Toronto & Fan Expo Canada 2019 Haul

On a much needed weekend getaway, Toronto and Fan Expo Canada 2019 was a really great time to say the least. Arriving in the early afternoon on Friday, we all had the day to just get into town and settle into the Airbnb. My to-do list had quite a few things including Vaughan Mills to check out a few stores and stock up on stuff on sale as well as hit T&T Supermarket for groceries like breakfast and snacks and stuff to bring home and of course, taking a stop at LCBO to see what there is new there to check out.

Uniqlo

Some very normal stuff here. I was at Uniqlo looking for T-Shirts and found one. I don’t know any of the manga that they were doing T-shirts for but I liked this one the most. Other than that, I was looking for tank tops and whatnot. Its a really good selection over here so I picked up some stuff that I think will be good.

Disney Store

While there was a lot of cool plushes at this Disney store, there was no doubt that Sebastian was the one that caught my eye mostly because it was the 30th anniversary new arrival that the sales rep said just got to the store that week. Plus, I already have a lonely Flounder sitting next to my bed and have been meaning to wrap up The Little Mermaid collection.

LCBO

We also make a stop at LCBO (or whichever provincial alcohol store) whenever we head out of town to try and find something that we can’t find here. One of the things is the VQA Niagara Peninsula always has more choices and then there’s a lot more selection for the ciders. We bought a few more than these three but over the time on the trip, it was consumed between us. I had the Queen Street 501 that I had already written about before on a Wine Recap and we also had the Molson Cider as well as a few flavors from the Crazy Uncle collection other than the root beer, an orange crush version, cream soda version and lemonade version. These three are what made it back: Smirnoff Sangria (red – which means I won’t be drinking it but might give it a sip to try), Thornbury Village Craft Apple Cider and a Riesling white wine.

FAN EXPO CANADA 2019

If you didn’t catch my Fan Expo recap, I didn’t have a lot of time to do much wandering and shopping during the event so really only went through the North Building and didn’t look at any of the retailers or artist alley in the South Building.

Black Fawn Distribution

I realized that Black Fawn Distribution was going to be there really close to when I decided to head out. Luckily, they were in the North building and we had time to do that on Saturday and they had the movies that I was looking for since they haven’t been to Fantasia in a year or two (I think). We did talk to them and they are hoping to be at Fantasia next year so crossing my fingers for that. Either way, they had a whole signing thing going on so I managed to sneak back during the afternoon between some lining up to get The Heretics signed but didn’t realize that on Sunday they also had signing for I’ll Take Your Dead so that one only has the director that signed. Looking forward to watching these as always since I’ve always liked Black Fawn films and appreciated what they’d do for indie horror films.

Myth Hawker Travelling Bookstore

What’s really impressive about Fan Expo is the amount of authors and books that are sold there. Some big publishers are there also. Its incredibly amazing which makes me want to slap myself a little for not trying to find more time to go through South Building but then, where we were had a lot of choices too and they had this one: Myth Hawker Travelling Bookstore which had a lot of books that looked and sounded really good when I read their synopsis. In the end, I went back to pick up this Asian sci-fi and fantasy anthology called Where the Stars Rise. The premise and such caught my eye right away so I’m excited to check this out after my string of reading commitments is done.

Aside from this haul, we did get a free poster of The Fanatic from the advanced screening. We also each got a free Fan Expo T-Shirt from past expos that were given out. I skipped sharing T&T Supermarket stuff as there’s nothing too extraordinary except that I bought moon cakes in anticipation for the upcoming Midautumn Festival and stocked up on some drinks and such.

That’s it for this Toronto/Fan Expo haul!!
Did you go to Fan Expo Canada?

My Weekly Adventures: Recharging

Welcome to this Weekly Adventures! I’ve been in recharging mode before the crazy April work month starts. I took a day trip with the husband and then just finished off a few days off this past week. Its been all about recharging (and burning some of my leftover vacation time from last year).

Ottawa Day Trip – Shopping Haul

Lush – Shampoo Bar

T&T

Disney Store

LCBO

I was super stressed at the beginning of the month and needed a day out of town as a little refresher. After some debate, we ended up doing something familiar to us and headed to Ottawa for a day trip. It was the normal rundown with a stop at Rideau Centre, a stroll through Byward Market and then a grocery run at T&T Supermarket. Above is a little haul that I had.

Sugar Marmalade & Herbal Jelly

I have been having these skin breakouts (hence the partial reason there has been no vids) and changed up my skincare routine and eventually gave up and went to Sugar Marmalade to have some herbal jelly which technically helps counteract the effects. I haven’t had it there but it was done pretty well.

A Beautiful Bouquet & Old Navy Haul

This last Saturday was the first day of a 5 day weekend and the first mini vacation in a while. I celebrated by buying some tulips at the florist to revive some springtime feeling in the house. Its a pretty nice mesh of colors. Its a nice burst of colors as well.

After that, the husband and I went for a little shopping time together which sparked by buying some cat snacks and accessories because its our darling cat’s 9th birthday. We did end up seeing that Old Navy had opened there and caught a decent sale. I managed to find some pants for half price and for a buy one get second one half price, a t-shirt. Mine was the Sonic the Hedgehog, which I think its so awesome.

A Date with my Mom

To kick off the time off, I had promised my mom a few weeks ago to take her to the buffet at the Casino de Montreal so that’s what we ended up doing for lunch. I’ve never been there at lunch so it was interesting to say the least. The selection was alright and the food was pretty decent as well. Although I couldn’t eat any of the desserts other than the meringue and biscotti, the last platter is my mom’s and she enjoyed it. There was pancotta, creme brulee, lemon cake roll and a sugar tartlet. We did end up going to play some slots and walk around a little before heading back home. It was a nice afternoon out to say the least.

Ultimate 2000s Blogathon Done

Finally, the last thing that happened was the almost 4 weeks of Ultimate 2000s Blogathon concluded officially yesterday. If you missed any entries or didn’t know it happened and wanted to see the reviews or check it out, you can find all the links to the entries HERE.

Cute Kitty Pic

That’s it for this Weekly Adventures!
I had a good time recharging and probably will have a few more days to recharge to fill in a week off combined.
It’ll be nice since April is going to be the hell month!

Ottawa 2018 Haul!

Hey everyone!

Sorry for the radio silence yesterday and well…today as well, I guess! Its been a bit of taking time off every week to sort out my own stuff. Usually, this weekend is when my friend has his Ottawa half marathon and I tag along to help him out. However, this year, I opted out of this duty. Instead, my husband and I both went down to Ottawa to hang out for a little today before his first race for the 5 km. Its humid and a little rainy and well, the sun has arrived back in Montreal but not sure how its doing in Ottawa since I’m home as I’m typing this.

The trip came with a lot of stuff on the to-do list. Yes, I shop with to-do lists if not, I might end up going crazy and just buy everything or sit there and be indecisiveness. Shopping with a goal is what my husband calls it. With that said, we had an idea of what places to hit at Rideau Center and Ottawa before heading back home. This is as timely as this post can get because we just unloaded and I took pictures and here we are!

Rideau Centre 

Eddie Bauer

Marathon weekend is always sales weekend for Eddie Bauer. Normally, Eddie Bauer’s stuff is expensive and usually rightfully so because its very durable especially for the hiking lovers like me and my husband. However, the only time we buy it is during sale time or else it would just be way out of budget. This year was a 40% off on everything in store. We both wanted to get new caps and new hiking pants. I got the blue capris and the blue cap and he got the beige pants that can be changed to shorts and the lighter color cap.

Disney Store

For those who don’t know, I collect Disney plushies. I had stopped the actual normal sized plushies for a while and was trying to get all the Animator series ones which are much more reasonable in storage. Regardless of that, when I see one that I like, I always tend to pick it up. I’m actually planning on keeping track of my collection over on Avenue of Daydreams some time this year. It would be fun to have an archive of the many things I collect and that seemed like a nice place to do it. Either way, Flower from Bambi was on sale so I picked it up. At the same time, I also saw little Piglet as well. I have a Tigger which is in the same style. These two were definitely coming home with me.

Squish Candy

Last year I had gone to Squish and got the Prosecco Bears and they were super delicious. They expanded their cocktail line and this time, my husband chose the Bourbon Cubes ans Sake Sakura and I chose the Wine O’Clock. I’m hoping that these will turn out to be equally delicious. They had a few other ones with sangria and such and those definitely has peaked my interest but for another time.

LCBO

Embracing the love of trying out VQA Ontario wines, LCBO was a must-go. I found a Riesling to try out eventually and my husband’s colleague had recommended the Big House Pinot Grigio and we saw it so we ended up picking up the bottle and he wanted to also get the can version. As for myself, I also saw another Cider from Brickworks Ciderhouse. I had tried another one earlier this year and was really impressed so having some high hopes for this one also.

Second Stop: T&T Supermarket

I mean, I’m pretty much thinking about groceries all the time so T&T Supermarket is always one of my stops. I don’t usually post about it but this time, we had some interesting finds. The herbal drinks from Hung Fook Tong had a new flavor. My husband picked out the Orange Ramune soda drink. I always get some dimsum, which I did but ended up eating on the trip back so not shown here. But there is also some pot stickers and vietnamese chicken lunch box and some BBQ Pork. The main goal this time was to get some sticky rice for the Dragonboat Festival. They had fresh ones which would be preferable if I had gone 2 weeks later but for now, I got the frozen in case I don’t end up going. However, the snacks we picked (and saw) were quite unique to say the least. Lay’s had these cucumber chips (and they also had lime flavor). I wonder if its an excuse to feel like you were being healthier when making that choice. Then we saw these Potato Wish brand which had the Steak and Red Wine Flavor and well, it looks like Ringolos but they are called Roller Coaster.

That’s it for the haul!
Nothing too special but a few unique finds!

Hope you are enjoying your weekend!

Toronto & EGLX Haul!

We sneaked off for a little work and play trip to Toronto to cover EGLX and explored a little. To be accurate, we were in the surrounding Toronto areas and stayed in Markham. And of course, we met up with Drew from Drew’s Movie Reviews, my darling Ultimate Decades Blogathon co-host like the past two years for celebration and fun friends hangout. This year, we decided to not go to Toronto Comicon and switched it to EGLX (Enthusiast Gaming Live Expo…something like that).

With that said, we picked up a few things here and there.

First stop: Pacific Mall

Glasses at Noble Optical

I have gotten my last three pairs of glasses here and my husband got his last pair here so when time to change, we got our new prescriptions and came to look for a new pair. He ended up with his 4th pair in a row of Hugo Boss glasses (never intended) and I had some struggles with this year’s style and ended up with a slightly bigger frame Ray-ban. Never thought I would get Ray-bans but they had a lovely matte finish and looked pretty good. I am still adapting to this new look but it happens all the time after a big purchase.

Noble Optical is pretty cool because they can get the glasses done the day of purchase which is useful for us because we come from out of town so we wanted it to adapt to new glasses over the weekend with our new prescriptions and everything worked out great.

The Best Shop

A little houseware shopping here as we picked up some kitchenware and a shower curtain. Nothing special just a little random purchases we found.

Egg Rolls

A staple of Toronto is picking up these sweet egg rolls usually as a little gift. They are delicious.

Location: Toronto Zoo
Toronto Zoo Cap

My husband loves caps. He gets a good few every year and the Toronto Zoo one had nice colors and the logo was really stylish. So it worked well for him.

Victoria’s Secret

I initially went into Victoria’s Secret to see what style of sports bras were available and whether they were on sale. To my surprise, the quality and design just wasn’t what I wanted. Walking out I saw these T-shirt bras that were so cute plus they had a 2 for $55 sale so I went for it, considering one is usually $43.

LCBO

It wouldn’t be a trip to Ontario without stopping at LCBO for some VQA wines which we can rarely find in SAQ stores. First one is the seasonal rose wine called Sibling Rivalry. The next is a new tasting white Moscato wine called Fresh Beginnings. My husband chose the Innis and Gunn ale beer and I chose a local apple cider drink called Queen Street 501 by Brickstreet Ciderhouse. The next wine recap will review these ones.

Location: EGLX 2018

Studio VTAS

The big day for the trip was definitely EGLX for myself since it is kind of work and play. We didn’t pick up any games however, we did have a goal to fill up a few walls in our house with art and we found two places that we just loved. I had never seen these two artists either so it was a lovely find. The first above is from Studio VTAS. Not sure what the name is exactly but you can find her on Instagram and Twitter. The silhouette ones are beautiful. She also has a fantastic Studio Ghibli collection. Lots of great art here.

Mariya Haponenko

The second artist created these original art called Crystal Monsters at least the one on the right is that. There is an obvious influence for its general design but its inspired by the galaxy and botany for artist Mariya Haponenko. They were slightly pricey but I do love to support indie artists and they were just too awesome to pass up. I love the design of the galaxy one but the botany ones have a really cool technique of pressing glass together or something like that. I’m not artist but the way she described it was very cool.

Location: Vaughan Mills
Disney Store

In theme with yesterday’s Moana review, I actually picked up Pua. There was a sweet deal on plushes at the Disney outlet there and I just couldn’t resist. On a side note, over on Avenue of Daydreams, I will be archiving my Disney plush collection. Still thinking of how to structure it but it will happen soon.

Location: Big Apple

Final stop whenever we go to Toronto by car is The Big Apple where they have a ton of pies and other apple baked goods. This, time, my husband wanted the brownies (not apples at all) but he said it tasted delicious. I got the Apple Strudel and we got an apple pie for my mother in law.

Thats it for this Toronto and EGLX haul!
Enjoy this post as I sort through 1000+ photos for the trip to share!