Adventures & What’s Up – December 2022 + 2022 Overview

Hello everyone! As we enter the last day of 2022, its time for the adventures post which is honestly more of a general update. We will get through that quickly, jump into the What’s Up which is a little more and wrap things up with the 2022 Wrap-Up! A quick rundown just in case you are here for only the Wrap-Up for 2022. If you are, just scroll all the way down and skip all of my other nonsense. Let’s go!

ADVENTURES & Wrap-Up (More Like Updates)

Retiring of Photo Challenge Posts

For those joining now, this blog started out as a photography blog. I started most of my blogging doing daily prompts and weekly photo challenges. However, the years have gone by and my blog is running very low on storage space and trying to not buy more space, I have decided to retire the photo challenge posts. If you want to follow my photography (and other creative outlet), its on Avenue of Daydreams.

If you go there now, I haven’t posted since October 2021 but it will be back in 2023. I will talk more about that in the 2023 Upcoming Plans post.

Baby Update

Triple V entered his 6 months in December. As he goes through some funky times with what we think might be the beginning stages of teething and some random babble, he’s definitely starting to recognize people more and realizing when he sees strangers aka family that we haven’t seen frequently and feeling either shy or scared. He’s starting to be stronger with more tummy time and baby gym activity time, a pretty routine sleep schedule even if he doesn’t sleep throughout the night very often. He even started with eating starter cereals and beginner purees.

Time sure flies by as we watch him grow up day by day and becoming curious with everything around him. It sure feels like those baby safety gates are going to be put up soon as well as getting on with babyproofing the house.

Christmas, Gifts & Boxing Day Haul

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Christmas celebrations happened before the main event this year as we couldn’t go for the evening festivities due to the early bedtime for Triple V so only dropped by for the afternoon at my in-laws. We celebrated with my mom on Christmas day for lunch as well. Still, it was pretty neat to see family since we’ve been keeping to ourselves since the pandemic started then my pregnancy in pandemic times so this year, while we were cautious, we still wanted to keep in our family bubble since Triple V isn’t vaccinated yet.

There’s no surprise that Triple V was the main winner in this department with new clothes from the grandparents and a generous collective gift of a jumperoo. On our front, we got the reasonable gift of some French storybooks since we have an abundance of English ones handed down from me. He also got a new walker from his grand aunt. On my front, I truly felt like a mom as all my gifts are very grown-up from my mom gifting me noodles (it was a joke so that we could fluff up the Christmas tree to look like it had more gifts to have better pictures) and a Christmas tablecloth (which I actually don’t have one considering all the Christmas decorations we have) and a white wine (which is currently in storage because I’m not really drinking yet since I’m still breastfeeding).

Boxing Day this year, much like Black Friday, was a huge disappointment. There wasn’t any incredibly good deals. We basically only picked up things that we needed and had some type of discount. As for other things, we kept those expenses at a minimum. We didn’t actually do any day off shopping since we only went to the grocery store to restock.

• Michael’s: Picture Collage Frames *3 (for the new family/baby photos)
• Roots: Baby Clothes (for Triple V and gifts)
• Yves Rocher: Skincare products
• Steam: Cris Tales, Emily is Away <3, Far From Noise, Oure
• Playstation: Just Shapes & Beats
• Amazon (caught the tail end of the Boxing Day sale): Sippy Cup, Bodyweight Scale, Cat Water Fountain, Diapers
• Google Play Pass (super sweet deal for first month free and 3 months after that at 69 cents/month)
  

WHAT’S UP

BOOKS

• The Very Best Christmas Present
• Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer
• Alvin and the Chipmunks: Merry Christmas Mr. Caroll!
• Mr. Snow
• Mr. Silly
• A Grouch’s Christmas
• Mr. Sneeze

Currently reading: City of Ember

Surprising that its all children’s books, right? Of course not! That’s all my reading time is nowadays. As you can see that I’m trying to get back into some normal reading as I did start City of Ember.

MOVIES

• The Blob (1988)
• Highwaymen (2004)
• Dazed and Confused (1993)
• Warriors of Future (2022 Review)
• The Sparring Partner (2022 Review)
• Big Brother (2018 rewatch, Review)
• John Wick: Chapter 2 (2017 rewatch, Review)
• Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio (2022)
• It Takes Two (1995 rewatch)
• Into the Deep: The Submarine Murder Case (2020)
• Pulse (2006 rewatch)
• I Believe In Santa (2022)
• Scrooge: A Christmas Carol (2022)
• How the Grinch Stole Christmas! (1966 rewatch, Review)
• Christmas With You (2022)
• The Christmas Chronicles (2018 rewatch, Review)
• A Charlie Brown Christmas (1965 rewatch, Review)
• The Small One (1978 rewatch, Review)
• Mickey’s Christmas Carol (1983 rewatch, Review)
• The Polar Express (2004 rewatch, Review)
• Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (2022, Review)

An absolutely fantastic movie viewing month. Not so much a great writing month as writing reviews seem to be getting harder and harder or its just I’m picking the wrong movies. A lot of rewatches this month as well. I’ve been trying to keep on top of the Netflix new releases so those reviews will go out even if its in 2023. However, I was so excited after watching Glass Onion that you can already check out my thoughts on that.

TV

• Snack vs. Chef
• Crime Scene: The Texas Killing Fields (Limited series)
• Wednesday (Season 1, 2022 rewatch)
• Too Hot To Handle (Season 4)
• Cook At All Costs (Season 1)
• Dance Monsters (Season 1)
• Emily in Paris (Season 3)
• Line Walker (使徒行者, 2014)

Currently watching: Meteor Garden (rewatch), The Circle S5

Trash TV, cooking and reality shows seems to be the highlight of December. However, Dance Monsters is a super fun show that just got its finale right at the end of December. Snack vs. Chef is pretty fun as cooks replicate popular snacks and candy bars while Cook At All Costs was pretty fun as well. On the contrary, Emily in Paris felt like a lot of the same which is still fun but its getting a little repetitive. If they get a Season 4, maybe the finale of the 3rd will change the dynamic. We continued with watching the latest Crime Scene which looked at The Texas Killing Fields were was a pretty good documentary. These limited series always uses a case to cast light on a bigger societal problem. Finally, as of today, I finished Line Walker which is Hong Kong series from 2014 which I of course missed since I haven’t watched HK series in many many years. This one is seriously really awesome ( you will see how awesome in the recap before).

I’m taking a little break from Chinese variety shows right now as I started too many and need to sort out which I want to continue watching.

GAMES

• Tricky Towers (Single Player Trials) – in progress
• Lake (2021, Review)
• Doors: Awakening (2019)
• Pinball FX

Currently playing: The Gunk, Doors: Origins

I’m slowly getting back to some gaming here and there. While my PC died, I was into playing Tricky Towers (Single Players Trials) and I’m still working on that but its fairly sporadic so there’s not really an end to that one, much like Pinball FX which doesn’t have an end either.

Putting the Google Play Pass to work, I finished playing Doors: Awakening and working through all the Doors games on mobile which I had played before but they were only partially free and charged money for the second half of the levels. I don’t like that mobile game business model so I never entertain it. So now, the situation is a little different with the Play Pass. Its a fun puzzle game

Finally, I played Lake which is something of a postal worker simulator with story and narrative choices. Its honestly a hidden gem since it blends in a lot of relaxing moments and dives into a pretty fun small town story. I did start The Gunk and is probably about halfway through (based on my playtime and the How Long To Beat average) but its a really good one. There’s some exploration and resources and crafting and adventure. I’ll talk more about it after I’ve finished, possibly in a review.

2022 WRAP-UP

Much like last year, we are foregoing the blog site statistics. Let’s face it, its not going to look pretty with things going back to normal, the numbers so a great drop before steadying again and I never really did it for the numbers. Plus, life changes with a newborn in mid-June did throw off the rhythm even more than when I was going through my pregnancy and choosing sleeping earlier over stressing out over blogging at unreasonable hours. The posting rhythm is coming back slowly but I’m pretty sure it will never be where it used to be a few years ago.

With that said, lets look at some other numbers:

• TOTAL FILMS WATCHED: 213 films (2 less than last year only!)
  • 34 rewatches
  • 41 short films
• TOTAL BOOKS READ: 17 books (majority of it are children’s books)
• TOTAL TV SERIES BINGED: 92 seasons binged (3 rewatches)
  • Japan: 1
  • Hong Kong: 1
  • Taiwanese: 2
  • Korean: 3
  • Documentary: 12
  • Mainland China: 13
  • Chinese Variety Shows: 14
  • American Reality Shows: 20
  • American: 26

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Top 10 First Time Watches

1. Knives Out
2. Deep Rising
3. Turning Red
4. Time
5. Profile
6. Underwater
7. Tokyo Godfathers
8. MexZombies
9. Waitress
10. Love and Leashes

Top 10 TV Seasons

1. Light The Night
2. The Silent Sea
3. Wednesday (Season 1)
4. Line Walker
5. All of Us Are Dead
6. Who Rules The World
7. Shining For One Thing
8. Mr. Bad
9. Boo, Bitch (Limited Series)
10. Mom, Don’t Do That

Overall, it was surprisingly steady in terms of numbers. Last year I didn’t do the specific breakdowns so not sure whether short film to full length ration was similar. Books increased a lot mostly because I read tiny short children’s books but then I did read a Dr. Seuss compilation books and that’s 13 stories as 1 book entry. I’m not here to get all picky with the numbers. I didn’t expect anything to be even close to these numbers so that’s already shocking enough for me.

A quick look at last year’s plans/goals:

1. Goodreads Reading Challenge: 15 books surpassed at 17 (even if I did cheat a little with children’s books)
2. Podcast launch: Did not happen (will address that soon)
3. Partial Revival of Disney and Studio Ghibli project: Mostly did not happen, only one post for Porco Rosso went up
4. Personal Goals: Eat healthier is slowly getting there, Did not stream at all, 98% done for nursery and 90% done for office (just some filing left to do)

In the foreseeable future, streaming services will be my best friend and I will be focusing on new releases on Netflix, Shudder and Amazon Prime with Netflix being the main priority. However, these are considered upcoming plans and I will talk about more of that tomorrow!

Remember to head back for the Upcoming Plans 2023 tomorrow!
Happy New Year’s Eve!!

My December 2021 Adventures + Overview of the Year

After an entire year of pandemic (and ongoing from the previous year), we’ve finally reached the end of 2021. Its a tad wild and yet 2021 went by incredibly fast despite all the sitting at home, watching TV, playing games, and finding other ways from our own homes to connect with friends. Of course, the blog is not about that and while here took a little slowdown in the last few months mostly for personal IRL reasons, I still think it was very much needed. With that said, a little look at some simple activities in December. We will end with an overview of 2021: some simple numbers, and top 10 lists. You know, this is the normal deal on the last day of the year.

Christmas Decorations

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Christmas in Old Montreal

My Christmas Tree

Beyond Monet

Before things started getting worse in Montreal, we managed to make it to the Beyond Monet exhibit. Monet art is something that means a lot to me as art is something is what reminds me of my childhood with my father. With that said, this exhibit was quite the show as its a 360 wall of Monet art that flips through the details of each collection while pairing it with classical music (in majority, there was some opera as well).

OVERVIEW OF 2021

Its the end of 2021 and with that, its time for some quick numbers! First of all, we are dropping blogging statistics this year because its really not something that was top on my list this year. However, let’s focus back on the content that was consumed.

• Total films watched: 215 movies
• Total books read: 9 books
• Total TV series binged: 69 seasons

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Top 10 First Time Watches

1. Hand Rolled Cigarette
2. Vicious Fun
3. Dreams On Fire
4. The Final Girls
5. Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings
6. Inglourious Basterds
7. Better Days
8. The Dressmaker
9. Hello! Tapir
10. Beyond The Infinite Two Minutes

Top 10 TV series

1. Flourish in Time
2. Baking Impossible
3. Our Secret
4. Squid Game
5. Moonlight
6. Lost In Space (Season 1-3)
7. Love Crossed
8. A Murderous Affair in Horizon Tower
9. Use For Our Talent
10. Sweet Home

Overall, 2021 was a decrease in content in general for film watching in general. The actually movie watching for 2021 releases was all focused on what was accessible on streaming services or online. Some of which is still waiting to be written up. Less posts written, less movies watched, a new podcast (which is currently in hiatus for rebuild), more TV watching (I believe since I didn’t track it last year), an unbelievable backlog of movies and TV series to write up reviews and a whole lot less books read is where I’m at as we approach this year-end. However, its been a crazy year in real life so I think all things aside, its amazing that things are still running the way it is.

Drop by tomorrow to see the 2022 upcoming plans post!
There’s some little changes and announcements!

Music Obsessions – December 2021 (& Spotify Wrapped)

The last Music Obsessions of 2021 is here as we dive into December’s edition. Usually I put in some holiday stuff but this year, with my 2021 use of Spotify, I had something fun to share with their Spotify Wrapped for 2021. I’ll still had a few other music from the past month for fun but I will do a little recap of some music that was surprisingly playing a lot in my playlist.

Let’s go!

陪你去流浪 Accompany You To Wander – Joker Xue 薛之謙

What is there to say about this one? I actually think this song is just really good. Joker Xue is really talented and I’ve shared quite a few of his songs before. His voice is really soothing especially when he is singing these slow love ballads. Not to mention the whole music video is nicely done with the snowscape and all.

Do You Know Me – 24 Herbs 廿四味

My friend is streaming Sleeping Dogs right now on Twitch and it made me realize that 24Herbs did songs for the soundtrack. Its how I landed on this song. I used to listen to a bit of their songs before which was mostly duets with Sammi Cheng but this one is pretty good and actually got to dive a little into the hip hop group themselves which actually has two members from LMF, a Hong Kong Cantonese hip hop group which basically was the first (or one of the first) to do something where rap was their main genre focus.

兩個你Double You – G.E.M.鄧紫棋

This song is a theme song for a Hong Kong TV series that I haven’t seen but I’m sure its just airing recently or airing soon but G.E.M. is a singer that has been on my radar this past year or two. She has a really powerful voice and this song sounds pretty good as well.

Spotify Wrapped Overview

Below is the Spotify Wrapped for this year. I never knew this stuff was done, especially since its just the beginning of December so feels a little early. I didn’t dive into all the top songs or stuff but just focused on the two mentioned here, the most played song and the most played song from my top artist. The other stuff, you can enjoy and have fun. I use Spotify mostly for Chinese music and I have multiple playlists which I only focus mostly on one which is why its very unified to one thing. Its made me think about merging some of the different music together on Spotify. I am new to it just this year so still figuring out what works best.

Top Song: 告白氣球 Love Confession – Jay Chou 周杰倫

Its not too odd to think this one is my top song considering its also a pretty top song on Youtube for Jay Chou and had quite some reach. Plus, it is a really good song. Its lighthearted and romantic and really has the Jay Chou style to it while still having an upbeat vibe to the whole thing.

到底要怎麼樣 – 小鬼王琳凯 Lil Ghost

I’m not going to lie that Lil Ghost being my top artist was a little odd. I do have a few songs from him and he did become quite a frequent artist that I would listen to because the past year or two has just been him being involved in a bunch of variety shows which highlighted a lot of his own music after Nine Percent disbanded making him probably one of the more music focused celebrity that came out of all the guys there since a lot either vanished or just shifted into the TV drama path. His songs are also really fun and upbeat, positively happy to listen to overall.

That’s it for this Music Obsessions!
Do you use Spotify? What did your Spotify Wrapped look like?

My November Adventures 2021!

Wow! November is already done! Some things wrapped up and the final film festival coverage wrapped up for this year already. A lot of little preparations went up and some more thinking started for next year’s plans. Basically a month with a few things that are too early to talk about but still a few overviews to work on.

Halloween Marathon Extended Done!

Last month, I made the executive decision to extend the Halloween marathon. Suffice to say that the big part of it was a fail however, it did give it a chance to align with the final film festival coverage of the year which had a few horror titles to add in. With that said, the next marathon is just around the corner so let’s hope that it goes better than this one.

Still, for those interested in the Halloween horror marathon list, its been updated on the menu already right HERE.

Blood In The Snow Film Festival

Blood in the Snow Film Festival was the final film festival coverage for us. There’s nothing else after this for the rest of the year as we head into the holidays and a lot of other housekeeping and year-end round-ups start up. The remote coverage for their on location film festival portion was pretty nice. I covered all the full-length features and due to time constraints didn’t get around to any of the short films. If you checked out the Halloween marathon link above than its essentially the same in part. However here are the films covered from my favorite to the least enjoyable:

• Vicious Fun
• The Chamber of Terror
• The Family
• Motherly
• Woodland Grey
• Peppergrass
• Flee The Light
• Funhouse

Restaurant: 1930 Shanghai

After craving some soup-filled dumplings aka Xiao Long Bao for an entire month, I finally got to go try out this restaurant on location. I’ve only had them last year takeout. It was still great but the travel time does take away from the fresh hot element. I forgot to take pictures of the pan-fried dumplings but they were all pretty good. I do think that the pan-fried combination of chicken and cabbage wasn’t too great and the juicy sweet pork dumplings were a tad on the too sweet side and preferred the classic soup-filled dumplings and the pan-fried leek, pork and shrimp ones. These two were very delicious.

Announcement: Holidays Marathon

December is here and with that the holidays marathon. A little change this year due to the simple lack of material tp cover at the current moment that I am interested in and some other year end stuff to deal with so will probably start the 10th which gives it two weeks and possibly run further into before new year’s if there is suddenly more films to cover.

The Coming Plans Update (follow-up from last month…)

Last month, I had mentioned the possibility of talking more about my current predicament that is causing the whole lower frequency in posting, etc. However, after some thought, I wanted to talk about for the new year with my new plans. Give it another month to settle down and have some better routine before I talk about it. However, with that said, this so-called new routine is breaking in fairly well. It doesn’t reflect too much in the posting as I am still getting back into the groove but its definitely looking up. Either way, we will see in the coming month. But boy do I have some news for the New Year. Since let’s face it, December round-up is mostly year-end overview things and holiday stuff.

That’s it for the November adventures!
Not exactly any adventures to talk about but its kind of nice to get some stuff out of the way.
How has your November been?

Happy New Year: 2019 in Review!

2019 is finally wrapped up. It was an overall okay year. Some good, some bad, some average stuff happened. I made some decisions about personal changes in habits and other general life things that I want to do in 2020 for my own sanity and sake. However, we’re all about being positive here and the blog has definitely kept me through a lot of that even if its been so long and some months are much busier than I expect.

Before I get to housekeeping the blog and 2020 plans (coming up in a later post), which should last a good few days, its time to take a moment to reflect on the blog going-ons in 2019 and take a quick look at some stats, faves, and of course successes.

2019 in Review

2019 was something of a crazy year! I covered a few film festivals: some first time ones and then watched a reviewed a ton of movies. The views had some incredibly huge growths and then also had some very low days. At so many years on, stats really is just a number but does make me wonder what makes it grow sometimes. A look at some general stats without digging too deep.

• Total views: 57,244 (decrease from the previous year but then 2018 was the best year in blogging for me)
• Top 5 countries reading
  • United States
  • India
  • Hong Kong SAR
  • Canada
  • United Kingdom
• Top 5 posts written in 2019
  • TV Binge: Rush to the Dead Summer
  • TV Binge: Who’s The Murderer (Season 4)
  • TV Binge: The Inn 2 (Season 2)
  • Restaurant: Yunnan Rice Noodles
  • Announcement: Ultimate 2000s Blogathon

Definitely some interesting stats as I never realized that my TV Binges, especially for Chinese dramas and variety shows did so well. I’m just wondering who is reading them as they are definitely a slow accumulation over time. I do those mostly for my own enjoyment and not thinking that many people will read it.

2019 also has some other challenges and overviews in films and Goodreads Reading Challenges.

Goodreads Reading Challenge

• Goodreads Reading Challenge was increased from the beginning of the year halfway, which resulted in my failing to reach the goal. I did log a book collection which was 4 books considered as 1 read. Technically I reached the goal, right? The total books read was 27 books! According to the My Year in Books 2019 from Goodreads.
  • I read 7024 pages over 27 books
  • Shortest book: The Princess and the Peacock
  • Longest book: Obsidio
  • My favorite books read in 2019 (not necessarily 2019 releases)
    • A Series of Unfortunately Events Collection: Book 10-13
    • The Dragon Head of Hong Kong: The Ava Lee Prequel
    • Obsidio
    • Always and Forever, Lara Jean
    • Hope
    • Proximity

In the reading department, I actually skewed away from a lot of what I had intended on reading at the beginning of the year probably when I did the 2019 plans. However, I did discover quite a few good reads and caught up with some reads sitting around that was way overdue.

Movies & Letterboxd

While Letterboxd’s Year in Review hasn’t come out yet, I’m going to start a little look over with the help of its stats to see how the movie watching thing was. Do note that my viewings were bloated by short film viewings but also lost some of the films that were premieres at film festivals and wasn’t listed yet but most likely forgot to go back and add them back later on.

• Total movies watched: 249
• Out of 249:
  • 80 films were from 2019
  • 5 Netflix Stand-up Comedy Specials
  • 3 Theatre viewings
  • 29 short films
  • 42 rewatches (including Harry Potter franchise, Evil Dead franchise)
• Favorite 2019 movies (in no particular order – not surprisingly all festival viewings)
  • White Snake
  • Daniel Isn’t Real
  • Dead Dicks
  • Riot Girls
  • Paradise Hills
• Favorite non-2019 movies (in no particular order)
  • Snowpiercer
  • Us and Them
  • The Hate U Give
  • Murder on the Orient Express
  • Anna and the Apocalypse

TV Binging in Review

Last thing to look at before we wrap up this much longer than expected post (causing me to change the original structure) – TV! Suffice to say that I watched a lot of Chinese dramas and variety shows. Much more than the English stuff. Its been a nice change in pace overall and there’s some really nice Chinese dramas out there, which are also getting acquired by Netflix or released as Netflix series. As I’m a ton of TV binges behind, this is where the What’s Up segment is going to help a ton in compiling this portion (although I have a clear idea of my faves already).

Top 5 TV Seasons of 2019

• Le Coup de Foudre
• Go Go Squid!
• The King’s Avatar
• River Flows To You
• Put Your Head On My Shoulder

Honorable Mention: Love, Death + Robots; Umbrella Academy; The Brightest Star in the Sky

Overall, 2019 was a pretty decent year. I had some nice little fun successes like getting a few festival media accreditation and some rather fun little screener links offered for review. Its been rather busy starting from Montreal Comiccon in July then jumping straight to Fantasia International Film Festival, followed by a first time accreditation for Toronto After Dark Film Festival covering short films, then went on to a first time press pass for Festival du Nouveau Cinema and then finally a remote coverage for Blood in the Snow Film Festival. There was a lot of fun little movie discoveries as well as an appreciation for short films. A lot of originally planned things (from what I remembered) wasn’t all that achieved but at the same time, it went relatively smoothly.

That’s it for this 2019 in Review!
We’ll be planning out 2020 later today (or maybe tomorrow).

Restaurant: ChuChai (Montreal, Canada)

A random Friday evening outing and a sudden change of plans due to the original spontaneous restaurant visit my friend and I chose had a huge line-up lead us to go check out ChuChai, or according to my friend who had gone a few times before a few years back, a more hip and lounge version of it. I didn’t take any pictures of the decor but you can check out their site HERE.

ChuChai is a Thai restaurant with vegetarian and vegan foods, although to me, I think the menu is pretty much vegan as a lot of stuff worked for me. I’ve never been to a vegan restaurant before and its a nice feeling to know that I can eat everything on the menu even with my lactose intolerance. Of course, with any benefit you get, there is always a premium to be paid for the atmosphere and the vegan angle so just something to think about, for myself, it was pretty much expected.

ChuChai

Appetizers/Tapas

Spring Rolls (1pc – $8)

I’m a huge fan of Spring Rolls. I actually had learned how to do them from my best friend before but then its been years since I’ve done these. However, I always prefer them over the deep fried versions. ChuChai does a good one. It has a nice bite and its wrapped really firmly. The peanut sauce has a little spicy kick to it that really compliments the roll well. The roll does seem to also be a bigger piece than other restaurants.

Main Meal

Royal Pad Thai

Vegan shrimp and vegan duck makes its appearance in this dish. Its been a while since I’ve had any vegetarian or vegan versions of anything. I do think that the vegan duck is better than the vegan shrimp in terms of how genuine in texture. But then, it was a decent taste so seeing as I don’t really go to vegan restaurant to go eat meat and have the meat taste because in my mind, its not about that. The Royal Pad Thai was alright. The noodles were done well and it wasn’t too much sauce and just right. Its a Pad Thai and it tasted like one.

Vegan Duck with Spinach

My friend took the Vegan Duck with Spinach and ordered a bowl of steamed rice to go with it. I had a little taste of it. The vegan duck is really great. The texture and the taste was pretty good. The spinach is also decent. My only deal, also a preference issue, was that the dish itself was really salty. Of course, with a bowl of rice, this might just work really well.

A little something aside from my personal preference is that the presentation for all of the dishes (appetizers, main meals & desserts) were done really well and matched the atmosphere and class that the restaurant itself presented itself as.

Dessert

Fried Banana with Maple Syrup

The dessert menu has a lot of nice little things to it that I would consider trying out. Of course, the one with the most representation is Fried Bananas with Maple Syrup. It tastes the asian dessert and adds a little Canadian twist to it. To be honest, the fried bananas were fantastic. Probably the best part of this entire meal.

Overall…

ChuChai is a decent restaurant. It targets a certain audience that appreciates a nice atmosphere and ambiance and raises the level of how we’d normally view Asian cuisine in general, in this case, Thai food and then giving it a nice little twist of vegetarian and vegan specialty. I won’t say its a challenge to make vegetarian food tasty because its doable and I’ve been to other restaurants that have done it well but vegan food has the impression (from those that haven’t had it before or less frequently) of being a lot of healthy and not so good food so its nice to see restaurants such of these pop up where it not only benefits those with allergies (like myself) but also provide a place to enjoy some good food. In terms of food and creativity and ambiance, ChuChai is a good choice. For my own standards, I think the food is still fairly basic and for that, the premium paid for the vegan angle is a bit on the higher side. If you were to ask whether I’d go back. Maybe, mostly to try out some of the other desserts and some of the tapas/appetizers/soup (they have a lemongrass one which caught my eye).

Additional discussion: The question (which I’m not vegan so don’t know how to answer): would it matter so much to someone who is permanently converted to vegan or is vegan in their eating habits from the start whether there is vegan meat on the menu? Or is it more for the normal person going in for a vegan experience to have an easier point of entry into this type of eating lifestyle?

Wine Recap – February 2019

With colds plaguing me yet again this month, I took it a little easier on the whole drinking front so that it was mostly for relaxation when I needed it and not coughing my lungs out or sniffling away. However, let me just say in advance that the three choices here were all quite decent wins.

Let’s check it out!

Bulles de Nuit Mimosa

Producer: Bulles de Nuit
Alcohol Content: 6.9%
Location: Montreal, Canada

After trying the other three varieties: Original, Rose and Pinot Grigio, Mimosa was the last one to try out. I don’t usually drink a lot of mimosas. Perhaps only one or two times before. Its a nice light drink and its usually fruity in my memory. The mimosa for Bulles de Nuit tasted a bit like spiked Crush. Its not a bad thing but I still think the other three products are much more to my taste.

Chateau Ste Michelle Riesling 2017

Producer: Ste Michelle Wine Estates
Alcohol Content: 12%
Location: Columbia Valley, Washington, USA
Taste Tag: Fruity and Sweet

A huge thanks to John Rieber for recommending this wine to me in the last wine recap.

Chateau Ste Michelle Riesling is quite accurate in their category. Being a big fan of riesling usually, this wine is fruity and sweet. There’s a lot to love about it from the way it tastes to the undertones. Its very smooth. There’s a bit of acidity but its balanced really well. I’d say the last riesling I had that had a similar texture and taste would be Kung Fu Girl. I’m not sure if I’ve ever talked about that one in any of the recaps.

Peter Lehmann Layers

Producer: Peter Lehmann Wines
Alcohol Content: 11.5%
Location: Australia
Taste Tag: Delicate and Light

I found this wine while browsing the sales on the SAQ site. Its unique because it has 4 varieties in one wine and three of them, I like quite a lot and one I haven’t tried any before so have no opinion on it. Its hard to find moscato in general but the few that I’ve really loved have been from Australia. With that said, this one gave me quite a bit of hope and I’m glad to say that this is one of those spontaneous purposes that turned out to be a pleasant experience. This one worked on many levels. Its a nice blend and a unique experience. If you haven’t tried it before, its worth giving it a chance.

That’s it for this wine recap!
I have to say that the two white wines are pretty good.

What have you been drinking?

Overview of 2018 & What’s Happening in 2019!

Welcome to the annual overview post. I didn’t get a chance to get to it yesterday so I’m doing a quick one with the look forward to 2019. We could do two posts but I’m honestly not really in the mood to overload anyone with these posts. Its more of a reminder of what I’ve achieved in 2018 and new or adjusted plans to work with for 2019!

OVERVIEW OF 2018

2018 was a rough year in general. I had some PC issues in the beginning of the year which caused a whole lot of crazy as I had to get another PC built which put a lot of stuff behind. We had some other personal issues that caused a lot of worries and issues. However, 2018 is over now and as I look back, there were some really nice achievements and that is what matters. I started Tranquil Dreams to focus on the positives in the first place so that is what we’re going to do right now.

How about some stats to start? I haven’t done those in a while, it feels like at least.

Total Posts in 2018: 374 posts
Total Views: 69,450
Top 5 Countries: USA, India, Canada, UK & Hong Kong SAR
Top 5 posts published in 2018

• TV Series Index
• TV Binge: Ultimate Beastmaster (Season 2, 2017)
• Fantasia Festival: Under the Silver Lake (2018)
• Top 15 Anticipated Movies of 2018
• TV Binge; Zumbo’s Just Desserts 

And then for some achievements:

• Goodreads Challenge – 30 Books
• Fantasia Festival coverage of 20 films
• Festival du Nouveau Cinema coverage of 9 films
• Blood in the Snow Festival – remote coverage of 8 films
• Montreal Comiccon coverage for Game Warp Podcast
• Ultimate Decades Blogathon co-hosted with Drew’s Movie Reviews
• Started up and co-host Movies and Tea Podcast with Elwood
• Set Up the Facebook page for Tranquil Dreams
• What’s Up segment on Youtube
• Set Up a Weibo social media account

What to Expect in 2019!

2019 is here! A lot was done last year when I look back so I’m hoping to keep up and polish some social media skills and hopefully promote the blog a little better. Its all about working on the content right now. A lot of my issues this past year when I look back is procrastination and that sprouted from lack of organization or following through with tentative schedules and just not having the motivation from all the garbage that life threw at me. Then I added on a few segments as well (probably should of mentioned in the above section).

Resolutions: Less Procrastination (because none would be impossible) & Better Organization

BOOKS

• Goodreads Challenge: 40 Books (might increase to 50 depending on what happens)
• More focus on Graphic Novels and Comics
• Getting back to reading Classics
• Other TBR books that I own, outstanding book requests and blog tours

MOVIES & TV

• What stays the same: Most movies and TV from Netflix and rentals and Web series on Youtube as well as film festival coverages
• Adding in focus on Chinese language Asian movies and TV series (could be China, Hong Kong SAR, Taiwan, Singapore)

FOOD & DINING

• Battle of Ingredients, Goodfood recap, Food Festivals and Restaurants
• Baking Through Disney revival (whether its Disney reviews and conceptualizing baking projects)

WEEKLY/MONTHLY SEGMENTS

• Music Obsessions (first weekend of each month)
• Wine Recap (10th of each month)
• Weekly Adventures (15th and 30/31 of each month)
• What’s Up (everyday Wednesday – possibly back to video format)
• Sunday Lists (biweekly to monthly frequency)

The main shift this year is the focus on Chinese language Movies, TV and possibly books since I’ve been meaning to get back to some Chinese reading. I’ve felt like a part of what started off a lot of my interests in the first place so when I moved into blogging and gave up a lot of it, its been always something that I’ve been trying to get back to. Its a risky move because no one really reads those posts but this space is about my interests and I do want to share those interests with you especially since a lot of it is now moved to more modern platforms like Netflix and Youtube having access.

Other than that, after some thought, I’m also heading back to more food-oriented content. It might be a slow start but I have changed my approach on the Baking Through Disney project and will start on reviewing Disney films while figuring out how to approach the design for baking. That way the project doesn’t get held up and ends up falling apart again.

As for What’s Up, as I’ve mentioned before, will end up going back to a video and written format. Both formats are fun to do so depending on time, I will work on trying to have both of them  paired up.

Its kind of long but quite a bit of the same going on!
A lot of the repeat for those new to the blog to see where you can navigate.

2017 in Review!

2017 is only a few hours away from midnight! I’ve waited all day to think about how to put this together. We’re looking back at 2017 and thinking back, this year has been a really tough one. While the stats for Tranquil Dreams have been dropping slightly in the last two years, I don’t mind so much because I’m actually happy with the content I put out because I put a lot more time and effort in everything. This year has had a lot of fun stuff of course, the tough parts all really go to the personal life part being difficult, in particular the biggest aspect being that my health wasn’t great with getting hit with one infection after the next. Hopefully 2018 will bring better times. At least I have things I’ll talk about tomorrow that I hope for 2018 to accomplish that might add some balance. The wonderful balance that we all try to strive for when juggling blogging and real life.

Taking a look at the dropping 2017 stats, I’m still fairly  happy with it.

Views: 53, 757
Followers: 2419 (went up 300 followers exactly..you all rock)
Top 5 countries: USA, Indie, Canada, UK & Australia
348 posts published (excluding this one)

Another fun fact is that Facebook, Pinterest and Twitter actually brought in more readers this year. I’m really happy to see that because hey, I’ve been working hard on social media and especially on the Twitter front. I can’t say that I’m a pro by any means but I’m trying really hard to figure it out a little more.

According to Letterboxd, I watched 137 movies. Most of them new viewings with a few exceptions that were repeats. To be fair, I might not have logged it but a few of my faves and were on Netflix were watched on repeat on the tougher days.

My top 10 movies watched (not only 2017 releases in no particular order):

• Mr. Right
• Singin’ In the Rain
• The Edge of Seventeen
• The Vampire Cleanup Department
• Better Watch Out
• A Taxi Driver
• Blue Jay
• The Autopsy of Jane Doe
• Kong: Skull Island
• Fast Convoy

However, I did fall short technically of my Goodreads Challenge although two of my selection were three book packs so I should have surpassed the goal. However, I’ll put some thought in how many books I’ll set for next year. In terms of book reviews, this year I took on some book tours from Shannon from Reads and Reels who has her book tour gig. If you are an aspiring author and need some promotion, go seek her out for some book tours. She’s offered up some great reads in the past year. If not, you should still check out her blog for some fantastic content on both book and movie reviews.

2017 also saw the official start of a TV Binge index since I’m enjoying having more TV binge posts. Diving back into more TV series has been a refreshing turn in events that has been a fantastic journey. I have a few series that I’m looking to catch up on next year.

Its been a great 2017 despite personal issues that has hindered some blogging motivation but overall, I’m happy with how things are going. Sure, some things like the Classics and the Baking Through Disney hit a snag but next year, you’ll see that I have some rather concrete plans for them. I’ll talk about that tomorrow.

Its almost midnight here and I’ve sneaked up away from my guests to finish up this post!

Hope you’ve all had a fantastic 2017 and I’ll be sharing my plans for 2018 tomorrow!
Happy New Year, my lovelies!

Horror Marathon Wrap-up & Overview!

And we are at the end!!! Happy Halloween!

If you missed any of the posts, the Halloween Horror marathon page is updated with this year’s movie reviews and TV binges. You can find it HERE.

Its been quite a month. Hooray to slight organization! I won’t lie that I started the Saw franchise in mid or late September because I was anticipating the work craze in the last week and still, it wasn’t quite enough to not skip two days. However, I am pretty happy with it. We discovered some great movies and TV series. The Autopsy of Jane Doe being the indie that scared me a lot even if it wasn’t perfect and one that I honestly love a lot. Unfortunately, books and recipes didn’t quite get their appearance because I took on a huge task however I did work hard so I am near the end so those reviews will go up and I will proceed to try and complete my Goodreads challenge which is incredibly behind because of IT. As for IT, I plan on working on some compare and contrast piece of the adaptations/remake/source material.

The overall feeling of I have of Saw is pretty underwhelming. Yet again I remind you that gore and blood doesn’t impress me. Making me sick and making me scared or anxious are two very different things. I loved the direction of the first one a lot and the last two did alright but everything in the middle was really meh. I’d have to say, after so many years of these marathons, I like even the most nonsensical slasher films in Halloween or Friday the 13th over any of the Saw films in the middle. Plus, Saw has to really been considered as an entire story since we spend each movie catching up with Jigsaw and his grand plan. It does show his genius and in a certain way if you look at it, it does make sense since the 7 movies aren’t really that far apart from each other on a timeline. It would be interesting to see how it would measure up if put on a timeline and see if it all makes sense. That was the original plan but work took over and here we are, struggling to get this final wrap-up before the clock strikes midnight here in the Eastern Time Zone.

With that said, I’ll keep this short and sweet since I’ve wasted enough time trying to record a video and having that fall apart.

My top 3 faves of this year in terms of movies would be (in no particular order): The Autopsy of Jane Doe, Pulse & IT (2017) & Saw is somewhere there but I can’t decide which. As for fave TV series, Stranger Things takes that one for sure. Actually the TV Binge for Stranger Things Season 2 should be coming up also. 🙂

That’s it for this Horror Marathon!
Any suggestions for next year’s horror feature?
Are you a Saw franchise fan?
What movies are your horror marathon picks?