When planning for a wedding, the two most important thing is the church and the banquet.  We booked the church for the ceremony with no problem, but finding a good restaurant to host the banquet at night is proven quite stressful.  We are looking for wedding date in next August, yet many restaurants are already booked, almost 1 year in advance.  I called many restaurants last week, they are already booked on the date of our choice, except a small restaurant.  I can only put down my name on the waiting list.  Pat keeps encourage me saying that we have to faith in God and things will work out and it did!

Kirin is the default restaurant for wedding banquet among my friends at work.  We checked the Kirin in Cambie and Richmond, but both of them are already booked.  Yesterday, Pat was looking for a place to have diner with a family friends in the newspaper and release there is also Kirin in downtown.  She called the downtown location and learned that although someone has the date on hold, they haven’t put down any deposit.  We went there for dinner at once, with cash in hand and determination to bump out the other party.   The restaurant called the other party as a courtesy giving them the opportunity to commit.  Probably it was guy who can’t make the call answering the phone and he cannot confirm without asking his fiancee, so we got the restaurant.

Now, I don’t have to worry about the venues of my wedding.  It can go ahead as planned on August 16, 2008.

Last year, the destination of our summer get away is Tofino, this year we picked Salt Spring Island. We didn’t finalize the plan until the very last minute, a little bit more than 2 weeks from the vacation day, as a result we have a hard time booking place to stay. Salt Spring Island is a small resort island next to the Vancouver island. All the inns, resorts or B&Bs are run by small independent owners. I have to call around to find available rooms. I called over 20 places before I can find rooms for the date we plan to stay.

Most places only have a static webpage for information and photos. Some places are more advance and have a web reservation system. Looks like there are two major providers of the reservation system for hotels in the island. However reservation system of each individual hotel is isolated. I have to search rooms one place at a time. It would be to have a tourist friendly update in the system if I can just just type in the date and got all places with available room. Last minute hunt for hotel room is tedious and frustrating, that’s what put people off doing last minute trip. Streamline the hotel booking by making it easier, will attract more visitors and improve the tourist industry of the island.

Reading Harry Plotter 7, no blog entry today.

This weekend is the release date for the last Harry Plotter novel. Everyone over the world is crazy over the hype. People lining up in front of book store to get the book like it is given out for free. Many not so crazy but still enthusiastic Harry’s fans pre-order the book, so they will receive it on the first day of release. I also ordered the book, but foolishly I use the company address as the mail address. Since the company is close on Saturday, I have to wait until Monday to get my copy of Harry Plotter. Well, even if I got it on the first day, I may not want to read it right away. Reading a book is not a race, you don’t have to finish it faster than others. I rather relax and take my time to finish the book.