This past weekend Allan and I headed out to Tofino again for some surf and relaxation. This time however, we were invited to stay at the famous Wickaninnish Inn. “The Wick,” as it is affectionately called by locals and fans, is well-known for its fabulous location on Chesterman Beach, luxury accommodations, world-renowned spa, and five-star dining. No wonder — it’s a Relais & Châteaux property. I also found out a little interesting tidbit from some folks in town which confirms my theories… the Twilight Cast stayed there while they were shooting New Moon. The Inn cannot comment on this of course due to privacy issues, but you can be sure I did as much digging as possible on the subject from the locals.

The Wickaninnish Inn has long had ties to the area and the Pacific Rim National Park. It is family-owned and operated by the McDiarmid family who were born and raised in Tofino. You can read more history on the Inn here.

When you arrive, what strikes me most about the property (and what staff seem to be most proud of) is how the Inn sits on the fine line between the ocean and old growth forest. Compared to most other properties in Tofino and BC, the Inn does an incredible job of preserving the natural surroundings. Every single room has an ocean and beach view, but not at the expense of chopping down the old growth trees in front of the window. When you lie in bed and look out the window, you feel a little bit like you are floating somewhere between ocean and forest.

You can tell that Managing Director Charles McDiarmid spares no expense with his attention to detail. Every room has pieces of nature integrated into the decor, from the driftwood chairs to the solid rock bookends. Every piece of wood in the rooms and around the hotel is hand-crafted and custom made, including the moldings in the rooms, the closets, the doors, bedframes, desks… it’s really something to see.

And all with a focus on sustainability without it being a trend. Claire Macdonald, Marketing Planner for the Inn, spearheads many of the projects herself. The Pointe Restaurant at the Inn actually composts 100% of all its food waste. Claire also organizes frequent beach cleanups with the Surfrider Foundation in Tofino.

The Canopy Room is one of the fanciest rooms in the Inn, with a gorgeous canopy teak bed, living room, plasma TV, multi-jet shower and double soaker tub. Not to mention a great view. I hear it is the celebrity choice when staying at the Inn.

Our room was awesome too. A deluxe top floor room at the Inn, we enjoyed the King bed, local artwork, double soaker tub, and glass panel shower looking out onto the ocean.

The service was great too — all our bags and personal items were organized in the room and the closet. The huge closet also held complimentary rain gear and gumboots. Definitely a plus for storm watching in Tofino.

We also of course had to order breakfast in bed.

Yeah, after surfing Allan and I spent quite a lot of time in our double soaker tub looking out onto the ocean. I’ve probably never felt so relaxed in my life. Honestly.

Of course, I had to try the spa while I was there. The Ancient Cedars Spa is probably one of the most talked about parts of the Inn. It has won so many awards it’s crazy, including being reader-voted as the World’s Best in Travel + Leisure magazine.

The real shame here is that I had to take photos of the Spa after hours, so unfortunately I couldn’t capture how beautiful it is with the natural light streaming in and the ocean views. So bear with me!

Every aspect of the Spa is beautiful… from the wood carved handles on the lockers in the shower rooms, to the huge wood burl mirrors and tables. They also carry a really unique line of spa and beauty products, many from Vancouver Island and BC. Many influenced by the ocean and nature.

They also have an incredible (you-have-to-see-it-to-believe-it-kind-of-thing) Cedar Sanctuary where you can get treatments done… in a beautiful cedar house literally looking onto the ocean. Imagine having a massage while the ocean is spraying up in front of the windows… wow! All guests also have access to the Rainforest Sauna… which smells exactly like… the rainforest. So nice.

I decided to go for a massage treatment at the Spa. When I showed up, I was offered refreshing citrus water and tea, and shown to my hand-carved locker in the ladies room. I popped into my robe and slippers and enjoyed a steam in the Rainforest sauna for a while.

Then I was shown to a beach chair outside overlooking the ocean, given a warm blanket and a hot foot soak with pebbles in the bottom to roll my feet over. After an aromatic consultant and some time to relax while taking in the ocean breeze and the view with some hot tea, I was shown to my treatment room. Each of their certified professionals must have over 1000 hours of experience before they can work at the Inn, and my masseuse was no different. A wonderful woman with an amazing background (she previously worked in the advertising industry at notables such as Ogilvy and Mather), she worked her magic on me for an hour. I was completely relaxed. So, “Ahhhh at the Spaaaaa” gets a very relaxed thumbs up from me. You must read about the treatments there.

Of course, our experience wouldn’t have been complete without having dinner at the Pointe Restaurant. We had eaten here before so we knew it was going to be good, and we were looking forward to trying some new dishes.

The restaurant overlooks Chesterman Beach and is situated at a rocky point, which causes dramatic sprays of water and the sounds of waves to accentuate your dining experience. You must visit the Inn during storm-watching season (late Fall and Winter), as that is when the waves are the most dramatic. Believe it or not, that’s the coolest time to come to the Inn and see the power and wildness of nature. We always make sure to visit Tofino at least once a year during this time. Anyway — back to the restaurant — they also occasionally mic the waves underneath the restaurant during a storm for the full effect.

Chef Nutting was in the kitchen that night, and put together some amazing dishes for us. Unfortunately I’ve recently found out about some allergies (egg, dairy, wheat… which feels like everything), but the chefs did an amazing job of working around the allergies. Allan got an amazing selection of bread (including olive and chorizo bread), and I was surprised to see I was also going to get bread… some delicious grilled rice bread and pappardum.

I had a mojito, and Allan tried a sidecar and a Manhattan.

For appetizers, I had the scallops with dungeness crab, pine mushrooms, and a chicken jus. Allan had the grilled octopus with baby shrimp, cherry tomatoes, foccacia croutons, pancetta vinaigrette, and watercress.

For mains, I had a crispy sablefish with citrus, asian pear, bok choy in a szechwan pepper sauce with braised pork belly.

Allan had the Lingcod with fingerling potato chips and chorizo sausage.

I finished off the meal with homemade blueberry sorbet, and Allan had a quartet of creme brulee — vanilla bean, saffron, strawberry, and dark chocolate. I think I’m going to steal that idea for my party coming up. Some homemade truffles came at the end as well, with honey and thyme. Mmmm.

We explored the property a bit the next day before leaving. The Inn has built so many amazing boardwalks, trails, and paths around the area. We found out they shot some of the scenes for New Moon on Long Beach, and also right on the beach in front of the Wick!

And of course, we made sure to get our surfing in.

And that wrapped up a fantastic long weekend at the Wickaninnish Inn. If you haven’t already, check out the website… you must check out the restaurant menu, the accommodations, and definitely the spa treatments. The Wick is a fantastic place for a romantic getaway, a surfing weekend, a mother-daughter or girlfriends pampering experience… or just because. They’ve got some awesome deals coming up for the stormwatching season and the O’Neill Coldwater Surf Classic, so check those out.

Hope you enjoyed the review!

This is a new Eclipse set in Vancouver. So, here are your first look photos at this urban set! It’s definitely a city set… I’m thinking maybe a backstory… or possibly newborns.

So the ONE day I don’t bring my camera to work, I decide to check out an Eclipse set. I apologize in advance for the photos… they were taken with my Blackberry. I may go check out the set another day or a bit later… so stay tuned as I’ll have better photos. For those of you who follow my other Twilight blog posts, you know that normally my images are much higher quality.

Here they are setting up what I believe to be a rain machine. Water will come through the tube and then is dispersed through hundreds of little holes along the beam. You can see that the buildings look old and historic, and set the scene nicely for an urban set.

Here’s another shot. I believe filming will take place in the alleyway nearby. Lots of old props are being set up… very grunge, urban items like trash cans and garbage littering the  street. They were also seen painting graffiti and other enhancements to add to the set.

So that’s just a quick preview! Hopefully I have some better photos and a better set report soon. Enjoy! Please be respectful of the photos and of course the filming locations and the crew.

You can always follow me on Twitter for more updates, and I’ll let you know if I end up getting better photos.

What scene in Eclipse do you think this set is from?

It’s the new sets for Eclipse that I find truly exciting! Being a fan of the books and the movies, it’s always interesting to see how the scenes change from the books… as well as see what each Director’s style is from one movie of the Twilight Saga to another.

I had a chance to see a new set being filmed for Eclipse… the scene where the newborns arrive in Forks. It’s a picturesque scene, with mountains and water framing the background of the shot, and a sparse unoccupied beach for the newborns to arrive on… then they disappear into the forest. The vampire newborns looked absolutely chilling, and their rugged military-like outfits along with steely, determined glares just added to the mood. Filmed early in the morning, this scene was designed to look as if it had been shot at night, possibly just after dusk or just before dawn.

Riley (Xavier Samuel) and Bree (Jodelle Ferland) were on set as well as a number of newborn vampires we have NEVER seen before.

I’m always amazed at what a huge production it is to film just a few seconds for these movies. Second Unit Director EJ Foerster was on set, calm but directive… doing dozens of different takes for only a couple scenes. An amazing number of people involved plus tons of equipment and hours of filming from so many different angles just to get a 5 second shot… wow. Check out all the equipment on the shore, including the scuba diving gear and the dinghys. You can also see some of the shorter fake trees they used in the foreground on the beach.

There are two distinct scenes… scenes where the female newborn is talking to a male newborn, and the main scene (which they spent most of the time shooting) where there are three newborns including Riley coming out of the water onto the shore. They don’t come out of the water in the books, but I think it is a nice dramatic addition.

The water here was quite cool in temperature, so I’m not surprised at all to see the actors with thin wetsuits on under their costumes. They were also given small weights under their clothing to help keep them weighed down under the water before the “take”. I have my PADI scuba diving license so I was really curious about how they were using the divers for the filming. The scuba divers served two purposes: One, to give their extra regulator to the actors so they could breathe underwater when necessary… and two, to help give the actors cues and guide them to certain checkpoints when necessary.

HD video coming soon (tomorrow night… sorry guys, I got really sick tonight).

In this scene in the video (coming soon), you’ll see the Director ask them to go underwater (”Under water!), then he counts as they are rolling with the movie cameras “OK, Riley”… then the first actor emerges (my guess is they were using “Riley” as the code word, since the first actor that emerges is NOT Riley). Then the Director calls them out “2…. and 3″… and the other actor and then Riley emerges from the water. The vampires moved slowly, slinking through the water but very clearly with purpose.

You can see from the camera that it is going to be a very tight shot with how close some of the production members are standing in the water.

Several iterations of this shot continued, with different combinations of the newborn vampires in the water. They also tried different lighting setups, either with a white sheet to bounce water off in the water, or with a large spotlight shining through a diffuser straight at the actors. The camera rig was very flexible, above to move up down and really get around the actors in any angle necessary for the shot. The actors had very pale makeup on.

I also had my suspicions confirmed by one of the PAs that the entire scene was being shot with no sound. Music and effects were to be added later in post-production. Good thing — because an entire squad of geese started squawking their hearts out during the middle of several scenes. It was hilarious.

Unfortunately I didn’t get to see Jodelle film any of her scenes (that’s not her in the water), but you can see her here grabbing some food. Her makeup was already done though, as you can see how pale she looks.

I absolutely loved visiting this set. It was one of the coolest I have seen in a while, at least since New Moon

Hope you enjoyed the photos and the video! You can always follow me on Twitter for more updates, or check here to see my other blog posts with Twilight cast members and live set filming.

Last night we went to see Jackson Rathbone and his band 100 Monkeys perform at the Rickshaw Theatre in Vancouver. Hastings and Main isn’t the greatest area for young girls to be hanging out in an alley after midnight… but, I digress.

Jackson (”Japer”) and his band rocked out to a jam-packed venue of screaming fans, in front of some of his fellow cast mates and friends Nikki Reed (”Rosalie”), Elizabeth Reaser (”Esme”), Paris Latsis (Paris Hilton’s ex), and Twilight author Stephenie Meyer.

Check out the HD video above to see Jackson and the 100 Monkeys perform an improvised song (with a suggestion of “Acorn” from the audience), and see Nikki and Paris get cozy as well as Elizabeth Reaser and Stephenie Meyer in the video.

It was a neat venue… I thought they did a nice job with the stage setup and the lighting. Shadows, vibrant coloured lighting, and tall dark angular shapes danced across a back screen as the band played to hundreds of photo flashes going off every minute for the duration of the show.

After two opening acts, the band was escorted on stage from an upstairs VIP room by more-than-necessary security and played for about an hour and a half.

Nikki, Paris, and Liz were there right at the start, watching with friends from a VIP booth overlooking the stage. Nikki and Paris were very close and “touchy touchy” during the evening, often leaning in close to talk and giggle, touch cheeks and discretely kiss (sadly, no picture but I saw it with my own eyes).

Jackson looked suave with his white fedora, skinny black tie, lightly pinstriped white shirt, and grunge jeans.

Band members often switched instruments, and Jackson played every instrument on stage over the course of the evening.

Here’s a look at the entire VIP booth that was there… recognize anyone else?

Liz looked like she was having a blast the whole time.

I love these silhouettes of Jackson against the show lighting.

Stephenie Meyer was also there, mingling with the crowd at first unnoticed, and then eventually escaped to the VIP booth once she was discovered, mobbed and flashed… *sigh* I love Stephenie. Getting to talk to her last year and take pictures with her definitely had Amy and I fangirling last year. (Check out my older Twilight-related blog posts)

Nikki, Paris, Liz, and Stephenie all left halfway through the show. I’m not sure why, that is pretty uncharacteristic of them… but I would guess that it had to do with the insanely hot and sticky temperatures inside the theatre. We were on the ground floor close to the concrete walls where it was cool, and we were sweating. Jackson and his band were dripping with sweat, and I would guess the VIP booth way up in the air was even hotter, forcing some of the cast members to leave a little early.

I love Liz’s sexy black thigh high boots (so hot this Fall, right?) and backless dress.. Nikki had on some cool shoes with a tunic adorned with a large sequined/studded flower and tights. Paris had a hat, wife beater (hmm, not so hot) and jeans. It was quite a climb to get from the booth to the backstage, so here are some fun shots of everyone climbing down to leave. They left through the backstage which tunneled through to the front door and took a taxi home. Some of my friends got a signature and photo with Liz in the front.

The end of the show consisted of us (and a few other girls and paps) waiting in the back alley to see them leave. Some friends got photos with Ben G from the band, and then shortly after Jackson exited the theatre quickly surrounded by 4 bodyguards (was that really necessary?) and hopped into a vehicle with Scott “The Scientist” (also played that night) and gave us a little smile before taking off. We were surprised that he didn’t stop to say hi to any of the fans, as Jackson is normally very fan-friendly.

Fun night, great performances, and neat to see the cast again. Sorry for the lateness of the post, we were out till 4 AM last night

You can always follow me on Twitter for more updates, or check here to see my other blog posts with Twilight cast members and live set filming. There are more photos on my Flickr as well that I didn’t post up here.

When Allan and I first started dating about 2.5 years ago, we spontaneously decided to go on a road trip to La Push, Washington. At the time, all Allan knew was that it was a fabled surfing destination. We really didn’t know anything else. So with a car, surfboards, camping gear, and a trusty old map (I didn’t have Google Maps on my phone back then), we set out for La Push with no plans, no accommodations, and no idea of where we were going to end up.

It was an exciting adventure, and was the first step towards us really getting to know each other, and figure out what it was like to travel together. It is funny when I look back on those times… how it was such a romantic trip… and I look at how we are together, today. I’m grateful that we are still adventuring together and exploring new places.

It was about a 7 hour drive down there. We took ferries, crossed many bridges, and eventually found our way to the right road.

La Push was a small fishing village at the time. Today if you go there, it’s completely Twilight-itized. When we visited 2 and a half years ago, we had never heard of Twilight and neither had the town it seemed. It’s funny that when I was reading the Twilight books I was relating many moments in the book to our experiences a couple years ago. I’m sure it would be a very different scene today.

We surfed (well, I surfed for the first time in my life), we stayed at the Quilete Reservation there, we explored the beaches and the forests…

We traveled up to Hurricane Ridge and saw snow at the lookouts and tons of deer, tried the mineral hot springs in the Olympic National Park, and went on many nature walks.

Allan and I considered that trip to be the mark of our relationship, so we still use the date of that trip as our anniversary. I have to admit I feel a bit sentimental looking back on these photos. It would be great to visit that region a few years from now, to see how it has changed and to share that special place again together.