I CraveTO!

Today was an exhausting but adventure-filled day! I met Jasmine at Dundas Square and we decided to walk all the way to the food event CraveTO that was near St. Clair West Station. It took us an hour and a half to get there. To be honest, I was really surprised that we actually walked all the way from downtown to midtown. The sun was beating down so intensely today but that's alright because the walk was super nice! On our way there, I fell in love with the area. It was quiet and peaceful, the residential areas were relatively older but the shops and cafés were super cute and different.

On our way to CraveTO, we were dying from thirst and so we spontaneously went into this building. I forgot the name of the place but they were preparing for teaching a culinary class! The kitchen was super cute as you can see in the picture. It would be so cute if I could have a kitchen like that in my house. I ordered an iced chai latte and then we were back on our trek to the event!

After a bit, we finally arrived at the venue. It was smaller than I expected but I loved the patio-themed festival! There were about 20 vendors selling things from perogies to beer to ice cream! The food wasn't spectacular but it was good enough. It was just really relaxing to eat outside on the grass on a sunny day. We got there around 6 PM and there weren't that many people. But people started to trickle in after a while and it was nearly packed when we left!

Many people sat on the grass. The DJ played some light music and it was one of the most relaxing evenings I've had in a while.

Tis me and Jasmine.

 

The first thing we tried were the cupcakes! I forget the name of all of them but there were 4 and they were so cute! My favourite was the one with a piece of bacon on the top. Then we had something called The Goods. It was fried brussel sprouts that were barbeque-flavoured. It was definitely interesting.

This was one of my favourites! It was Beer Flavoured ice cream sandwich from Sweet Sammies. We also tried to Banana and Peanut Butter ice cream sandwich which was pretty good as well!

 

It was a good evening filled with good food, good music, and good company!

xx

Gradient

Hello! Aren't you in love with my new MacBook shell and keyboard case! It's so pretty, I'm in love. So this morning I woke up and trekked all the way to Whitchurch-Stouffville to do a police check since I'm volunteering with YMCA. That took super duper quick so I was happy. Then I went back to Pacific Mall to get another case because... well, I got scammed yesterday. I ended up with this lovely gradient  pink to blue shell. It was definitely more expensive then the typical solid colour cases but hey, you get what you pay for (is that even the saying? I'm so bad with sayings and idioms). My keyboard is of course, light blue because thats my favourite colour in the world.

I went back home and decided to do a cover of All Of Me by John Legend! Reminder: I need a new SD card because apparently, mine's too "slow" for the quality that my camera is shooting.

So like, GarageBand is not as simple as you think it is. I'm still trying to figure it all out. There's just too many terms and buttons and effects, I have no idea what does what. I just randomly tried experimenting and somehow, my cover turned out all right. 

My cover is currently uploading onto YouTube as I'm typing. I think I'm going to go dye my hair soon... wish me luck. I will edit this post for a picture of my hair later!

"Wait, I can't see if I finished my food"

Hello! So today I woke up super early to drive my sister to school and then have a short meeting with the volunteer coordinator at YMCA Markham. It's a really long drive to their office but I guess it'll be interesting to help out at the front desk once a week. I then went to Pacific Mall because I wanted to buy a keyboard silicon cover for my MacBook as long as a shell. I was so excited until... I go home and my shell didn't fit. Damn, I got scammed. What am I supposed to do with a shell that doesn't fit my Mac? And now I have to go back for another one. #lifestruggles

Anyway, for dinner I met up with Lena and Cherrie. We decided to go to O'Noir for our "wonderful adventure". I've heard about this place prior to going but I didn't know too much about it. I knew it was a restaurant where the room is dark and customers eat in that environment. I thought it would be really dim lighting - similar to turning off the lights when we go to sleep. But I was totally wrong. All waiters there are blind and the room is pitch pitch pitch and I mean PITCH black. It was a really fun experience though! It was difficult to figure out where my food was and how to eat it but I managed to do so and something about the dark was really calming and relaxing. Our waiter was a short old man and he was hilarious, always making small jokes here and there to entertain us. I highly recommend everyone to check it out! The food was pretty good as well (I had pesto chicken with potatoes). I would have taken a picture... except I didn't even know how it looked like myself.

They had to take our orders outside since we weren't allowed any sort of life inside the room.

Side note of the day: I bought Pocari Sweat today and it was yum yum yum! I used to love this drink a lot as a kid whenever I went to Hong Kong. It's kind of similar to Vitamin Water. It's like water but a sweet kind of water. I just had to share that because it made me happy when I bought it today. 

Run Girl

Hello! On Monday, my family decided to watch the 7th Chinese Song Writing Competition. We watched this two years ago and it was great so we wanted to watch it again. And I'm always down for this kind of stuff. I love music, I love performances so of course I wanted to go watch. There were 8 contestants in total. Many of the contestants composed the songs themselves and sang it on stage. A few others composed but had another singer perform it on stage. They were all really talented and I'm so jealous of what they can do. A famous songwriter and singer from Hong Kong was a special guest and he performed near the end as well. I don't really know him but I know he composes many songs for singers in Hong Kong so he is definitely a really quirky talented individual.

The winner was this younger girl who liked she was in her early to mid 20's. She definitely deserved to win. Her piece has a mixture of R&B, Rap, and Swing and it sounded really good when she sang with her powerful voice. She had really good stage presence too. So congratulations to her!

The entire show was a great success. The only thing that was really funny/frustrating was when someone had the same "seating" ticket as another person and it caused a huge commotion with my family's seats. It was really funny though.

Yeah, that's about it.

Cheers!

Saturday, May 17

Guess what? That's right, I bought my MacBook Pro today! I've been wanting one for quite a long time now but I never really looked into it because I have my Samsung laptop that is still working (most of the time) and apple products are always really expensive. But fortunately, my parents didn't disapprove of the idea when I told them and surprisingly, when I went to the Apple store today, my dad decided to buy it for me! I'm so thankful for my parents. I have never had a MacBook before so this will sure be interesting to use. I tried to learn all the keyboard shortcuts and everything but it was just a tad bit difficult. I'll get used to it though. In total, I think it came down to $1800 with Apple Care and all. Man, I better get a good co-op job next year to make up for this $$$$ purchase.

Other than my lovely purchase, I had some good food today. I went to Phoenix with my parents today and ordered a korean dish! Yums! And then for dinner, I went to Aka Teppan with my sister and got the House Special Chicken on Spaghetti!

     

Update

Whoops, I haven't blogged in a week. It actually takes effort to put up a blog post every once in a while. Last week, I attended UWAC 2014 which stands for University of Waterloo Accounting Conference. I think it was a good experience - I met a lot of awesome people from different universities, did a case competition which I sucked at, and had a blast at the socials that the executive team planned!

This was taken on the Friday when we went on the boat cruise for dinner! I've been on boat cruises before but never at night. This skyline was so beautiful. I love big cities with spectacular lights at night. It kind reminded me of Hong Kong's harbour. The light breeze felt so good on my skin and just for a moment that night, I felt as if I was free - from my worries, from life.

Yesterday (Friday, May 16), I went downtown to meet Patricia. We went to Marche and had a lovely lunch. I've never been to Marche before but it's similar to Richtree and it was pretty cool. I love how they have basically anything you want. But it's also a problem if you're indecisive like me... How awesome would it be if Waterloo had this in their cafeteria?


 After lunch, we went to the This Is Not A Toy exhibit at the Design Exchange. I expected it to be bigger but it was only one floor of the building. It was $13 which is slightly expensive for the amount of things I saw but at the same time, the toys were pretty impressive. This one is my favourite!

It was a pretty awesome exhibit. The colours were amazing and it made me happy! Maybe I should bring my sister here some time, she'd love it. That was pretty much the entire week along with meeting up with my lovely brandy girls minus Victoria.

Cheers!

Outfit of the Day - May 8 20

Yesterday's OOTD. I don't quite enjoy this weather. It's not chilly but it's not warm either. It's difficult because I get hot and sweaty in jeans but I get cold wearing shorts/skirts in the evening time. I need to go do some summer shopping soon because I'm getting bored of all my clothes. I got my striped pants at J.Crew at like 80% discount so they were only around $20! I was very proud of that purchase. Speaking of my outfit of the day, I really need some new oxfords, or shoes in general actually. I find it so hard to shop nowadays.

Yesterday, I met up with two friends. We had some yummy AYCE sushi and some bubbraaa tea at Destiny. Nothing too special but it was a relaxing day. I packed for UWAC which is today and honestly, I'm not too down to go. I really just want to stay home. Ah, but whatever. It'll be okay.

Spidey Spidey Man

Today was a nice day! I started the day off with a hot sweaty (but relaxing) hot yoga session with my mother. I haven't done hot yoga in a really really long time so this was nice. I got a $40 introductory package that gives me one month of unlimited classes! I'm really stoked to go. They recommend to go 3 times a week and with this package, I can go anytime! Since I'm too lazy to go to the gym, I think this is another good way to get fit. 

Then at night, I went out with le boyfrand and we ate at a restaurant called Aka Teppan at First Markham Place. I never knew what this restaurant had til now. It was pretty awesome - They serve sizzling rice meals! It reminds me of Pepper Lunch in Hong Kong. I got the House Special Chicken Rice. I will definitely go there again since it's not too pricey!

Then we watched Spider-Man 2! It was decent. It was also very sad and I cried my little heart out. Every time I finish watching a really good movie or show, I'm always in this state of post-movie depression. It's like "What is life? Do I go on with life now?". Ah, that's what I'm feeling right now. But anyway, it was a good movie!

Mask My Face

Decided to try this mask on today. I bought quite a handful of these from The Face Shop a while back during the winter break but they were all for my friends. They have a plethora of flavours including lemon, cucumber, mint, etc. I found a leftover (cucumber!) today in my room and decided to try it. I'm used to using My Beauty Diary Mask products so this was a different feel. This mask was much softer physically so it felt really nice on my skin. I usually need to wait 30 minutes for my masks to dry but this one took about 10 minutes which was nice and efficient. My skin feels soft and smooth. However, my face is also a bit sticky which is kind of weird. I do feel really refreshed though!