My Weekly Adventures: Hiking, Grand Prix and Food!

Its mid-June now! Summer is just around the corner although the weather probably doesn’t really feel like it much. Its been feeling very spring lately, which is normal but its been a while spring has lasted so long. Either way, enough about the weather. With the season well underway, we’ve been keeping ourselves eventful while different events have been showing up as well. I’ll wrap up with a little gardening update.

Hiking: Parc de la Yamaska

June kicked off with our walk in Yamaska National Park. Its a casual walk along a fairly flat walk also set for cyclists as well. Its one thats great to kick off the beginning of the season. You can see the full recap HERE.

Grand Prix in Downtown Montreal

As usual, Grand Prix landed in Downtown Montreal last weekend. Its always a busy weekend. I ended going with my mom for dinner at Noodle Factory in Chinatown and then heading to see the stuff going on on Peel and Crescent Street. This year was pretty disappointing. It felt not very special with not a lot of cars in general being showcased. It was kind of boring..although the music performed on the Crescent stage was probably the best show I’ve seen so I believe the line-up might be the highlight.

Hiking: Mont Chapman

Being the hiking crazy people that we are trying to be and working hard to keep up with it as much as we can before any potential things with events all pan out in July, plus the weather being cooler works well for those long hikes. After some long debate, we ended up going to the Eastern Townships in the middle of nowhere on a mountain hiking trail that we found called Mont Chapman. I have a few good things to say about this, mostly how challenging it was and how I somewhat disagree on the difficulty level they put it as and well, some complaints as well about this location and warnings/suggestions I’d give on this hiking track. That is coming up very soon in the hiking recap for this one. 😉

E3 2019

As usual, we had our E3 2019 off site coverage over at Game Warp. I talked about it over at the What’s Up segment this past week. It did set the course off over here a tad bit but other than some late posts, most of what I wanted to do still stayed relatively on track. You can find all the written recap coverage on Game Warp blog HERE.

Shopping Haul: Prep for Bridesmaid Duty

Its a week until my best friend gets married. I decided to take care of my hair and make-up so I had to go hunt down some stuff since I don’t normally put on make-up or do my hair in any particular way.  I did also get a curling iron which was on sale. I have a general concept of how do it and its going to simple but still match with the dress. Anyways, lots of new things that I’m trying out here so I’ll have to do a test-run at some point before since its a fairly early morning.

Gardening Update

First part of the gardening update is planting in the flowers that I didn’t get around to plant the last time. Its not too obvious but I ended up putting the Hibiscus into the patch because I lost my chrysanthemums. And then in the other patch, I pulled up some of the other plants that was there that wasn’t looking too healthy and put in some foliage and the Monarda (Bee Balm).

Cabbage, Marigolds & Lettuce/Kale

Vegetable Garden

Kale, Tomatoes, etc

The vegetables are all in. The garden is now all planted. The cabbage/marigold containers are growing very well. At the same time, the kale and the lettuce containers are also growing incredibly fast and pretty much ready for the first harvest. As for the poor tomato plant that was supposed to be hanging, it looks so miserable even through the last few rainy days.

Restaurants

The restaurant that my mom and I went to was Noodle Factory in Chinatown. We got some pan-fried dumplings and then some fried handmade noodles. They were pretty decent.

Labothery

A new bubble tea concept place opened up in Quartier Dix30 called Labothery. I will do a more elaborate post for it soon. Its a neat concept but as with any customizable ideas, the price increases accordingly.

Cute Kitty Pic

That’s it for this Weekly Adventures!
Its been a fun two weeks even though a bit busy as I was working out some press pass application also! 
Events are coming up in Montreal so I’m hoping to get ahead with some posts.

Bridesmaids & Weddings!

I’ve been talking about being a bridesmaids at my friend’s wedding for the past month over abundantly.  I was extremely honored to have the opportunity to be a bridesmaids for her.  Its hard to come by friends after we get out of high school or college and we met at my old workplace and we’ve all kept in touch since then.  Its been a an amazing 5 years of friendship and honestly sometimes, these girls (the bride and the other bridesmaids) know more about my life than even my best friends.  Its something remarkable in my mind and I confide in them so I was extremely happy to just be part of this and help out as best I could.

Just a note that the bride has specifically asked me and everyone else taking pictures to not blog/facebook about the wedding pictures with guests and herself and the groom so other than myself, I am off limits to everyone else.

One of the many game props

We did the whole planning of the games between me and the other “sisters” (aka bridesmaids) and helped arrange it as it came for the groom and his groomsmen when they arrived to pick up the bride.  It started with the red envelope bargain and then we hoped into some funny games for not compensating us enough.  He had to prove that he was worthy with his love, his strength, courage, dancing skills, design, etc.  Time definitely flew by. Of course, we tried to keep it all on schedule,which it was luckily with little switching around.

Our corsage

After picking up the bride, we had to all move to the groom’s family to do their tea ceremony first.  Its Chinese tradition to do the tea ceremony and its the right way to do it at both the bride’s and groom’s family’s house.  It made for some commuting but it was well worth the experience.

Red envelope from the bride’s family to the couple for blessings

For lunch at noon, the bride’s mom and her friends arranged a HUGE potluck for everyone and it was amazing.  There was one dish that almost burned my tongue and it was so spicy I just couldn’t handle it even being in my mouth and I gulped down probably half a bottle of water afterwards.  Everything else was super delicious. 🙂

My lunch plate

We also managed to sit and chat for a bit before the bouquet toss and heading over to the couple’s house for the actual ceremony with the celebrant and to wrap up some decorations before the actual ceremony.

Flowers

Outside decorations

Party favor

Helping to fix up the bride’s hair before the ceremony

The bride’s bouquet

After the ceremony, we had time for some photo shooting and for the bride to change into her evening dress.  Then, we were off to dinner at Gibby’s, a restaurant in Old Montreal.  At Gibby’s, we managed to split the money we got from the red envelope bargain.

Canadian dollars and…5 cents Canadian Tire Money and yes, 10000 Won (Korean dollars)

We had personalized wedding menus which was mega cool!

Menu

Now, I know you all are excited as to what I ordered and its a huge meal that I felt like I was bursting out of my dress at the end of the night!

Appetizer: Smoked Salmon

Lemon Sherbet

 

Petit Filet Mignon (9oz) with Baked Potato

Wedding Cake

 

Dessert: Sherbet Trio (Raspberry, Strawberry, Blueberry)

Green Tea to end the meal and help digest!

That was my friend’s wedding night! But before I let you go, maybe you’d like to see how satisfied I am with the turnout of me as a bridesmaids in a wonderful lilac dress 🙂

I’m rather pleased with it but still, its a good motivator now for working even harder 🙂

The wedding went great and it was a fantastic day!!! I wish my friend and her husband all the best in their future life and lots and lots of happiness!