Over 7K!

Thank you~~~! I just realized I have over 7K views! Makes me feel so mean to have neglected my blog for so long. I suppose I have been busy, but then I don't know, sometimes you just don't endup writing for so long and you just loose the habit. I actually took many pictures in order to write some post, and they just never ended up being posted at all. 

Fall season! Halloween already over, now Christmas coming soon. Work is keeping me busy, bf is keeping me busy and enjoying nice coffee/restaurant/drinking time with the Bordeleau sister keeps me happy. Time is getting colder though so I bought quite a lot of new outfits and coats. I'll try to upload pictures of my new friends here whenever I take my lazy ass near my computer.

Bought this awesome strawberry cup and plate for $1 at La Ressourcerie Bernard-Hamel
Love them, those times you walk in there and you find an unexpected treasure.

I went to Montreal for Halloween, as planned a few months ago, and ended up staying much longer than I planned. See, I actually have a defect in my auditory nerve, on the left ear, resulting in my hearing being much much hindered (put both of your finger on your ears, press hard, then have someone talk to you: that's about what I can hear from my left hear). So yes, I went from a doctor to another, doing test, getting samples and they still can't find the problem. At this point, sadly, I think it can't be helped: at least we still might find a way to make sure my other ear doesn't get the same, and prevent the right one to get worse.

In my trip to Montreal I got to go shopping <3, eat delicious food, try the new Karaoke bar La bouche (not so new I know, but I still hadn't gotten to go up to now so whatever). I'll try to upload pictures, but basically I bought shoes and pants: yes pants. Up to last winter I had only one pair of white jeans. I never wear pants. MC got me to like pants when she made me try hers: I then realized that you can look very nice in pants, provided that they are skinny enough and fit you well.

Halloween Clubbing with Lala and Melissa <3

Few pictures of awesome shoes: Red ones from Semy, a store on St-Hubert, selling imported shoes from Italy, all of awesome quality and fit for a wedding ($350),  Shiny ones from Boulet, still on St-Hubert, where all the shoes are $30, and at the back of the store they own awesome quality Cowboy boots - around $250 - in amazing colors and all in really good quality leather. I will go buy a pair next time I go: this time I had no more room in my bag. The beige ones were around $40, bought also on St-Hubert, I cannot remember the name, but St-Hubert has tons of shoe stores, just walking around, one is bound to find awesomeness: just need to keep the eyes open.

Went by Holt & Renfrew to buy new concealer at Bobbi Brown and ended up buying a case of brushes! My very first case ($125). I really love to use different brushes to put on make up, not only because the result is much nicer, but also because the feel of the brushes on the skin is really nice. much nicer anyways than cheap pharmacy brushes.

New nails~~~ I sort of stopped doing my own nails for a while, since working as a waitress sort of makes me worry that my polish will chip and fall in the food of the customers. Instead I decided to try the Vietnamese store in my hometown that do UVGel nails, for a result that holds much longer. 

When I got those done, bf said they looked like I had my nails dirty. Mean mean bf. The second one, MC qualifies it as a "Care Bear" nail polish. Oh well, can't please everybody.

When I went to Japan I bought a make your own bead accessories thingy to see if I liked to do it. The result was okay, and I bought more on Internet, through a Japanese friend (they only ship in Japan). Last week I finished this awesome bear in dress, and now I feel so awesome I feel like no beads pattern is too difficult for me muhahahaha.

The fact that you can do those in parts, and that you see the result quite fast makes it funnier to make that, say for example cross-stitches, of which I haven't kept doing since I moved from Montreal. Mean mean mean me. 

Gave this one to darling Rock-See for her BD a few days ago <3

My parents went to Cuba for a Velo trip, lucky ones, so we went cooking at my place (no fear of disturbing anyone) and in the end bf never even let my touch the pans: I just ate. What can I do, he is Mr. picky and can back it up by being an excellent cook.

Random Picture of me because, why not?

Montreal Summer 2012 - Food Review

Wow, it feels like an eternity since I went to Montreal!! Last time I actually went visit was in october 2011...ah, the nostalgic feeling of returning to a place you used to call home, and feel everything but home... There was way too many things I wanted to do and I ended up missing on good opportunities in the end. Was supposed to meet up with a friend and was too hangover so I stayed home; bought a clubbing dress since I hadn't brought any and ended up not going clubbing; missed out on a second time Karaoke session (clearly, once in a week is not enough); never ended up going to get myself Rolopan (god I was so stupid, how long will I crave for this thing now eh?) and did not spend enough time just plain chilling with my BFF. I am sure I am missing out on some of the things I wanted to do but meh, reading about another person complaining is not necessarily that interesting.

Now...

Odaki

What I DID get though is Japanese food. The first evening I got to Montreal Rosemary was out eating so I went with my friend Youngjin to eat sashimi at Odaki. Oh damn, talking about japanese food makes me remember that I missed out on going to Imadake as well... damn. Imadake is good.

My friend remembered how I craved sashimi in my hometown so we went there. Better than Kanda, though I like Takara better - closed on Sundays if I remember well... did not want to go all the way there to find it closed. So Odaki it was. 

One thing I've always been wondering about is why next to all Japanese restaurant are Chinese owned. I mean yes, people CAN get bored of eating always the same chinese food - and there are really a lot of chinese people in Montreal so there would be a lot more Chinese restaurant in Montreal if they opened them but.... the thing is that there is actually so much to chinese food than what they make it in most Chinese restaurants! While most people do know that there is almost nothing chinese in a chinese buffet, we don't have that many chinese restaurants that show us anything else. And I am not even mentioning Taiwan! Hmmmmm so much awesomeness in Taiwanese food and snacks. 

Really, they should show us what they can do instead of opening all those japanese inspired restaurants.

I suppose I am done rambling on Japanese/Chinese restaurants in Montreal. All in all, I actually haven't said anything relevent anyways for people who would want to know more about either cuisine... ha ha. Okay, one more, there is on Saint-Laurent (I think) a restaurant called Osaka that is supposed to have legit good Japanese cuisine (japanese owned restaurant - wow) so go try it out...

L'Avenue Mont-Royal

In the first days I spent in Montreal, I met up with Mika, an old childhood friend - pretty much an older sister to me - who set up a breakfast date in Mont-Royal. She asked her friends around for the best breakfast place in town and they all pretty much said to go to L'Avenue Mont-Royal. The link I put in is an guy's review on the place, did not find their official website and the rest was pretty much nothing and in French so I went for this one instead.

I liked the place, though I admit it is super duper noisy. We were lucky because our seat was just beside a nice window by the end of the restaurant, and the window gave on a backstreet that was full of greens and trees - hard to believe it was still downtown. TBH, I haven't appreciated the place half as I would have normally. I had had a drink the night before, and I ordered stuff that was wayyy too creamy for my stomac to digest (note that I had forgone eating the bananas they give us because I remember a bad hangover that ended up in a puking shift at work because of a banana.... did you know that the banana is one of the most, if not the most demanding to your stomac when it comes to digestion? Now you do). The place looks cool. Super kitsh and still has a sense of "we actually want it to look this way, and you do too". 

Anyways, I had an amazing benedict egg plate, if I remember it was called "Pancetta ton tour". Bacon, parmesan, cream etc... and a cappuccino. The service is pretty quick, and they make sure that if you are here for the first time, the you get a good spot and enjoy the place as one should. I'll have to go back when I am not having stomac problems... wow. I feel so old. Oh, also, the uniform has a black shirt, and most of the waiters are good looking. This is a plus for me anyways. 

OH!! Super important thing here... in the Burger section of the menu the talk about the awesomeness of Kobe beef... Damn I haven't finished my blog on Kobe beef.... whatever I'll repeat myself there. Kobe beef is a Japanese beef from Kansai - Kobe, where they actually take a really great care of the animal making its meat into some sort of blissful-tear-bringing-I-can-die-happy sort of taste. In the menu they talk about the beef and then go: here, try our 100% Kobe beef burger that so many people want to try!

-> Hello? This is bullshit. I am sure their beef is good. But Kobe beef HAS NEVER EVER BEEN EXPORTED and thus, sold out of Japan. I don't know if those people risk being sued for lying, but in any case, sorry guys, it is not Kobe beef. So a reminder here: if you ever eat awesome beef, and they make you pay like SUPER big money for it since it's "Kobe Beef" well you've been cheated. 

Ruby Rouge - Dimsum

Right after the breakfast at L'Avenue, I went to meet up with Jessica and Rosemary for Dimsum - Jess was craving it since she does not have those back in Bermuda. I was still feeling a bit weird stomac-wise, but the walk I took in between both meals helped and I felt alright to have a bite. I took what I always take: Baby squids, shrimp dumplings and touhua (sweet tofu soup with syrup). Dimsum is much much much better in Asia. To be honest, whatever they make here, is a pale imitation of it. Now that being said. Canadian Dimsum is not bad-tasting. Let us just not compare both. The only thing I've ever reproached Dimsum is the amount of 'paste' there is in everything, makes you feel fat when you done eating. Still, I like that much better than fast-food such as McDonald.

 Confusion - Tapas du Monde

Okay now we talk. A friend at work told me to try this restaurant. She told me it's downtown, and that you eat siting on swings. That was enough for me. I mean, swings? OMFG that is sooo the kind of random thing I love. What I did not know is that the place is actually a legit fancy tapas place where they have both a great selection of whisky and wine. I went with my friend Marie on a date there and we shared two tapas: salmon tartar and dates filed with goat cheese, with bacon rolled around it. Had it with half a bottle of Pouilly Fumé. I took a picture to remember the name of the wine, but the quality sucked and I did not notice. Shame on me.

They suggest each person taking three to 5 tapas for a meal: I beg to differ. I have a relatively small appetite, but splitting two in half with a friend was plenty for me so I doubt that having more than two each would be reasonable... in any case, what we chose was perfect for our needs and we paid some $30 each. Siting on swings :)

The salmon tartar was really tasty, served on a croquet of risotto, making the meal a tasty experience for my tasting buds, as it was a nice mixture of taste and texture. Definitely want to try their Foie Gras next time, as they have a big selection of it and it looks awesome.

Shabu Shabu - Korean BBQ

I went to my friend Youngjin's restaurant to get Korean BBQ for my last dinner in Montreal (should have been my next-to-last one, but I got sick the next day so did not eat at all so meh, yah, bad drinking karma). Since I was going for the first time, we ended up ordering much much too much food. It was amazing. Got spicy cold noodles, seafood pancake, porc loin and legs, steamed eggs and galbi <3 (I can never seem to remember which part of the beef galbi is from... oh well). 

Happy Youngjin before awesome food

Porc Loin

Galbi

Montreal for a week

Packing for a week in Montreal can suck.... but I just don't bother with it: I just put up nice clothes and that's it. What fits in my luggage will follow, what does not, will stay :O

So here is a stupid short entry: a sneak peak of my wardrobe for the week :)



much luv xxx

The magic Blue slippers...

Summer 2009, I went to China for the first time. It was not my first experience in Asia, so I was familiar with some of the intrinsic Asian habits, so everything was not entirely new. I do not have the pretense of saying China is the same as Japan, even saying that it is similar, is close to blasphemy. However, compared to Western countries, China and Japan do have a lot in common. 

The wearing of slippers in the house for example is similar. If you think about slippers in Quebec for instance, you get the woolen slippers, meant to warm up one's feet, especially in winter, from the cold floor. Mot of the slippers we have in mind in the West, are soft ones, that have a range of looks between an interior 'boot' to a home made knit slipper given by grandma.

In Asia however, they wear slippers winter-summer-autumn-spring. The purpose of slippers is basically to make sure your feet don't get into contact to the floor (with the exception of Japanese tatami mats, which require people to be wearing socks only, or barefoot so they don't get worn out quickly). Their slippers usually looks like sandals, with only the tip of the foot covered, and are not necessarily meant to keep warm. In Japan, it took me a long time to get used to wearing them. felt so much simpler just to take my outdoor shoes, and walk in the house, than to bother putting on those damn slippers. Now, when I am home, I cannot walk on the ground of houses barefoot: I can't stand the little dust and pebbles getting stuck to my feet. 

...

In China then, when I arrived at the hotel we were to stay at for 10 weeks, I was not surprised to see two pairs of plastic slippers for inside the room - one for me and one for my roommate. They were pretty ugly: def meant to wear inside, more for comfort than looks. They were pretty cool actually, as in, they had a small bubbly surface that help the foot breathe and enhanced comfort. 

Those slippers were the trademark of the Pekin 2009 cohort. Everyone - of the 90 students in the program - had those, and some even wore them outside (I did do that as well actually) when going out for a short time to get food or drink on the street. They came to mean a lot to me and I ended up bringing them back home.

Those blue slippers represent my 3 University years. They are now worn out, uglier still than when I got them, dirt never really gets completely off when I wash them and still are really out of fashion.

I have tons of shoes. 

I wanted eventually to make a couple of blog entries to show off my shoes, so I decided that this one, would be the first entry about my shoes. My magic Blue Slippers.

Let us end this with a picture, worths a 1 000 words.

Maybe I should just have posted the picture, instead of the 1000 words I just wrote, but I feel they needed a little history, to show how cool they are.

Second Day in Montreal

I started my second day in Montreal by waking up before Rosemary - surprise surprise! Who had to stay home to do some paper for class. I went to meet up with Jess and her friends in Chinatown's Ruby Rouge, the dimsum place <3 and we ate our fill for approx $10 each including tips. I love Chinatown. The place was crowded, as would any dimsum place on the weekend, but we had a good table and were pretty lucky.

After eating we met up with Youngjin oppa ^3^ a friend that recently moved to Montreal, and that I ended up befriending through friends/facebook. He accompanied us in what must be pretty boring for a guy: girl window shopping - in my case, actual shopping (see previous blogs for images). We went to the new Chinese Mall, Chinese Grocery store and in the end, to a newly opened Bubble Tea Lounge, that I will go again, given the chance. It was really a sweet place, staff being really friendly, and bubble tea being tasty. Plus, having a sore throat from Karaoke the previous night, I took a nice congee <3 with black eggs and green onions - bliss. There is also one other important thing about this place. the toilet. I mean I have always, mostly negatively, had great memories of chinese places' toilets but this one... is amazing. I feel like describing, but I will not. Pictures will tell... enjoy!

Crossing the street, but light turning red: stuck in the middle...

Jessica in her element : Asian Grocery store

Younjin oppa shopping with us...

New Bubble tea lounge!!!! (this should be a magazine cover)

Me, doing my favorite pass-time of the weekend: iPhone charging

Congee!!! <3

Is this in a club?

Is this in a star make-up room?

No. that's three random girls taking pictures in a toilet....

Later that night I called up bunch of random people, most who had never really met before, so have a dinner/party. I did that mainly for two reasons: first, the more the merrier and not wanting to stress up much about what to do, I knew that chilling with new people could make conversations interesting. The second reason is because I knew I would not get enough time during the weekend to meet with everyone I care about so meeting up all together seemed like a wonderful idea. I was right. That evening was memorable.

Me and Marie <3 sweetheart <3

Yes I did. I ate pork tongue. I actually don't really like the texture, but I tried.

Keum-Yeo and Fred. How much do I love these two people. >////< had missed them so much!!!

Japanese food, Asian alcohol and a bunch of people together

Youngjin oppa and his huge buck of beer

Ray and his baby beer pint

If you haven't tried Imadake, around Atwater station, Montreal, this is a must go. The people working there are legit, the food is, the alcohol is, and the place is awesome, plus the price of things is not that bad. We went crazy - it being a Sunday night, with no one really in the mood, we almost *kof kof* seemed out of place. However, trying drinking games and the like in the bar did get the boss to guy us a round of sake-bombs (awesome drinks if you ask me). that was a bit after I ended up having to sing out loud my favorite song: having no clue what to sing, I just sang the shortest first song that came to my mind - オナラ体操. I won't add anything, cuz this says everything in itself. throughout the evening, youngjin oppa had to get a guy's number and Ray had to go have a shot with the owner as dares, without counting all the truth people ended up saying. I won't elaborate on them however... mind your precious ears.

First Day in Montreal!

I arrived pretty early in Montreal, a little before 7AM, so I found Rosemary sleeping on her couch. While I had expected to have her sleeping, finding her asleep on the couch was not in my plans: I had planned on taking a shower after the long bus ride, and then go get some more sleep on the couch, as it was where I'd be suppose to sleep. Waking up around 8H30 by the sound of my text message bell, she found me on the floor, cuddled with my bus pillow, blanket and stuffed animal. 

After both taking showers, we went to have breakfast at Ben & Florentine, and shared both sweet and salty meals <3 While the salty meal we ordered was simply wonderful - Mont-Royal Benedict eggs - as we were both really hungry, I did not even think of taking a picture of the plate before we dug in. Too bad.

Raspberry, Banana orange Smoothy

Strawberry French Toast with bananas and Nutella fillings numnum num <3

Pretty Rosemary, who put on make up as she was probably just as tired as me after the bus-ride

 We walked around looking at shops displays and buying some stuff. The epic moment number one of the day was at Holt & Renfrew, where we had wanted to get a nice coffee, that was crowded just like Xmas last minute shopping day: there was a special 2 day sale for the approaching winter season, and everyone had decided to shop like there is no tomorrow. We decided to look around and leave for another coffee place. 

The second epic moment of the day was when we went to Nespresso: a wonderful coffee place. Like, really awesome. While it was more crowded than usual, it being the weekend, we found ourselves comfortably seated at the counter benches and tried awesome Verrines and Expressos (Rosemary took something else, but I took expressos, anyways...).

My Chocolate Pistache Verrine and Expresso <3

Here is a picture of Rosemary's choice. Looks prettier than mine because of the drink XD

Rose and me, just being Italian, really...

Trying to be cute....

WTF

I like how the staff really did not mind us taking picture of both the interior design and the stuff they had to sell. I really liked the place, and everything we tried tasted great. A must go if I may say.

Display of Verrines. 

Little glimpse of the interior. 

Don't you all think the display at Ogilvy are worth walking by, even if noone really has the money to buy anything inside? I think that the displays back off the attitude the sellers have inside: I'd be proud to work in a place with such nice displays. And giant paper sculptures are cool.

At night Rosemary was taken by other things, so she did not come to eat with me, but I went out with Fura and her roommate Marylou. We originally planned on going to a Korean BBQ place - owned by Chinese people, but actually with decent price and quality of meat: plus all you can eat concept - but it was full. We met friends in fornt of the door who also had had the same plans but got turned off just like us, so we ended up going to 5000 years around Atwater station and ate all together. That was sweet <3

I was not really Hungry so I just had Bibimbap - the food you take whenever you don't know what to take.
Wherever you get it, I'tll be good all the same. I love bibimbap

Meeting up with Rosemary and a friend of hers later to have a few drinks, Fura Marylou and I went a bit to sing some K at K-Karaoke