of captivating aromas, tastes, and textures. Five Sails is a Pacific Northwest fine-dining room in the Pan Pacific Hotel featuring sweeping views of water and mountains.

Five Sails has always been a world class establishment, but when the Glowbal Group (a huge restaurant group) purchased it from its original owners, it brought Five Sails further up to the next level.  It serves Petrossian Beluga and Oscietra caviar,  exclusive Chef creations, and a cocktail list that will surely keep the conversation lively. For this weekend, Maria and Mr. X.O. went to Le Crocodile.

Vancouver is a metropolitan city that prides itself on the variety and quality of its cuisine, and with valid reason. The first thing any Vancouverite will tell you about the city is that it is the home of high-quality seafood. Everything from oysters to mussels to wild Dungeness crab and wild salmon thrives in the Pacific waters that embrace the west coast, making for some of the freshest and tastiest seafood around. Perhaps the most-celebrated element of Vancouver’s culinary culture is its diversity. Vancouver is a multicultural city that yields a vibrant and multifaceted food scene, making some of the best flavours the world has to offer available in the city.

10:00pm PST: Maria and Mr. X.O. head home. Maria spends the next two hours with “Shakespeare”, her MacBook Pro, writing her article for her weekly column for Philippine Canadian Inquirer. Meanwhile, Mr. X.O. watches the news on TV.

12:00 midnight: Maria indulges in her hot bubble bath with a glass of her favourite wine and a good classic book borrowed from the library. She loves classic books such as Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment or Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. Moreover, Maria loves the smell of library books. She loves the feel and touch of an old book.

1:00am PST: Maria and Mr. X.O. go triple X-rated! Sorry, again, this is totally off limits to the public! Definitely not for public consumption. ??

Sundays. Ahhh, Sundays are the best day of the week. No need for alarm clocks! It’s Sunday, therefore Maria is 100% motivated to do nothing on Sundays. It’s all about doing nothing and chilling.12:30pm PST:  Maria and Mr. X.O. wake up, tumble out of bed, and take a hot shower. On Sundays, they both tend to sleep for ten hours — and why not, after all, they work six days a week!

1:30pm PST: Maria and Mr. X.O. go for late brunch at Joe Fortes Seafood Restaurant. Not many Vancouverites know that Joe Fortes serve the most delish brunch in the city. Since it opened in 1985, Joe Fortes in the West End side of the city has been a Vancouver staple. From the moment you sit down, you know that this dining adventure will be well worth it.

At Joe Fortes, there is a changing daily menu of fresh fish and other seafood. Service is beyond compare. Brunch shouldn’t be limited to Eggs Benedict! One must strive to be adventurous in the culinary world. Maria and Mr. X.O. start the day with fresh oysters and Mimosas. Followed by Salmon Eggs Benny for Mr. X.O. and Lobster Eggs Benny for Maria. Sundays never tasted so good! 

3:30pm PST: Rain or shine,Maria and Mr. X.O. head towards the seawall and Stanley park to walk off the calories they’ve just consumed. Stanley Park is Vancouver’s first, largest, and most beloved urban park! It is about one-fifth larger than New York’s Central Park and almost half the size of London’s Richmond Park.

Stanley Park is a magnificent green oasis in the midst of the urban landscape of Vancouver. Maria and Mr. X.O enjoy the 400-hectare natural West Coast rainforest with its scenic views of the mountains, the water, and the majestic trees along Stanley Park’s famous Seawall. They walk through kilometres of beautiful beaches, trails, local wildlife, cultural, natural, and historical landmarks.

6:00pm PST: Maria and Mr. X.O. go to their favourite salon for their weekly mani and pedi treatments. The Spa on 4th in Kitsilano is the longest established Day Spa. Their manicure and pedicure studio is located in a private area on the upper level of the spa facing the mountains. They have room for six people at a time, including four relaxing, heated pedicure thrones with warm whirlpool foot baths. They follow hospital-grade sanitation protocols. They also offer facials and massages. When it comes to nail aesthetics, Maria likes to switch it up between her classic favourite and glitter glamour — red lacquer or gold sparkles, which is totally de rigeur right now!

7:30pm PST: Maria and Mr. X.O. meet Maria’s only son for a family dinner. On Sundays, they either go for Japanese, Chinese, Indian, Korean or Filipino restaurants for dinner. Again, Vancouver is famous for its diverse cuisine — it has consistently ranked among 50 cities with the most diverse food scenes in the world. Coming in at number 19 on the list, the city is reportedly represented by 52 national cuisines. The top Canadian city on the list was Toronto, ranked third, while Montreal was just edged out of the top 10 and comes in at number 11.

Vancouver has its fair share of high-end restaurants that are perfect for a celebration or big night out. However, what the city does best is offer great food with a more relaxed vibe. You’ll find plenty of excellent bites at the izakayas that are basically Japan’s version of a pub, at the colourful food trucks that dot the downtown core, the hip and fashionable neighbourhood bistros, and at the city’s bustling gastropubs. It boasts of wonderful multicultural mashups!

In such a diverse city, it’s easy to find many different cultures influencing each restaurant. The Peruvian restaurant has a Japanese raw bar, the Indian restaurant has a wild salmon dish, and then there’s the Belgian bistro incorporating flavours of the Middle East. That’s to be expected and is usually the norm in a city like Vancouver where local chefs grow up surrounded by varying cultures, then go and apprentice in Europe before heading back home to Vancouver to put their own stamp on the city’s culinary scene.

9:30pm PST: Maria and Mr. X.O. head home. Maria goes straight to her woman space and finishes off her article for the week. Maria shares Anaïs Nin’s thoughts on writing: “We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospect.” For Maria, words can be like X-rays if you use them properly  — they’ll go through anything. You write, you read what you wrote, and you’re pierced.

12:00 midnight PST: And just like Cinderella, Maria takes a quick hot shower and goes to bed. Oh, how quickly the weekend went by!

Weekends are like the light at the end of an extremely dark tunnel; better days are coming, and they’re called Saturday and Sunday! These two days are the most beloved days of the week. Whenever you feel tired and down by a tough week, always remember that you will always have Saturdays and Sundays to look forward to: they will give you the chance to regain your strength and decompress. With these little joys in life, you can say that it is a wonderful world after all! Happy weekend, world! ?