My September Adventures!

September has come to an end as Canada has officially announced the beginning of the second wave of COVID-19. We’re going through regional alert levels where with the past weekends leaps in increase of cases, Montreal (along with two other regions) will enter into maximum alert on October 1st meaning generally that other than shopping centres and retail businesses/personal care services, everything where social gathering can happen (theatres, libraries, bars, dine-in at restaurants, etc) are all closed for the next 4 weeks including all private gatherings. Just a little update on the currents of my whereabouts.

New Restaurants in Town

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Trying out the new #teashop in #brossard @shuyitealicious . Tried out the #fruitparty #oolongtea #drink the first time and the #taiwanoolong with extra #topping #grassjelly the second time. Other drinks shown is #pomelo #yakult #jasminetea and #oolong #milktea with #oats

A post shared by Kim (@tranquildreams) on Aug 30, 2020 at 8:36am PDT

Perhaps my fave place so far to open would have to go to Shuyi Tealicious where I just love the Jasmine Tea or Oolong Tea with Grass Jelly. Its some delicious stuff in the simplest way. So good. Whereas the husband loves the milk tea with oats.

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First dine-in since #covid19 started. Trying out a new #ramen #restaurant @sansoteiramen in #downtownmtl . Got the #tonkotsuramen #gyoza and #zangi #friedchicken . All around pretty good #food . #mtlfood

A post shared by Kim (@tranquildreams) on Sep 4, 2020 at 5:38pm PDT

The first dine-in since COVID-19 and the only one for a while, I’d assume seeing the current state of situation. Either way, this new ramen place was pretty good. Its new so there was a line-up which if it wasn’t for my friend’s birthday, I wouldn’t have lined up for it or chosen to dine-in. Luckily the tables here were spread out pretty good.

With the new restrictions in place, we’re back to hibernating at home and cooking our own food or taking out or maybe trying out some delivery services if we want to try new food. The little joys in life, right?

Fantasia Film Festival Wrap-Up

Fantasia International Film Festival ended on September 3rd with a successful first ever virtual edition which had a very good platform for its movies and loved the mix of live screenings, Q&A as well as the on demand film selection. If only I didn’t have actual work, I’d have done a much more elaborate coverage of many more films. Still, I managed to do a bigger load of movies in a shorter timeframe so I’m rather proud of myself in general plus, I picked some solid choices with maybe only one or two that was a little disappointing. As a final wrap-up since I don’t want to do another post for it, here is my top 10 (which I’m thinking whether it would have been great if I did it in a Youtube video format or even podcast format, right?)

1. The Oak Room
2. The Paper Tigers
3. Sheep Without A Shepherd
4. Detention
5. A Mermaid in Paris
6. A Witness Out of the Blue
7. Chasing Dream
8. The Mortuary Collection
9. You Cannot Kill David Arquette
10. Jumbo

Movies and Tea Podcast

The latest episode of Movies and Tea Podcast transferred to Youtube is here as Season 2 is in progress of being put up.

We’re in Season 5 David Fincher on the Movies and Tea blog. The latest podcast episode released was our After Hours special for You Cannot Kill David Arquette HERE.

Hiking: La Montée du Dragon

Nothing like a little hiking as we return to Mont-Megantic National Park earlier in September. You can check out the hiking recap HERE.

Announcement: Halloween Marathon Starts TOMORROW!!

October is around the corner (tomorrow) so its time for the annual Halloween Marathon! I’ve got quite a nice line-up as we tackle two different franchises. I was only suppose to be one and then I started watching the sequels of another one and finished it so kind of wrapped up another franchise as well. Its the Living Dead franchise (including the remakes) and Insidious sequels (since I already reviewed the first one before). I also have some random movies to slot in between so it should be fun. Living Dead franchise is a little hard to find some of the movies and I didn’t plan it better so I’m hoping that I will find some of them if not I might just skip over it depending on the situation. If you have any horror films that you’d like to recommend for me to watch, let me know and I’ll add it on to my list if I haven’t seen or reviewed it before.

That’s it for this September adventures!
What have you been up to during these crazy times?

My September Adventures: Halloween Horror Marathon & Festival du Nouveau Cinema Coming Up!!

September is now behind us. Its hard to imagine three-quarters of the year has gone by. However, it is the case. With July being hectic and then August being more of a laidback and recharging phase, September comes back with a little back to normal balance. Getting things back on track, events big and small and such were all in the plans.

Let’s check it out!

Dreamhack Montreal 2019

Dreamhack Montreal happened over the weekend of September 6 to 8 at the Olympic Stadium. It had some changes but this venue is still very suitable for this event overall. It was a bustling weekend with a lot of last minute changes that swapped my schedule around quite a bit. However, all the media coverage is over at Game Warp Blog. Everything is live now as we covered Day 1 and 2 as well as the Indie Game Zone. You can find all the posts below:

Day 1 Recap
Day 2 Recap
Indie Game Zone

IT: Chapter Two & Lambcast

We’ve really kept the theatre experience to a minimum this year except for special commitments that lead me to go. This time, it was for Lambcast recording of IT: Chapter Two that gave us the kick in our behinds to go check it out. We really did enjoy the first one so had it in our plans to see the second one anyways (just probably not on opening weekend initially). I’m not sure when we’ll be heading to the theatres again this year but it might happen again, who knows? I’m not quite on top of the theatre new releases as I should be.

You can check out the Lambcast show HERE.
You can find my written review HERE.

Moon Festival

Moon Festival happened on September 13th. Wonderful that it clashed with Friday the 13th because I have to say that it was a pretty okay day compared to the rest of the week prior to that. It was also full of sickness and a lot of cough-filled nights. Either way, I ignored my cold (which won’t go away and seems to keep morphing) and ate some moon cake as well as stood by the window and stared at the full moon for a little while, reminding myself that life is beautiful because I’m breathing and looking at those nice little moments of nature and nightscapes and such.

Friend’s Bachelorette Party – Dinner Out

One of my girl friend’s bachelorette party happened the Saturday on the second last weekend. She had it in two parts: the first was dinner and the second was an after party. Due to some other commitment (see below), I only went for the dinner party which was at Ichigo Ichie (which is the restaurant part of ramen place I like, Yokato Yokabai).

You can check out the restaurant recap HERE.

Festival du Nouveau Cinema Starting Soon

Much to my surprise, today’s announcements also include a press approval for Festival du Nouveau Cinema! Last year, I only got the 10 vouchers to go see 10 movies which had some pretty great films, with one or two that left a little to desire but didn’t fail on being artsy or creative. It will be exciting to see how many we can catch this year as well as what the movie lineup will be as that only goes live tomorrow (Oct.1). Keep an eye out for reviews during the festival from Oct.9 to 20th!

If you also are going, do tell me what movies have caught your eye so far?

Friend’s Wedding Day + Flowers Help Out

The last weekend of September was all kinds of crazy and lots of fun. Saturday was a day of hunting down flowers at various Costco. Between myself and another friend, we hit 5 Costcos in the morning. We met up in the early after to start making the “boutonnieres” for the groom and groomsmen and men of the families and then went along and made the bride and bridesmaids bouquet as well as a throwaway one. For myself, it was a learning experience since I had never done these before so it was all to help out.

 Sunday was her big day! We started out the morning to help with the door games (if you don’t know what that is, its part of Chinese weddings to pick up the bride, the groom and his groomsmen and other guys go to trials before he can pick her up). Then, we helped out with the set-up and mostly with the flowers to put together the vases. Yet again, I’m not too experienced with this so just helped out with my other friend. The picture on top is the centerpiece at our table with the flower arrangement. It was a ton of fun! I have a few more artsy pics going on Avenue of Daydreams at some point. It was a really fun night but we couldn’t stay as late as Sunday means work on Monday (aka today).

Announcement: Halloween Horror Marathon

As usual, September adventures wraps up with the official announcement of the Halloween Horror Marathon tomorrow (October 1st)! We’ll be doing double features as per the usual set up nowadays. At the same time, I’ll be trying to put in some horror TV series TV binge posts as well as horror book reviews as well. That’s the plan! While some movies have already been watched at this point (and probably/hopefully written up), I would love to hear what movies you suggest or movies you always watch for Halloween marathon and maybe I’ll see if I can add those in or push it up as higher priority on my list (if its there). All update of Halloween marathon posts will be updated on the page HERE.

On a side note, due to the festival approval, marathon might be slower in the middle of the month! I am working to get more posts done in advance but I do have other priorities as well as podcast recordings so I will do the best that I can before October 9th comes around and hopefully you will enjoy it!

Cute Kitty Pic

That’s it for the September Adventures!
Looking back, its been kind of crazy! I thinned out some less important bits.
Mostly two announcements and some recaps!
October is looking less varied but probably much busier, as always when there’s coverage to do!

Welcoming Autumn with Mid autumn Festival :)

Nothing much happened this past week but nothing did feel quite right either.  Maybe its the fatigue from the long driving back from the previous weekend away or maybe its just the things at work that aren’t really going my way, I don’t know the reason but it definitely felt so exhausting.  Somehow blogging was one of the few joys I had other than watching a bunch of movies and reviewing them (also blog-related).

What was I up to this week, you ask?

First of all, in Chinese tradition according to the lunar calender, on Thursday was our Mid-Autumn Festival, also called Moon Festival 🙂 My boyfriend’s graveyard shift also meant that I would be passing it pretty much alone as he slept through the evening before work.  I’m okay with that, not complaining. Work is work, right? This gave me time to head out and take some pictures of the beautiful full moon.  I don’t have those kick ass lenses for my DSLR yet so thats the best zoom I have. Still, I’d say, it was a nice night to sit outside and admire the moon.

Full moon on Sept 19 🙂

After that I came back in to eat some moon cakes.  My mom bought me two before she left for her Europe trip.

Traditional Moon cake: Lotus Seed paste with two yolks

The inside of the Traditional moon cake

Five Nuts Moon Cake

Inside of Five Nuts moon cake

Honestly, I’m not a huge fan of the second time.  I’m more old-fashioned and like the traditional ones, although I prefer the ones with one yolk 🙂 Have you eaten moon cakes before? They also have one type which is modernized called snowy moon cakes.  I plan on making those one day, along with testing out how to make some moon cake cupcakes.  What do you think?

My mom’s friend also came by and dropped off some moon cakes which resembles snowy moon cakes that she made and they look adorable.

When Friday came by, I was relieved when the day ended and enjoyed a nice meal with some delicious rose wine.

Gallo White Zinfandel 🙂

While I was watching lots of movies on the previous weekend, I ended up binge watching and finishing the Season 1 of Under the Dome!

Have you seen Under the Dome? Do you like it? Its totally awesome! 🙂

I’m asking all of you that need skincare! This week’s huge expense was in a matter of 10 minutes.  I’ve been on the low of taking selfies because my skin is flipping out on me so I had to talk to the beauty skincare specialist to suggest what to do which ended up in a 10 minute chat that cost me $120.  *faints*

Those two little bottles…ugh! Lets hope it works, so far it seems to be on the right track 🙂

Today was supposed to be apple picking day but we’ve been having crazy winds so I’m typing this after my baked goods just got out of oven! That recipe will go up on Monday morning :).

This week’s music obsession is from a very awesome local band called Perfect Sideline.  Hope you enjoy!

Its partially in French but its really good and I love the beat!

For some nice Pinterest combination since I didn’t get a post up yesterday! I would love these two baked goods!

How can I leave out cute animal pictures, right?

I can’t believe that Halloween is just coming up in a bit over a month.  My boyfriend’s sister already told us the two possible themes for the party and now its brainstorming on what to do. Some of you know already that I went as Alice last year from Resident Evil: Apocalyse.  I would’ve preferred the 4th or 5th but that getup was a lot harder to find the stuff for.  Any of you having some Halloween parties this year?

On the note of Halloween, I’m drafting up my list of movies for the Halloween marathon.  Originally, I wanted to do a full slasher month, but I figured I’d go crazy after it so I’m going to do a movie of the 6 Halloween movies and then continue on with some horror thrillers.  It’ll be a month of very limited sleep once that second part starts, but hey, it might just be fun 🙂 Plus, I also have jotted down some baked goods with Halloween themes and can’t wait to test them out.  Last year was Glow in the Dark cupcakes and they were a massive hit 🙂

Lots of planning coming along.  The weekend away really recharged my energy for writing so I’m happy to be right back on track! I have a few festivals I want to visit also. October will be a busy month, but first, lets get September over with first, right?

Have a great weekend! I’m back to my chores and making some dinner 🙂