Happy Birthday Chrissy! :)

Yesterday was the birthday of my very dear friend Christina and her family was kind enough to invite a few of her close friends over for a giant celebration dinner. They cooked so much food that I seriously thought it was Chinese New Year. 

A bit of background: Christina and I have been friends since grade 4 and she is definitely one of my best-est friends of all time. Growing up, she was the one that offered me a shoulder to cry on when I needed it and we try to see each other once a week ( if possible). Her family are just the nicest people in the world and I love coming over for dinner :D.

On this particular day, we had more then 10 dishes that was mostly a mix of vegetables and meat. We had some pure vegetarian dishes to accomodate her cousin's girlfriend who was a vegetarian. Here's a look at what we had last night:

Pre-cooked version. Christina's parents took some chopped pork and mixed it with mushroom and stuffed it in melons before steaming it.

What's a Chinese meal without some chicken wings? These were oven-baked and they were amazing!

Not too dry, and perfectly seasoned :)

 Her boyfriend was kind enough to grill ribs for everyone and they were amazing!

BBQ should be an all-season thing

 Here's the cooked version of the stuffed melons from above, don't they look good?

What's a chinese meal with out rice? Here's a picture of my bowl :)

          

Good thing they had a big dining table or else it wouldn't have fitted all 14 of us. Here's a view of the table with all the food :D

 

Annie and Janet chipped in to get Christina a strawberry Oreo ice cream cake from MarbleSlab.

Can you make out where her name was written?

 Extras:
 Christina's dad likes to collect antiques so there are some really fun pieces at her home.

An antique carriage set

Antique clock

This has been a very eventful and enjoyable week for me and I hope for you as well. Have a good week everyone!

Pumpkin Festival on Harbord

I got to go to a local Pumpkin Festival on Harbord Street this week, which is a small, mixed-use street between College and Bloor on the west side of Toronto. The neighbourhood business association held the Pumpkin Festival as a way to recycle pumpkins after Halloween and draw some new visitors to the area. Here are some of the highlights:

Nyannnn Cat pumpkin anyone?

Marilyn Monroe--Witch Style

 This is not a pumpkin but this dog was really cute when he posed for me ^^

One of the restaurants' on this street when all out in pumpkin carvings and decorations. They were amazing!

I believe the residents in the area carve them for Halloween and the community association picks them up on Nov.1st for display. It's a nice idea and great way to recycle your old pumpkins.

Charlie Brown!

 They even gave us free cake and hot apple cider! It was nice to have a warm drink on a chilly night ^^.

The Harbord Bakery was also kind enough to provide free cookies! I can definitely say I'll be coming back since the cookies were great

Extras:

On the night of Halloween itself, I went over to my friend's house to give out candy. But since it rained, no one came to the door. Her neighbours take Halloween very seriously and went all out in the decorations.

We ended up having hot chocolate with giant marshmallows in it, which was nice since it's been a while since we've spent time together.

Also, I walked by the Bay on Queen Street and looks like they've already put up their Christmas decorations!

My First Ever...Zombie Walk!

****This post will contain lots of gory pictures! Viewer beware****

This year happens to be the 10th Annual Zombie Walk Toronto and my friend Peter was kind enough to invite me to go and see the event with his girlfriend Kai !

So what is a Zombie Walk? It's a relatively new concept to me, it's an organized "parade" of sorts of people who dress up in zombie costumes. They usually happen in city centres and have become quite common in North America. Think of it as a Halloween Parade :)

There were actually quite a few people gathered to watch the walk and the police closed down one lane of the street for the zombies.

Look at all these people watching!

The following were some of the highlights from the walk , people were so creative with their costumes!

Rarrr~

Did you want brainzz too?

There were tons of people who brought their kids to the events and they were just so awesome!

There were even babies too!

                                                   

                     

I also saw quite a few "undead" brides as well.

 I even got a picture with one!

Many others came as Zombie cos-plays.

Mickey Mouse

Bulma form Scooby Doo

Hands down my favourite picture of the day: when Christopher Robin from Winnie the Pooh tried to eat Lina's face.

Extras:

 One of the meals I had for dinner this week: Alfredo chicken with corn and mushroom and penne! Not the most interesting meal but it gives you a glimpse of my everyday life (and no Mom, it's not KD everyday :D).

                                          

Hope you guys have a great week and if you want to see more pictures you can check out my flickr album: Zombie Walk 2012

Hello! Beautiful Niagara Falls

I was lucky enough to be sent by my company to go to COM2012, a mining and metallurgy conference in Niagara Falls that happened in the beginning of October. 

The conference was held at the beautiful Sheraton at Niagara Falls and the conference level had a gorgeous view of the falls.

Now tell me that's not pretty 

I got a chance to walk around on the first night of my conference and see the night views. They shoot lights at the water from the Canadian side and the falls seems to have a magical quality to it.

   

  

Here is a close up view of the water:

 

Looks like it's a scene from a movie

Here's the same picture without the lights, not as impressive, but still quite nice.

I walked around the touristy area after looking for something interesting to do. Clifton hill, which is the tourist area adjacent to the falls had quite a bit of haunted houses for tourists but I felt too old / local to really enjoy any of it.

Typical touristy stuff. 

There was even a Ripley's Believe it or not and I quite liked how the building was shaped :)

Notice that it's on its side?

The view from my room at night was really pretty too. With the way the hotel is located, you either get a view of the falls or a view of the tourist area. I had a "City view" room and the lights at night did not look half bad :). 

View from my room. Not bad eh?

I've wanted to do a long exposure time with a Ferris wheel for a while and I finally got my chance.

Since most of my meals were taken care off, I had very few opportunities to try the local cuisine. Though I did find an indian place down the alley from Dave and Busters. I got the lamb biriyani and it was quite good for a touristy place. They even added raisins to the dish and I've never had that before. I was the only customer eating there for the first 45 minutes before someone else came in. I'd like to think that I helped them draw in more customers that day :)

Mm..something that's not fries :)

On my last day, I ended up wandering over to the Crowne Plaza during lunch which is connected to the Sheraton and took some pictures there as well. I just loved the way everything seemed so grande and pretty in the lobby.

A reflection off the piano.

The casino is in between the two hotels and I got to go into a casino for the first time in my life! Not as interesting or as impressive as I thought it'd be. Just really loud, and lonely-feeling?

They give you a stamp when you go in, took me a while to wash it off.

 So I hoped you enjoyed viewing my adventures in Niagara and I apologize for my absence for the last little while. I'll will try to do more posts in the future :). Have a great weekend :D!