My June Adventures!

Half of 2021 has gone by! I honestly can’t believe it! I don’t really know what happened other than a lot of work…like my real job. Nothing else seemed too eventful. But then, its inevitable when a good few months of 2021 was still under pandemic restrictions and as we end June, we are now moved to the green zone which means a minimum set of restrictions or as everyone likes to call it deconfinement. Deconfinement for us just means being able to go hiking more and being more active as the warm weather hit. I mean, downright heat wave right now but overall, we did have some mild weather before this week.

Either way, let’s see what happened in June!

Workout

June 5th Walk 4.70km 49mins
June 6th Walk 4.88km 50mins
June 12th Walk 3.43km 37mins
June 13th Hike 6.38km 1hr29mins
June 19th Walk 4.06km 44mins
June 20th Walk 1.61 km 20 mins
June 24th Walk 4.87km 58 mins
June 26th Hike 3.04km 52mins
June 27th Walk 1.38km 16mins

Tallying up the deliberate walking and hiking (excluding all my work errands and to and from bus terminals and workplace), I had a notch higher than May, which is already pretty good. I’m overall going for longer walks whenever I can and mostly in the morning on the weekends to just relax. Its definitely been pretty good although I’m thinking of planning out a longer route than what I’ve been doing the past month. I think that all the walking did prepare me for the 2 hikes that we did throughout the month. I do plan to get back to running and biking at some point this summer..hopefully soon!

Hiking: Mont Hereford

As Quebec and Montreal starts deconfining, the restrictions lifted on crossing regions and then we got our first dose of vaccinations so finally managed to go to hiking again. The first hike of the year was a relatively light one but it still was considered an intermediate trail. It had a decent amount of viewpoints (7 maybe) although some of them were a little obstructed by the wilderness. We did have a hilarious encounter with some bird that looked like a smaller turkey that came bursting through the brush in fury. It was definitely a memory.

New Glasses

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Picked up my new glasses this month as well! I’m a little too self-conscious lately to do selfies so this will do. My normal frames are bigger than my last ones so it took a little time to get used to. However, I’m liking them quite a bit and going to use the sunglasses for hiking as it has anti-slip on the nose part which I’m hoping will be helpful during hiking.

Hiking: Mount Scotch Cap

The second hike was to probably one of the furthest points in terms of day trips in the Eastern Townships near Mont- Megantic (which we have gone before). Yet, it was a little further from there in Piopolis. This one is an easy one which was pretty good as it wasn’t hot but the humidity was making the air very heavy. The hike is a constant upward climb. Its definitely a popular one in the area also as we went across a good few groups of people. The views are pretty good though.

Sunday Outing: Uniqlo, Yinji Rice Noodle Rolls & Chef Lee

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I went out for a Sunday morning downtown run to pick up some clothes from Uniqlo and then go some lunch takeout at some new restaurants. Uniqlo in Montreal opened during the pandemic so I never bothered to go until now. The control is done well though as someone monitors that you disinfect hands, checks our temperature and keeps up with the counter so that the capacity is respected. I don’t have a whole lot to share about what I bought there as it was more undergarments, discount hoodie and some lounge shorts and a sports bra. Their new line of sports bra are awesome so check it out if you ever are looking, I’m actually thinking of going back to get 2 more.

The original plan was to get takeout from Yin Ji Chang Fen which are all about the rice noodle rolls, basically Chinese breakfast/lunch food. On the way, we saw across the street had Chef Lee, which is also relatively new and they sell pan-fried pork buns (which I love). We got an order of that as well. Both of these restaurants are pretty good. At Yin Ji, it was mostly for the dough stick rice noodle rolls which were pretty good and probably would have been best eating on location but still, it still tasted good after the trip home. I would want to check out other stuff from of them. I also got the veggie rice noodle rolls which was good that it was pretty plain overall as its supposed to be eaten with soy sauce so that balances it out.

For Chef Lee, it was a taste testing buy if anything which was pretty good. I think the pricing is a little expensive for the amount you get but the flavors are there so I probably will still go back to get some more at one point or another.

Cute Kitty Pic

That’s it for this June Adventures!
What have you been up to?

Hiking: Colline du Lac Trousers (Bolton, Quebec)

Unlike a lot of people, I didn’t have any time off during this hectic times so with the current landscape I’ve been working on taking random day offs to have some breathing space instead of going on long vacations. The first day that I took was last Friday and it was given to doing a morning to early afternoon hike in the Eastern Townships.

This year’s main focus for hiking destination has been the Les Sentiers de l’Estrie hiking networks. We went to a closer area in the Bolton zone of the network and chose the Colline du Lac Trousers which is a 9km round-trip trail. The trail itself is a bit vague. It actually gives you the parking not the closest to Lac Trousers but actually on the Missisquoi-Nord trail which leads on to Lac Libbey in the first leg and walks a portion on a road before heading into another stretch of road for a quite a distance before turning into a road that leads to another trail to the final summit spot. The last leg has a constant upwards trek with the final 100m being mostly steep upwards climb up to the summit. That’s a quick rundown of how the trail works. I’ll have a detail description below. You can check out the details of the trail HERE.

This is the start of trail which is part of the Missisquoi-Nord trail. This picture is looking back at where we come from by the parking. The parking spot is actually down a road where you walk towards this park where its a Sentier Mise en Forme meant for workout stations along a trail. There’s a park and marshland at the beginning and its full of a lot of weeds and wild flowers. The first part of the Missisquoi-Nord towards Lac Libbey is fairly flat. If anything, the beginning portion is either flat or going downhill for most of it with very little uphill until it goes to Lac Libbey which is a fairly flat road by some very pretty houses. You can get a peek of Lac Libbey from afar. There should be a trail around Lac Libbey but we didn’t notice it. At the end of the road is the entrance to the next part of the trail.

Its also part of the Missisquoi-Nord trail for this portion to the next road area. In reality, there isn’t much of difference in the whole way. Missisquoi-Nord trail goes to the next road area where it changes to the orange trail of Les Sentiers de L’Estrie sector which is following a little left turn into a road. The next road around is actually fairly calm and a few houses along the way but mostly forest on both side. As you go into the next section, its the final trek upwards.

The final trek upwards is pretty much the last 100 meters or so if I remember correctly. It starts off like this with rocks as steps and gradually increases in steepness going up and up. You can tell that its a more narrow path with little paths between trees and rocks and such and needs a lot more attention even if they have two blue ropes aligning the trail all the way up for extra safety.

After that trek, we get to the summit. There was quite a few people there so in order to respect social distancing rules, we just slipped into the higher rocks to get the view and then we left. Although the trail in general is pretty much just wildflowers and weeds and tall grass and shrubs and trees and just this one viewpoint, the summit view is still rather pretty.

Overall, Colline du Lac Trousers was an average trail. It does fulfill the easy trail element but it also doesn’t have a whole lot to see since its one where its very much based on your own focus and patience for the one payoff of a beautiful scenery. If we knew that, we might have done the closer parking spot instead. The entire trail averages around 3 hours going and return but we did it in around 3.5 hours or so. Its definitely one of the longer trails we did this past year or so.

Hiking: La Boucle du Mont des Trois-Lacs (Brompton, QC)

After a few weeks of rain and heat wave, we finally managed to get out for another hiking trip. This time, we went back to the same area as the previous hike to do the other trail in Brompton part of the Les Sentiers de L’Estrie. You can see the previous hiking recap HERE.

Brompton: La Boucle du Mont des Trois-Lacs

This trail is a fairly decent length at 4.8 km. Although its ranked Easy, its still pretty much our second hike of the year in heavy humidity weather. Luckily, we did go fairly early so the heat hadn’t hit and it was mostly cloudy as it was getting ready to rain. The hike itself is easy although its a lot of constant steep elevation. A lot of the path is like above where its climbing up steep rocky paths. Its a nice challenge as a second hike and didn’t feel too long. There are three lookout points along the path.

The first lookout point was pretty rewarding as it marked a good part of the beginning which was almost all uphill and was quite exhausting as the warm-up stretch. The view is a bit obstructed but still, the lake is visible and while its hard to capture on the camera well, the view was pretty decent.

The second viewpoint was heading towards the peak at the turn. There’s a pretty intense section going towards this point as well. Its some narrow paths and such. The view is a bit lackluster as this one took a lot of moving along different rocks on the slop to catch this view. We were a bit worried that this was the peak and the view that we were going to have to deal with as it left us wondering where the three lakes were.

Of course, after another fairly exhausting trail around the mountain moving uphill, we get to this final lookout point at the second half of the trail with a roped off boundary to look out at this view with its three lakes. If you look far enough, there’s even a fourth lake in the far distance.

The trail itself is rather surprising that it is an Easy level trail since there was such constant uphill trek and a few steep areas to go up and down on. The path is however fairly straight forward. Its mostly a forest trail with just bushes, trees and shrubs and not a lot of flowers or colorful plants. Its mostly just greenery .

For us, we’re trying to hike closer to home so the Eastern Townships is a good spot for us. I’m not sure if we’ll be coming back to Brompton area for this network of hiking trails since there’s only one more trail here that we haven’t done. I’m thinking we’ll move onto another area for the next one but not sure which one yet.

My June Adventures!

In a blink of an eye, we’re at the end of June and summer is here. Weather’s been a bit nuts here with a crazy heat wave/drought and then the last few days has been raining and much more comfortable. A little update on the Montreal confinement situation or well, we’re pretty much deconfined at this point although still get cases everyday so you can decide how you feel about that situation. Of course, with this ease of situation, my work situation is getting back to pre-COVID normal soon, which I’m not too sure how I feel about it but I don’t make the call so I just have to follow through with it. Although, today’s announcement (I’m writing this the day before posting so I don’t know yet if its going to happen) is supposed to make wearing face masks mandatory on public transit so that’s definitely rather reassuring.

COVID-19 is part of our lives now for over 3 months now so it has to be addressed before we head into other things that has gone on this past month! Let’s check it out!

Nike Training Club – 4 Week Program

I’ve slacked off during the entire lockdown phase and really struggled to get back on track with working out. The weather is warming up and hiking is starting back up (as you will see later on) which also requires a little bit of outside training to make sure my muscles are strengthened and build a bit of endurance to do the harder trails so I’m getting back on track with another 4 week program on Nike Training Club to kick things off. This time is different from before as I’ve added in the running option.

As the month ends, I should be getting back. Thing is, the weather turned so nice that I ended up being the most motivated to go running as you can see above so I didn’t stick to the program a whole lot but at least it made me want to be more active in other ways like pool workouts and hiking and running while still adding one of the workouts from the program to get some weights or body weight exercises in. At this point, its more of a guideline than following the program and its in the final week.

Movies and Tea Podcast

As I’m getting a rhythm of getting our archive on Youtube for Movies and Tea on a weekly basis, if you  haven’t caught up with the first season of Movies and Tea, you can start catching the episodes every Monday. The general idea now is that while we get through Season 4, I’ll be updating the archive of Season 1 every week until we start up Season 5 and that will be uploaded when it goes live so that we’re not always behind. Currently updated to Season 1, Episode 5 with our big Resident Evil Franchise episode.

With that said, I’m not going to go share all the episodes of Movies and Tea posted on Youtube but here’s the latest one above so that you can go check it out and subscribe to our channel if you enjoy it!

Hiking: Mont Cathedrale (Carre) & Marais du Kingsbury

First hike done and the recap of the hike is already posted so you can check it out HERE.

Summer Game Fest

We might have lost E3 this year but Summer Game Fest is the next best thing with a bunch of conferences spanning over May to August. We’re a bit late to the party so missed out most of the May events but June included the Playstation 5 reveal and conference (Recap), EA Play Live (Recap) as well as PC Gaming Show 2020 and a new show called Future Games Show (Recap). We didn’t get around to doing the recap for PC Gaming Show and now its already weeks later so a bit late to do it however, you can check out our thoughts on the other shows. There was a bunch of other things like developer showcases which present the new Crash Bandicoot game titled Crash Bandicoot 4: It’s About Time.

Cute Kitty Pic

That’s it for this June update!
I’ll share some garden updates next time. I just forgot to get all my pictures taken.

What have you been up to?

Hiking: Marais du Kingsbury & Mont Cathedrale

As Montreal starts reopening gradually (well, a lot of stuff is reopened at this point, except for a few things), the things we were looking forward to reopen the most is obviously the parks for hiking and such. Due to weather and the current situation, not all the parks are open but we did find quite a few to choose from. The husband decided that our best chance was to head further from the downtown area to the Eastern Townships to check out a trail part of Les Sentiers de L’Estrie. We’ve done a few other trails from that network before but this year, we’ve been thinking of getting the pass which would pretty much get back its worth if we do three more trails in the network and that sounds like a good deal (and doable, provided the reopening doesn’t launch a second wave of the pandemic).

First Stop: Kingsbury, Le Boucle de la Riviere

Kingsbury

The hiking plans didn’t quite go as we planned even if we did head out the time that we intended, early in the morning. Our first stop as planned was to go to Kingsbury and do a 7.2 km hike. However, the instructions weren’t too good and we soon realized 30 mins in that there was a sign saying that the suspension bridge had collapsed. This trail is pretty much a trail by the water and marshlands. Uncertain of whether there was a detour or not, we decided to go back to the car and head to the next location.

Collapsed suspension bridge

And we were off to the next location pretty much spontaneously. I suggested to go to the next hiking area in this network heading back the way we came so that at least we’ll start later on the actual trail for the day but lower the travel time back a little bit.

Second stop: Brompton – Le Mont Cathedrale

Things not going to plan was apparently the theme of our first hike as we had intended on doing another trail but got mislead to believe we were on the right trail when it wasn’t. Oh well..these things happen and we ended up doing a fairly decent intermediate level hike (not what we had planned since we’re obviously not in that great of shape with the lockdown and such). I’m not quite sure how long the trail actually was but it was quick elevation to Mont Cathedrale so it was rather tiring to do, plus the scene was really lovely.

If you look at the actual website, this trail is supposed to start at another parking location and then not only do the mountain but also a “Ruisseau Ely”, which we saw signs for but didn’t pursue it.

Overall, its a decent trail, in both cases. I’m going to say that this is one of the times where its less maintained than we’ve experienced before. I think its just the current times and the parks and the later than usual opening to not have addressed these things. We had a few hiccups in our plans but still, it was a decent few hours of hiking that we got out of it. Les Sentiers de l’Estrie has had a few places that we’ve done before like, Mont Chapman last year (that also had pretty confusing directions). That’s it for this hiking adventure! We’re looking up the next hike right now and will check in with the next one soon (hopefully).

 

Hiking: Mont Chapman (Stokes, Quebec)

The next hike went back to probably one of the most popular areas in Quebec and pretty well-known for its nature and that’s the Eastern Townships. After some research, we landed on finding this location called Mont Chapman. Its one of the farther hiking trails in Eastern Townships as we headed into a smaller country road that lead to a little parking lot in the middle of nowhere, with actually a few cars as the starting point for the hike.

The part that we did is the Boucle du Mont Chapman which goes around. We ended up doing the entire loop (and some more…I’ll talk about that later). Its pretty much a loop to the summit and back. With the shorter distance and the height of the summit, the elevation went up fairly quickly and it was almost a constant sloped trek, which is one of the bigger challenges of the path especially going upwards. We took the 4.9 km path upwards and did the 3.3 km downwards.

The path was pretty well maintained. There are a lot of little stones and twigs sticking out of the path through which can be hidden by all the fallen leaves. That is the only issue but its all about being observant. At the same time, there are some efforts to put planks to cross over little streams and some steps were made out of the terrain to help the process. There are some rocky steps as well. If not, in the little streams area, there are little rocks to walk over to stay a little more dry. It has to do with the weather still be cooler and more rainy this spring, I think. There were also some unique things like walking between boulders to get to the other side or on the down path, there’s some boulders to climb down from, as expected as the return trip is shorter distance, making it a steeper downhill trek.

And then, the view at the summit had a few angles, here it is:

Its a pretty hard track to be honest and it probably has to do with the fact that we expected it to be milder than it turned out to be. The issue with expectations, right? Either way, it was listed as an intermediary path, I believe but at times it did have some difficult moments. Setting that aside, my biggest issue was that we went the 4.9km path up where you follow the orange and white indicators on the trees, but going down, we had to follow the red and white indicators and man, was that confusing. Why I said that we ended up doing more than the total was because in between, we had to try three paths and each headed back to the fork, taking us over an hour to figure out where to go while walking up some really steep paths up and down to come to the conclusion to go back to the summit and take the path back and realized there was a sign at another angle in the distance that gave you the right path to follow. A lot of issues for my ankles (almost twisted it a few times on the downward jumps or hidden protruding rocks) on this one hike that I had to use some the trusty KT Tape and we had bought recently. That’s one of my complaints about this track, the unclear signage. While a part of the path has some work being done and didn’t have an alternate route so we checked that it was still just muddy but safe so kept going through the area to get to the other side since it was so close to the summit.

On the more positive side, this was the hike that got us ready for some harder trails. While we were both fed up of the trail on the way back and it was a tad painful (for my ankle specifically), there is a good amount of satisfaction to toughing it out and getting through it at the same time, having a good idea that we’ve really improved our preparedness over the years that we still had water left and food to sustain our energy. Not to mention, we had also got some pasta salads in the cooler at the car as a reward.

This was a rough one. 
Can’t say the view was a huge reward since it was also bug-infested. Insect repellant is a must on this trail.
We are hoping to squeeze in one or two more hikes before event season starts up in July. 😉

Hiking: Reserve Naturelle Montagnes Vertes

Its been something like over 2 months probably since we’ve gone out for a hike. It had to do with a lot of different reasons for both of us. It definitely wasn’t for the lack of desire, I can tell you that much. A part of it had to do with the extreme heat we had over the summer. When we had time it was either too hot or too busy (with events and other stuff). We’ve actually been doing a fair bit of research on hiking so we had a few place in mind when we wanted to go this past Sunday (aka yesterday, if you are reading day of release).

My husband found this Reserve Naturelle Montagnes Vertes via some friends on Instagram and told me about it. If you all don’t know, while nothing else is a big concern for us, the biggest one of them all is the road work galore going on everywhere in the city. Even my little town on the suburbs has roadwork. Its honestly a little annoying. However, this one headed away from the Montreal island and into the Eastern Townships area.

For some of you looking for a decent hike, let’s say, this location is pretty cool. From the moment you start entering the path heading to the natural reserve, its a fun time. We actually saw a deer on the way in. We stopped so that it could frolick back into the forest. Its was an impressive thing. We do a fair amount of road trips and deers aren’t exactly a rare creature in our forests but we’ve never actually seen one on the side of the road. Second reason this place is cool is because its less than two hours to get there by car plus there are three trails which pretty much level up in difficulty (I would guess) by length. The Decouverte (aka discovery) is more of a flat forest walk that passes by a marshland. We ended our trip diverging onto the Decouverte trail to pass by that one. However, we did the estimated 3.5 hour hike on the Etang trail which leads to a lake called Lac Fullerton. Its really nice there and you could see mooses swimming in the pond if you are lucky. We didn’t see anything but it was gorgeous. If you are feeling confident and are experienced, then you can do the 6 hour Sommets (Summit) trail. We obviously weren’t since over 2 months of not hiking makes us quite rusty. Plus, I was breaking in some new hiking shoes so not exactly feeling that ambitious either.

Here’s a few of the parts of the trail. I love it because it passes through a lot of water, little creeks and such.

This hiking trail is pretty good. One of our criteria for hiking is a quiet location where its not frequented a lot. This location literally is like a little stop station with maybe 4 car spots if everyone parks properly. Suffice to saw, we saw nothing other than insects and chipmunks and frogs and such. There were mostly the same type of flowers because those are things I take pictures of on hiking trails. The times for the hike are pretty accurate too. We took about 4 hours to walk it mostly because at one part, it gets a tad confusing and we doubled back to double check the trail and find where we had to go again. The second thing is how natural it is. This one has a really narrow path in a lot of spots to not interfere with the growth of the plants and such. Its why finding the track at times was hard because it has rules of how to respect the natural reserve and not disturb the environment there like not stepping into puddles and going off the path.

We absolutely loved this spot. It reminded us a lot of one of the trails in Saguenay Lac St. Jean where we went into a fairly deserted but challenging trail that we vowed to go back on day when we are in better shape to finish it and get to the top. We were 1 or 2 kms short the first time but due to time and lack of energy for the upward climb, we decided to head back. Hopefully we will get back next year or something for it. However, for this one, we are thinking of going back to do the Summit trail eventually however, as I was getting stuff together for this post, the part is entering into hunting season in a few days so will be closed. If you do plan on going, this summer, its best to check how their schedule is.

As for us, we’ll be heading out hiking again soon. We should have a few more hikes before winter arrives.

Hiking: Parc Regional du Mont-Ham – Button & Panoramique Trails

The second hike of 2018 takes us back to the Eastern Townships of Quebec to the Parc Regional du Mont-Ham.

We actually found this one the way back from the last hike in a little pamphlet. There is a nice variety in the trails and the loop you choose to make. If you want to do the direct path, the L’Intrepide trail is 1.7km (intermediate to difficult level) and takes you on a climb to the summit. Of course, being the hikers that we are, we decided to do one of the longer loops starting out in the Button Trail to reach the summit and consequently hitting about 3 lookout points before, then going back on the Panoramique Trail. It took us about 4 hours to complete the 6.9 km route we went for. These two trails are also intermediate to difficult levels so much to our surprise, it was very challenging with the steep slopes and constant quick changes in elevation. A lot of times, hiking for us is both exercise but to see the natural beauty around us at the peak and this one takes you to the absolute peak of Mont-Ham so nothing is obstructing the view (except other hikers). There’s a cross at the top and its quite the climb where they give you ropes to go up. Like I said, its a pretty awesome spot. We actually like to do secluded spots so this location was a little too popular for our preference but we still thought the feeling was fantastic.

Here’s a few snapshots of the trail!

The Start of the Trail on L’Intrepide

First lookout at Button Trail

At 2nd viewpoint – 482m altitude

The steep rocky paths

The steep slippery paths

3rd lookout

The final rope climb up

The breathtaking view

The cross

On the Panoramique Trail

And for a more 360 degrees view, here’s my Instagram video for it. Of course, if you want the updates more, just follow me there. I don’t post a ton but a lot of this hiking views and food stuff.

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#hiking #montham #landscape #scenery #canada #quebec #nature #view #easterntownships #estrie

A post shared by Kim (@tranquildreams) on Jun 3, 2018 at 11:16am PDT

This wraps up this hiking adventure!
A memorable and breathtaking one as well as a very crazy uphill trek!
We climbed up rocks and hopped down rocks and it almost felt like an obstacle course at some parts.

My Weekly Adventures #46!

 And we are back to another Weekly Adventures  segment! If things have gone as I wanted and you are seeing this post, I am currently away on vacation and have managed to keep up with posts. I’ll be home soon and will have another week of staycation so it will be fantastic to catch up on everything from personal projects, blog backlogs and Game Warp. 

Lets not get ahead of ourselves and look back at the second half of June. 

Pointe-Claire Half Marathon & Bakery Visit

My friend who runs all these half marathons I go to had his next one at Pointe Claire Village. It was by far the hottest weekend we had, hitting the high 30s Celsius in the late morning with the humidity. While I waited for him, I went looking for some much needed tea because I had an early 2am airport dropoff and found the bakery I went to the year before called La Mie Bio.

La Mie Bio is a cute and friendly bakery with a nice selection. There are lactose free and gluten free baked goods. I ended up taking these spelled croissants. They were really delicious. 

Magog Day Trip & Haul

We had our St. Jean Baptiste holiday (pretty much our provincial birthday). As it was on a Saturday, my office had Friday off so my husband and I headed out to the Eastern Townships. If you remember, we went to Festival des Vendanges last year and got a coupon book so we wanted to start checking out. Our first stop was Bleu Lavande, one of the first places we went to when we started dating. Above is our haul. Two of the sprays was a promotion free with our purchases. We bought the hand soap for my mother in law and kept the vase and soaps for us. It was rainy and the cooler weather meant the lavender hadn’t bloomed yet so onto the next stop.

Next stop was a free tasting of two chocolates at Chocolats Vanden Eynden. My husband tried two milk chocolates and I had these dark chocolate selections. 

We ended up picking up a few other chocolates. I even picked up a bag of dairy free chocolate chips for future baking projects (probably next week).

A few quick stops but still a lot of fun. Plus I had to get back for a dinner with my girl friends.

We had dinner at Zibo at Quartier Dix30 in Brossard. It was pretty good. We took a quick walk afterwards.

Family Hangout

Long weekend and birthday celebration for my husband’s nephew meant a family gathering. They wanted to head to our place so we hosted a quick afternoon and dinner gathering. There were hamburgers and hot dogs, some wine and beer for the adults along with soda for the kids. We had a passing downpour which was quite the adventure but the sun eventually came back.

I was off dessert duty so my sister in law got me some dark chocolate and everyone else had the ice cream cake as birthday cake. 

Overcooked Hype!

Following E3 and Summer low season for gaming here, Playstation had a lovely sale and we finally got Overcooked. It finally put our second controller to good use. Good, fun, hectic and awesome fun! 

Vacation!!!

Due to work deadlines, I had to start vacation midweek and only had a few days overlapping my husband’s vacation. However, as I said at the beginning of this post, we are on vacation at the moment and am heading home very soon. I’ll be posting up the travel posts next week once I sort through the pics. 

Cute Kitty Pic

Upcoming:

• TV Binges
• Travel/Vacation recap
• And more…Game Warp, gardening update..etc

La Face Cachee de la Pomme: Guided Visit and Ice Cider Tasting!

Summer is when all the activities start happening. Its why we’re having more little day trip and stuff. I guess that’s the best opening for going on this little guided visit and Ice Cider Tasting to La Face Cachee de la Pomme in the Magog/Eastern Townships area of the province of Quebec. This was redeeming a Groupon deal that I had bought last year but we never ended up going until now.

I love La Face Cachee de la Pomme ice ciders a lot. Its my must-buy at the Salon des Metiers d’Arts  during the Christmas season.  I talk about my haul for the last two years already. Its just great gifts and nice for Christmas and New Year’s parties. Now, I’m going far away from the main point of this!

The guided visit and ice cider tasting! Let’s go!

I have no pictures from the guided tour but it was extremely informative to get how it all works. I wasn’t sure if I was allowed and it was super cold in some of the places. I only thought about it on the way there but then it was a hot day so I was in shorts and tank top. I guess it was my fault. Still, the place is incredibly impressive. The process is really intricate.

The tasting took a good bit of time with four types of local cheeses to match with nine products. I’ll have a nice little gallery  under and talk about it later. It’ll be in the order we tasted.

Bulle de Neige Rose (Sparking Wine)

Neige Methode Traditionnelle (Crackling Ice Cider)

Neige Inspiration (Ice Cider)

Degel (Still Cider)

Neige Premiere (Ice Cider)

Neige Reserve (Ice Cider)

Neige Recolte d’hiver/Winter Harvest (Ice Cider)

Neige Noir (Quebec Amber)

Gin de Neige

Here’s hoping that these pictures are correct. They should be from memory but regardless, below is the list of them and some thoughts:

1. Bulle de Neige Rose: One of the few here that I haven’t tasted before. I’m not a huge fan usually of sparkling wine in general with a few exceptions. I do like rose wine so this had a fair shot of being something I’d like. However, it was okay. I found it a little dry for my taste but it wasn’t bothersome at all. I would drink it if it was offered and it can probably be an acquired taste.
2. Neige Methode Traditionnelle: This one was definitely better than the Rose. Its still something like a bubbly but it was a much smoother taste.
3. Neige Inspiration: If I remember correctly, the way it was described was a mix of the Winter Harvest and Autumn Harvest Ice Cider. Autumn Harvest seems to not exist anymore but I do remember that it was a product before but then I don’t trust my memory all that much. I do remember thinking that if there was a mix of the harvests, it would be an interesting combination and voila! Here we have it! Inspiration is a decent ice cider. I liked it quite a bit but then it has a little bit of a taste that I can’t grasp which I’m not sure how I enjoy past one glass.
4. Degel: My husband and I had Degel once when we went to the one super fancy restaurant we went to before and I remember not being so impressed with it but its either my tastes have changed or its been improved significantly because Degel was the surprising find! I liked this one a lot!
5. Neige Premiere: Now we’re heading into the ice ciders I’ve tasted. Neige Premiere is really good. One of my favorite ice ciders ever! But..that was before I tasted the next one…
6. Neige Reserve: I get Reserve and Premiere every single year because its just so great. Its absolutely awesome! The taste is the perfect balance between sweet and tart and the acidity from the apples.
7. Neige Winter Harvest: I remember when I tasted this one at the Salon before Christmas, that it was described in some way like a more exotic experience. This one has a very different taste. Probably more exotic and more fruity. I still like this one quite a bit.
8. Neige Noir: We’re heading into the hard liqueur bit here. I think the best way to describe Neige Noir is that its like a Cognac. Its why we love to mix it. According to our guide, the last year’s batch was like maple syrup whereas this year’s batch will have maple syrup and adding hints of hazelnuts. That has us excited because we love maple syrup and hazelnuts.  Its more pricey but its really worth a try.
9. Gin de Neige: Ending this off with the strongest of the products and also one I haven’t tasted before. Honestly, I’m not a Gin person mostly because it smells super strong and its not something I enjoy because it would just knock me out in a sip. Its not far from how I felt after I drank this. It burnt down my throat and then made me a little dizzy for a few moments.

Luckily, ending the tasting with Gin de Neige was too much for me, but it was also offset with some Ice Cider Sorbet.

This is a sweet idea on top of it tasting amazing. I believe this was with the Crackling Ice Cider. I’m going to try and make some of this.

That was the end of the tasting and tour! Time for some shopping and picture taking! The decor is something to admire also. The interior design is beautiful and actually a funny bit was that a former employee dropped by for a tasting or something with friends and they beelined for the washroom because apparently its super pretty so of course, we checked that out also. It is done really nice. Look at it!

Outside Decor and Plants

Haul & Gift Bag(with Groupon)

The gift bag is with the Groupon deal. It has a 375ml bottle of Neige Method Traditionnelle, Sample bottle of Gin de Neige, two wine glasses with the Neige logo along with a recipe for Sangria Verde (using Degel) and what I assume is the place that provides the cheese samples. I’m sure we’ll be hunting down some of the cheeses because my husband can’t stop talking about two of the four cheeses.

After that is the haul!

To wrap this up is our little haul. Its a little cheaper to buy from the main facilities of La Face Cachee de la Pomme than in the SAQ (our wine distribution stores). We ended up getting our faves and because we had a decent purchase, we got a little coupon for our next purchase.

Overall..this was really fun! I’ve always wanted to do wine routes and I figured this would be a nice way to see if my husband would like to in the future and he had a lot of fun also. I think maybe we might plan for a wine route next year or something.

That was the end of the visit and time to go home!

Have you gone on wine routes? Have you tasted ice cider?