My Weekly Adventures: Its Here Again… Announcements

Welcome to the next Adventures post. I shouldn’t use Weekly adventures but we’ll keep it like that for now since I can’t figure out a better name. These past 2 weeks didn’t feel particularly like it was busy but when I thought back, a decent amount of small things happened and it was really tiring.

Its October right around the corner so of course, that also means that we have an important announcement (and another one as well). If you saw my tweet then you might already know what I’m talking about.

Let’s get started!

Hiking: Reserve Naturelle des Montagnes Vertes

Keep this one short and sweet. We finally got back out to hiking. Everyone’s health seems to be okay again. We have some little things that happened after the hike but still, it was a good one. I’ve already did a post on it so you can check that out HERE.

Hangout with High School Friends

Last weekend, we had a little get together with some high school crew to see one of our friend’s baby. I probably talked about the baby shower back in October last year or something. I can’t remember right now. Either way, we had a little food and some tarts and chatted the afternoon away. It was great! Plus, her little one is so adorable.

Montreal Oasis Marathon 2018

Last weekend was the Montreal Rock & Roll Series Oasis Marathon 2018. It had a move from the more eastern side of Montreal to downtown near Chinatown area. They shifted the event earlier as well. Suffice to say that, the pick up package and the picking up bags after the marathon left a lot to be desire in terms of organization but the race itself was great. It started off in Rene Levesque which is one of the main arteries in downtown. There was little firework moments for each coral’s start. Plus, the location made finding a place to sit down good especially since its kind of my turf. So it made the whole event for my being there to pick up my friend easy, especially when the temperature dropped that morning drastically so I had my scarf and hat for winter with me in the morning.

Setting Up New Social Media

A little side note and I guess a follow-up from the What’s Up segment (unless I edited it out and forgot then it would make no sense and be slightly embarrassing), I decided to continue on my research into the China social media world and actually signed up for a Weibo account. Its pretty much a Facebook/Twitter mesh but since Chinese characters are a word in itself, its satisfies the microblogging corner of the market. I’m not great at writing Chinese but I do recognize words so typing it is actually a good practice. Consider it a social experiment or whatnot, but I have an account now so I’ll be checking it out. If you have an account also, give me a shout. Its lonely to trek new territory alone.

Moon Festival

Moon Festival came around last Monday. I had dinner with my mom. After some debate, as her kitchen renovations continue, we decided to stay in to eat since the restaurant we wanted to go to was closed on Mondays. One of her friends dropped by to have dinner with us as well. Delicious as always and we had moon cakes and everything.

Halloween Marathon 2018

Official announcement tomorrow! Keep your eyes posted! Short and sweet announcement, right?

Festival du Nouveau Cinema

On that note, I got press just a few days ago for Festival du Nouveau Cinema, which is a festival that has been running for a long time but I’ve never been to. It usually hits the busy and event hiatus that I take for my own sanity. This year, a fellow Montreal blogger DM’ed me on Twitter and gave me a heads up to check it out and since I’ve been in the Weibo world and checking out movie reviewers and saw one of their movies being listed as this year’s top 5 Chinese movies, I wanted to go. So yay, that is happening. Not sure how its going to fit into the whole schedule but I’ll talk about that more very soon. I’ll have a post for my picks in a day or two.

Cute Kitty Pic

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

Toronto Haul – August 2018

I go to Toronto more than I actually should. Actually this year was the exception to the equation. I usually just go about once a year or something unless something else comes up and well, something else came up. This past weekend was my best friend’s wedding. Her husband is from Toronto so they ended up holding their wedding there. I honestly think I’ve been to more wedding outside of Montreal than in Montreal. Its a weird thought and shows how many of my friends have moved away, I guess.

Either way, it was a really fun weekend. We ate some awesome food, tried out some new places: two of which I’ll do a restaurant overview for during this week. I’ll show more of the wedding stuff in the next Weekly Adventures, mostly because well, it seems we may have skipped the last one. I know I did and it was deliberate.

Before I jump off onto another tangent, let’s check out some stuff I got in Toronto.

Things I Bought Because I Was Forgetful..
Scarborough Town Centre – Yves Rocher & Walmart

First stop on Friday in Toronto was the hunt for everything we remembered that we forgot during packing for the wedding stuff. For myself, it was not exactly all forgot but I don’t use make-up a lot so a lot of mine had expired and I needed to get some new stuff. Nothing heavy since I don’t do eye make-up because it causes eye infections for myself so just some simple concealer to do the job and seeing Fantasia and work destroyed my sleeping schedule, I’m currently rocking some puffy panda eyes and I had forgotten my eye cream. A trip to Yves Rocher was in the stars and the closest we could find on the way to the hotel was at Scarborough Town Centre. I’ll share the eventful moment there in the Weekly Adventures but one of the great things was the great service at Yves Rocher but a lovely lady who gave me some really fantastic suggestions and actually suggested that I changed to the other skincare line as my skin had changed and its why I was having all the blemishes I’ve been having lately. I didn’t get the skincare line seeing as I was away and didn’t really want to spend so much just yet but I loved the service of just sharing the knowledge of it all. So I got some body lotion and the eye care gel at Yves Rocher.

At Walmart, I got a concealer and some nail polish. I actually ended up not painting my nails for the event but I did also pick up this interesting product called a blur stick which I’m still exploring whether its something I could use or not as it felt really oily. I’m not sure the texture works well for my skin type, so I passed on using it and am still researching. If you all know what it is and have any suggestions or dos and don’ts, please do share with me.

T&T Supermarket (2 Trips)

Most of the snacks and such were bought on the first stop. We didn’t think that we would go back but we did end up going again on Sunday. Friday was to pick up a late lunch of dimsum, which I didn’t take pictures of. We stocked up on drinks which I also didn’t take pictures so and they are all consumed. I can tell you that I was on a semi caffeine detox since March where I cut tea out of my life completely. I don’t drink coffee so its a given, I suppose. Either way, this weekend, I drank all the tea that I didn’t drink in the last few months or at least it felt that way. However, the Vita brand which usually is known for its lemon tea and such actually has this Green Tea and Japanese Green Tea which both tastes fantastic and its unsweetened so its the legit ones. Going back to the picture, look at these flavors, its like a world tour of Lay’s flavors.

During the first trip, we saw these pokemon Ocean Bomb sparkling water. Actually when we went back in the second trip, we saw one new one and lost two so I guess I shouldn’t procrastinate so much in buying stuff. Either way, that was a spontaneous purchase although I’m still fairly unsure about trying the Pikachu Cucumber flavor. We also saw this KIM brand drink for bird’s nest drink. I’m not sure how many people know about bird nest’s drinks. Regardless, the happiest purchase here is the black sesame stuff because I love black sesame paste. Its my favorite dessert. I’ve never tried this brand so hopefully it’ll be good. I ended up sharing the bag with my mom.

Big Apple & 401 Brewery

Our always must-stop location is The Big Apple. I love to grab a pie and strudel and my husband loves the brownies. It is quite amazing to see how this location as grown in size and variety of what they offer. I remember stopping there the first time and it was still known but not quite as popular as it is now. I kind of miss the quieter days but they have really diversified and made it a truly Canadian experience with what they offer also.

In the building, they have the store for 401 Brewery. We’ve never had anything from there before. Seeing as we didn’t manage to pick up anything at LCBO this time, we decided to grab some ciders. We picked the traditional apple cider and then a peach cider and a pear cider to try. We also saw a sparkling oaked cider which seems like it could be a nice smoky taste sort of experience. We are looking forward to trying it out eventually.

That wraps up this shorter Toronto haul as I get things into order!