A few days ago, I browsed the schedule CBC posted for the whirlwind Canada visit of Princes Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall (Camilla) and figured the only thing I could go to was the fireworks tonight but was I really going to head a few miles into the eastside after I had settled in comfortably at home?!

But at 9:10 I started hearing the alluring boom-booming of… fireworks!! Apparently my east-facing balcony has a clear view of Ashbridges Bay which I hope is the site of other fireworks this summer. So I watched the same fireworks the royals watched with my own snazzy seat in the sky.

The Gardiner headed eastbound was backed up through the fireworks and still at a standstill an hour later.

I also have a view of the Grand Chapiteau of the Cirque the Soleil, currently showing Cavalia. There is one ugly brick factory between me and the tents so I don’t get a full view.

And after the fireworks grand finale wrapped, I could hear someone on the balcony of the next building applaud. So I applauded too.

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It was a glorious weather Sunday and I was mostly cheerful to be on my own, free to set my own schedule. And then, in a blink of an eye, the weekend was over.

Lil Sis told me that what we call Victoria Day, the last Monday before May 25, is known in these parts as “May 2-4“, a nod to the opportunity to drink an extra day and possibly outdoors as the weather tends to be nice by this time. She wrinkles her nose at the bastardization of what traditionally honours Queen Victoria’s birthday and I’m not too pleased to know this either.

I was ambitious and accomplished on Saturday. Set out on foot on a big circle hitting up the ghetto-fabulous Dollarama on Spadina to shop, as much as possible, steals from the bargain basement (literally) store. I count amongst things that are worth getting at $1-$2 citronella candles, double-sided tape, lightbulbs (4s), batteries (4s) and document folders. Well, that’s just what I got. Then I took my potential-$5 coupon to Canadian Tire to get a 2-in-1 floor lamp and reading lamp that was $11.99 (60%) off and hoping for an additional $5 off. Just my luck, $5 coupon was not for Canadian Tire but their partner in the offer, M&M Meat Shops. Boo. And with a leisurely visit to Loblaws on Queens Quay, I’m set for food for a few days.

On Sunday, I actually made it out onto my balcony. But it was not until the mid-afternoon and my balcony is 100% shaded by my building. While it will make for a cooler space when the city really heats up in summer, it’s not too much fun only getting to bask in sunshine in the morning. Something is just wrong with that.

On Sunday night, I bargained with myself about running for two hours and ten minutes on a treadmill or a much-needed run the next morning outdoors. The morning run outdoors won out, of course, because it meant postponing the difficult task and I had no difficulty waking up. Lil Sis and I deliberated if I shouldn’t run straight up Yonge Street and stop a few blocks short of her place and it would be the 13 miles I needed. I was really tempted as we would be having dim sum lunch with relatives in Thornhill and it would be quite the novelty and shock to tell them I ran all the way from 1 Yonge Street to Richmond Hill (8000 Yonge Street). That is similar to the awe we’d get running from the Broadway Running Room to New Westminster when we really get up there in marathon training. But I had to bring the long overdue presents for my new “niece” (whom the parents, first cousins of mine, informed me is actually my “cousin once removed”) so I had to design a run that returns to my apartment. It turned out that 6.5 miles would take me out to Humber Bay Arch Bridge which is a new(ish) icon of Toronto and I’ve long to see in person. I set out from my apartment without so much as a watch or my phone or money to hop onto transit, not 100% certain of the “trails” to get there. It’s not much of a surprise that I only got as far as Ontario Place when my brain quit the run. It wasn’t going to be a scenic or high-trafficked route. The pay-off (seeing the bridge but with no camera to memorialize it) was not enough. I was listening to the most aggravating audiobook (or book) ever (David Nicholls’ One Day) but I feel committed to the story now having listened to 45% so far. So I turned around and walked/ran my way back to civilization, wondering if I would have stuck out if I had run up Yonge Street. It is chockful of civilization although counting up to 8000 was surely going to make it seem like I would never make it. When I got back to the apartment, I did a good 60 minutes on the treadmill with all sorts of interesting stimuli watching the Victoria Day revelers leaving Union Station and heading to some festivities or touristing along Queens Quay, watching Live! with Kelly through closed captioning and listening to a far more interesting novel (The Girl Who Played with Fire).

Working out in the condo gym, I felt like I could get myself that much prettier than a two-hour sweat-soaked outdoor run and then I head up to Thornhill via subway. I read tuned out everything and read East of Eden. Lunch with relatives is pretty predictable. How are you? Everything’s good. How’s work? It’s busy but good. Downloaded any new iPhone apps? From which I learned about Logos Quiz and I’m stuck on the first level! 90 minutes later, I was back on a train heading downtown. More East of Eden read. Because I wanted to visit one shop on Bloor, I got off there and walked very slowly the rest of the way home as my pretty espadrilles are comfortable until the soles of my feet start to burn and the laces have worn away some of the delicate top of foot skin.

That is enough excitement for me!

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Fresh & Clean is more feminine than Arthemia no matter which colours you theme the latter. It is more blog but has a little more magazine aspects than a straight blog theme. And I love the slider. That’s the main magazine aspect of F&C that I enjoy, will enjoy, going forward when I have subsequent entries and add Featured Images. I haven’t gone back to all past posts and allow them to “degrade gracefully”. The built-in related posts features is also nice about F&C.

My walk to work is short and direct and I love the feeling of the crowd also headed with single-minded purpose up Bay Street to various office towers. The first half of my walk, until I reach Front Street, is the ugliest in the world and quite unavoidable for the Gardiner runs east-west along the lake, across my walk, and I have to walk in a dark, dank, pigeon-infested underpass.

But… and I enjoy it every day, this is the view from my “doorstep”:

Yes, it’s another CN Tower snapshot, but it’s my view. I figure that everyone natively from or from around Toronto sigh and yawn. But it’s the people from away, like me, who really like the pointy tower year after year after year.

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My brain shouldn’t be but it was in overdrive!!

It was a wild and crazy weekend starting with the Mad Dash to Pearson after work. The flight looks so promising and feasible at 7:20pm but insert a most tardy and unhurried Airport Express bus fighting Friday rush hour traffic downtown and I was totally on edge until I got to the airport.

There wasn’t a moment to spare and I went to security where the officer guarding the entrance to the roped area was actively avoiding doing work and sending people downstairs to a smaller security checkpoint via stairs not meant for travellers with luggage. That is, no downwards escalators but only stairs and a girl ahead of me with her carry-on luggage tumbled down the stairs! The upstairs guard said the downstairs checkpoint was smaller but empty–a lie–and I was the last person to enter the frustrating queue before they turned people coming downstairs around to go back upstairs.

My carefully preserved Prairie Girl cupcake for Lil Sis was knocked over while exiting the security scanner and peppermint frosting smeared off the chocolate cupcake and onto the box. :(

And the flight was delayed by over and hour. Add that to a most frustrating queue with NPY a few weeks ago when his baggage receipt printed but not the baggage tag and we waited so long in the full-service check-in line just about to boil over because of lackadaisical union labour ethics. I am about to join the chorus of people who swear off Air Canada. But the more corporate and international Air Can brand draws me more than casual and joking Westjet so AC hasn’t lost a customer in my quite yet.

A couple of months ago, on her way back to Halifax, Mum left her cell phone charger with the Toronto airport security people and it was good excuse for her to get a new phone. I think the Korean soaps give her ideas and she wanted a big bright screen and “text messaging” and not a $0 flip phone. And when she saw the “large print” and large on-screen keyboard of the Galaxy Note, she could not be turned.

Instead of working on Saturday night, I set up mum’s new phone and wrote instructions and played many Scramble with Friends games with Lil Sis who is regularly shut out because she has a Blackberry (but is now convinced to go Android/Samsung in 18 months since she’s also anti-Apple for inexplicable reasons). She thinks I’m biased but I don’t think I am to believe that mum would learn to use an iPhone just a bit easier than Android. But mum thinks the iPhone is too small!!

On Sunday when the biggest event of the day is managing the onslaught of Mother’s Day orders, mum and I made another trip to Bell Aliant. Having played with the Galaxy Note overnight, she realized the device is too large and her old, stiff fingers cannot grip the device securely, she feels it’s not private with such a large screen, and her brothers who are a tad more computer/Internet savvy than she is wield simple phones and will have a field day ridiculing her with her Galaxy Note. So we were back to find the next largest Samsung and it would be the Galaxy IIS HD and LTE phone. So I had to set up another phone!

All while fielding the calls from customers to order take out. And calling Bell ExpressVu support to order new remote controls for the PVRs. And calling Bell Mobility to unlock mum’s account to manage her bills online. And fielding some panicky calls from my grandmother in Toronto who was overreacting to something.

And then we worked worked worked from 4pm until 8pm. I love having the cleanest job just answering the phone and handling cash but it gets awkward just standing at the counter and people are waiting for orders not yet completed.

Tying up loose ends and having the “serious talk” with mum that needs to happen every trip otherwise it’s not typical of our rapport… brings me to 2am this morning.

There’s still a list of errands for Lil Sis to help out with since she’s staying a day longer and I’m stressed out about it because I want it done and for some of my parents’ large utilities bills to get adjusted.

I say it with the best of intentions and need to mean it this time. From now until the end of June my life can consist of not much more than work, study, and running.  No room for error for seven weeks.

Except, I’ve got big plans for the rest of the year that requires planning this far out. Crazy, but I wouldn’t really have my life any other way.

We couldn’t help it. We had never been to. We weren’t thrilled with the notion of going to cities we had been to before like Montreal and Ottawa. And “nearby” cities like Chicago, New York, Boston and Quebec City aren’t so nearby. She found the hotel (Westin Detroit Metropolitan Airport) which I successfully Pricelined for cheap. A former colleague had just set up in Ann Arbor so we could visit him on campus. People made faces when I said we were going to Detroit but their faces were soon erased when I would quickly follow up that we were also hitting Ann Arbor. Detroit was a top U.S. city of yore. Wouldn’t we see some of the old swagger?

Not really. We went into the city on Saturday afternoon and the kind of quiet you experience on the weekend in a financial district was present throughout the city. People have so clearly vacated the core. Plus, all the professional sports teams were playing away games that evening. It was eerie. We made our own fun anyhow getting Coney Island hot dogs for which Detroit is famous, strolling along the waterfront, and learning that the hub of activity that weekend surrounded the epicenter of the Detroit Free Press Marathon taking place that weekend! An American marathon alone is fascinating to me after my positive experience at another one (Portland ’08), but I soon learned that it’s a truly international marathon because the marathon and half-marathon courses wend their way from Detroit into Windsor via Ambassador Bridge and back to US soil via Detroit-Windsor Tunnel! Neat!

We visited my newly minted professor colleague for brunch on Sunday and for a walk around the University of Michigan campus. Lil Sis fell in love with the campus and U of M sports and we both loved spending time in the college town area. I think of part of Halifax as college town (the South End) but it’s nothing like Ann Arbor. She’s stoked to return and get into massive Michigan Stadium, housing U of M’s football field and eclipsing all other American university stadiums. But given the popularity of the college football team, we probably have to sell some of our organs to get the coveted U of M vs. Michigan State tickets on the Saturday, October 20 afternoon!

I couldn’t let go of the idea of doing Detroit (the only other US one I would do might be Chicago, and by driving that is another four hours farther than the four hours to Detroit) so, five days ahead of the most recent fee increase, I registered! I love how there is a ticker on the website showing somewhat real-time registration statistics. The International Half-Marathon clearly is the darling race with twice as many spaces for participants than all the other races combined. I’ve come to believe it is the perfect distance and we will get in the international segment and a quick tour of the cultural parts of downtown and tidily finish our race. Marathoners, on the other end, have a tough slog through what looks like residential neighbourhoods. Yawn.

I wonder (I’m sure there’s blog posts about it) how border crossings will be. Perhaps because you will be held up for a few minutes, this marathon could never be taken truly seriously. But it’s unique!

I must say, I had the most difficult border crossing at Detroit-Windsor entering Detroit. Since we left at about 6 p.m. on a Friday, we arrived at the border four hours later and the guard couldn’t quite believe that two girls, alone, would visit Detroit. We couldn’t exactly claim we were there for the shopping (why not Buffalo?) and we looked out of our minds to want to just visit. It smoothed things over when I mentioned that we would also visit a friend in Ann Arbor until he asked about my friend! He probably just wanted to see me squirm but, oh, did I really dread the possibility of having to explain my colleague’s work (also my past line of work) and if the question of my colleague’s nationality were to be raised! I was miffed enough as it was, no offense to my colleague, when the guard wanted to know if who I am visiting is my boyfriend. No!!

I wonder how easy it will be to cross the border when we simply say we’re coming into town to watch the U of M game and run in the marathon! Should be a breeze, except for the part where I keep running across the border and then try to leave for good.

‘Cuz, you know, I’m a beauty blogger now on top of a running and reading blogger… I can survive quite fine and well not visiting a mall except sporadically, picking up beauty products as needed from the pharmacy guided by what is on sale that week. But when you work just above an amazing subterranean mall and walk by shiny shops everyday in the winter when you scurry out of the cold, some of those shiny displays start to stick.

I kept seeing the The Body Shop‘s Mother of All Sales banners after Christmas and I started to succumb. In addition, I’m paying off moving fees, a truckload of new furniture, and I had $250 of gift cards from The Body Shop from the past two Christmases. In the absence of me telling my parents what I need and they could give me for Christmas, Mum shopped The Body Shop. I wasn’t overly grateful at the time but now I am! On my first foray, in January, I got six diverse products worth $89 for $60.

Vitamin C Daily Moisturizer SPF 30
50mL $20 (B3G2 price $13.48)
This lotion contains Amazonian camu camu berry “which is known to have one of the highest contents of vitamin C in nature”, a vitamin that “encourages collagen production, improves elasticity and protects against damaging environmental aggressors”.
In the shop, I smoothed some of the Seaweed line and Vitamin C line on the back of my hand. Both contain SPF 15 but while the seaweed lotion felt so smooth going on (refreshing) the Vitamin C felt a little stickier. In no small part because my friend Vina raved about the product line, I went with the Vitamin C; I also prefer the citrus scent, finding it much more refreshing and the promised (and delivered) radiance was a draw. I really do feel like I have a healthy glow from the product. Just a little bit goes a long way making this product, at B3G2 surprisingly reasonable.

Nutriganics Softening Cleansing Gel
100mL $15 (B3G2 price $10.11)
This cleansing gel is enriched with organic babassu oil from Brazil that helps smoothes and revitalizes skin and aloe vera that hydrates and calms sensitive skin.
This winter was surprisingly mild but my skin still rebelled worse than I can ever recall, so it was my main motivation to pick up a good cleanser. I didn’t notice the “First Signs of Ageing” on the side of the bottle, which means you use it before progressing to the Natrulift “Signs of Ageing” line and then the Wise Woman lines. Drawing from something familiar, the gel smells like tea tree oil products I have used in the past. It feels like spreading a thin cream around your face and barely lathers. But it’s been remedial for my skin.

Peppermint Intensive Foot Rescue
100mL $18 (B3G2 price $12.13)
This skin-smoothing moisturizer cools and deodorizes, a customer favourite since 1985. Peppermint oil promotes a cooling sensation while cocoa butter is an excellent moisturizer and sweet almond oil that is rich in essential fatty acids help restore the skin’s moisture barrier. To round things out, grape extract smoothes the skin and has gentle exfoliation properties.
Another consequence of a dry winter in the east: really dry feet! Gross, huh? So Must-Have Item #2 from The Body Shop was their intensive foot lotion. NPY gets a kick out of how I apply lotion to my feet which is to squirt lotion directly on my feet, flop on my stomach, and have each food rub the lotion into the other. In the case of this product, I dip my heel into the heel-sized pink container and brings heels together to spread it around. The lotion is thick and absorbs quickly into the skin. The bonus is how it smells like a potent candy cane!

Vitamin C Eye Reviver Duo
20mL $22 (B3G2 price $14.83)
This lotion contains Amazonian camu camu berry “which is known to have one of the highest contents of vitamin C in nature”, a vitamin that “encourages collagen production, improves elasticity and protects against damaging environmental aggressors”. This product is best if you want to refresh and revive delicate skin around the eyes and minimize the appearance of dark shadows.
When I was pre-shopping at The Body Shop’s online site, I thought I wanted Nutrilift (“Signs of Ageing” but I didn’t know it then) eye cream. I’m not a user of eye cream but wielding a gift card and the Mother of All Sales made me feel adventurous. But presented with a dazzling array of products in-store, I tapped a sales associate’s expertise.
Me: “What other lines have eye creams?”
She: “All of them! Do you want to reduce fine lines/wrinkles? Get rid of dark circles? Reduce puffiness?”
Me: “Dark circles and puffiness.”
She steered me away from Nutrilift and towards Vitamin C. Although I bought the eye reviver duo in January, I only tried it in April when NPY visited because what do I care if I have dark circles around other people? I apply the Vitamin C moisturizer from above thinly over my face except around my eyes. First, you use the end of the stick marked “1.” with a roller applicator spreading a cool liquid on your dark circles and just around the outer corner. Then I use the end marked “2.” that looks like a lip gloss wand and dab and spread the shimmering white formula on just the dark circles. There is an active ingredient–at the very least, it tingles–in the wand end but I know the principle is that reflective particles will make the area look lighter and you will look younger and free from worries. I feel invincible with that stuff on.

Rainforest Balance Shampoo
400mL $14 (B3G2 price $9.44)
This shampoo contains seaweed that helps balance, purify and clarify hair and aloe vera that moisturizes and protects hair. It is best for oily hair and you want to reduce excess oil for hair that looks clean and fresh all day.
Given I buy $2 shampoo (Herbal Essences, if I can) from the drug store, this product was the biggest splurge even with a gift card and Mother of All Sales. That is, my usual shampoo would be $3.50 for a 400mL bottle compared to this shampoo’s B3G2 price of $9.44.
Also for this product, I busted it out when NPY visited, three months after purchasing it. Honestly, I hadn’t gone through all of my other shampoo yet either. I picked up Herbal Essences Drama Clean which I love to gently make my hair squeaky clean and works well despite hard Toronto water. And I like having NPY use it because it reminds him of China when we used it every day to wash away the city’s dirt. He was all too eager to use the Body Shop shampoo that has a spa-like eucalyptus scent and while I didn’t notice much with my coarse hair, he thinks it makes his hair softer. I wouldn’t get it again because my hair does not need $9/$14 shampoo!

Delipscious Tinted Lip Balm in Berry Crush
4.2mL $10 (now $3)
This lip balm contains virgin cold-pressed coconut oil, organic beeswax and cocoa butter, all of which moisturizes skin, conditions lips, and help to replenish moisture levels. The fruity flavour is made from food-grade ingredients, including natural watermelon and raspberry seed oils.
Who can have too many tubes of lip balm? Not me! And this sale price did not depend on buying other items and who can resist 70% off? Not me! Who is sometimes (often times) too lazy to put on lip colour after applying lip balm? Me! It smells lovely like artificial, perfumy berry scent like the Lip Smackers of your youth but at least an effort has been made to make it more grown-up (“food-grade ingredients”). Yet it’s shimmery and still feels way youthful being dispensed from the twist tube. Regular price $10?! Crazy!

Home-cooking Chinese meal

I really wanted to share the very homestyle-tasting bamboo shoots and mushrooms dish I learned to make recently. It was so successful that now I need to be sure to have some bamboo shoots in my pantry to make this dish in a pinch. I was a little heavy-handed with the sauce. And I knew it wasn’t very real-vegetable heavy so I tossed together a “fusion” sautee with two types of zucchini (NPY’s favourite) in hoisin sauce and lemon with cute button mushrooms. And for a fruit dessert, I’ve discovered Cara Cara oranges (a cross between orange grapefruit) and strawberries.

Spam & Egg “Mc”Muffin Meal

Ever since making the Spam and egg breakfast sandwich a month or two back, I really wanted to share it with NPY and looked forward to his arrival. I shopped for hashbrowns and picked up Milo for a really hearty meal. It was all fun to prepare because I have a Cuisinart grill on which I can make the whole spread at once.

This meal really held me for a while!

NPY’s Request: Mac ‘n’ Cheese

NPY made a request and I wanted to fulfill it: to have some homemade mac ‘n’ cheese. I pinned a Lunch at Six Point Beer Mac and Cheese recipe and followed it except it was very flexible. Chose the beer (sweet Innis & Gunn), pasta (cavatappi which we love from cavatappi Alfredo at Cactus Club), cheese (Asiago, provolone, and Bremmer), and instead of bread crumbs, I crumbled some of the sour cream and onion Popchips we have around. I will eat potato chips if it is part of a meal.

Since the pasta dish was not so veggie at all, I threw together a soy sautee of asparagus, zucchini, and tomatoes. Because when the kitchen is nice, cooking is easy… almost fun.

Thompson Diner

After the Yonge Street 10K and we stopped moving, we were cold! It was only about 6 degrees. In addition to the streetcars on Queens Quay being messed up due to construction, the additional load from runners and spectators meant it didn’t look like we’d get on a bus soon so we started walking and Bathurst looked viable for brunch.

The wait for a table felt long. We ordered and the wait was long… for everything. I had barely formed an idea from the menu what to order when Lil Sis pointed out the Brunch burger that had fried egg topping a burger that is on a donut! Both Lil Sis and NPY had eggs Benedict and I shared with them part of my burger and fries so it wasn’t so bad for me after all. ;)

Real Sports Bar & Grill

I walk by Real Sports all of the time and more recently I learned it had been voted in 2010 by ESPN as Best Sports Bar in North America. Not shabby! There is a two-story television screen surrounded by medium screens on the left and right and smaller screens line the bottom edge. We got a good seat along the back row of tables (even better would have been a booth but it was just the two of us) and overhead, a second level dining room gets a bird’s eye view of the big space. We were there to watch the all-important game 5 between Canucks and LA Kings with the Canucks fighting to stave off elimination from the play-offs. My reservation was half an hour before the game started and we watched as the place filled up and I was delighted that the big screen switched from the Raptors game to the Canucks game at 8 p.m.

NPY ordered a predictable beer while I tried The Winner. I couldn’t get away from the name! I has a mixture of vodka, Red Bull, Gatorade and OJ. When I told Lil Sis about it, she made a face. But it looked like an innocent tall glass of orange juice and it provided me with a buzz and energy. We ordered a pound of wings dipped in a winning sauce of maple bacon mustard. The wings (about 7 of them) were meaty and delicious. I loved dragging it through the tzatziki.

Ten-Ichi Japanese Cuisine

Since our last visit in late January, Ten-Ichi moved to a different unit in the same plaza and renovated so NPY was treated to a modern-looking restaurant. Just like last time, we waited for about 20 minutes and I had made a reservation! I was eager to show NPY our favourite dishes and in the second round, he confidently took control and made an order in order to fill in his gaps. I raved about their hand rolls – crispy nori sheets used each time – and after NPY had his first hand roll (a salmon one), he ordered two more unagi ones! We had a lot of fun and ordered a bevy of desserts. I didn’t take many pictures since we have been there twice before.

Destiny Tea House [yelp.ca]

There’s an amazing little “plaza” at Highway 7 and the 404 with all the Big Box Restaurants you would want to hit up for a while: The Keg, Marlowe, Alice Fazooli’s, The Melting Pot (new!), Jack Astor’s… and Destiny. NPY was impressed by the size of the place and wondered if it gets filled. It might suffer during the dinner rush but I have the feeling it’s really busy and hopping in the late hours and after clubs close (if they are still open). Service is just as you expect in a Taiwanese shop (less than non-existent, worse than at other Chinese restaurants). It was cold while NPY visited and additionally it was a rainy day so we warmed up before dinner with warm milk teas.

Bannock

Bannock is one of those new iconic restaurants in Toronto that I’ve actually wanted to try. I’m getting older, or the scene isn’t so exciting, or I usually have no one to go with, but I don’t have great hankering to try much around here… except Bannock. “Canadian Comfort Food” is its tagline and I made sure we got comfort food for at least one of our dishes. I would have liked mac ‘n’ cheese but I thought I saw one served and it looked puny and I was making my own later in the week.

So we went with a shrimpwich that was just okay and as a cold sandwich, not so comforting. But it was light and the bread was buttery. NPY’s Arcadian chicken pot pie was a success with generous and big pieces of tender chicken and the mashed potatoes were creamy with a fragrant gravy that was strongly chicken.

Prairie Girl Bakery

I wish there was more choice but since there isn’t, it seems that Prairie Girl has the cupcake market in downtown Toronto cornered. My closest location is in the PATH and at lunch time the queue to order/pick up cupcake orders is long and dominates the hallway. I was successful getting the the flavours I wanted when I went down around ten in the morning, my strategy from now on as I might indulge and get these cupcakes, oh, once a month.

We enjoyed the chocolate cake with strawberry icing over lunch and the cake was divinely moist and the icing so fluffy. We saved the cafe au lait chocolate cake (the day/week’s special) for dessert in the evening but by then the chocolate cake was getting chewy and the icing was more solid. Still intensely flavourful.

Spice Route

When I asked V for a suggestion where we could all meet up, she suggested Spice Route. We’ve wanted to check it out when it turns into a lounge later on but it was also a cool place to have dinner… but the reviews are not so great. We all go in wary because it’s an Asian fusion place and we have high standards for that stuff.

The dining room is really dark so my photos are so grainy! We would have ordered separate dishes as it was most convenient and we have different tastes and waved away when the waitress asked if we had dined there before and explained it was “family style”. But something about how it the food was plated and we switched over to family style and shared all the food. Mongolian beef that was spicy and tenderized slices of beef. Teriyaki beef with cabbage-wrapped steamed rice was well done. Soy miso cod was good but not plentiful and came on a bed of Shanghai noodles. Seared yellowfin tuna was alright.

Mill St. Brewpub

After poking into every corner of the Distillery District, we walked into the most lively spot, Mill St. Brewpub. The New York Rangers-Washington Capitals game was on one of the screens and NPY could point his bar stool towards it. He got an organic ale from the microbrewery while I pored over the beer flights and got a G&T instead. NPY surprised me, ordering a pulled short rib poutine. Nice to nibble on and just as we were finished it, all the screens were changed to the Blue Jays-Mariners game. Time to leave!

Tofu Village [yelp.ca]

A trip to Toronto is not complete without a Korean meal! Given my homebase is downtown, we went to Korea Town at Bloor & Christie. But which restaurant of the tens to patronize?? I’ve been to the North York version of three of the top four Korean restaurants in the Annex: Buk Chang Dong Soon Tofu, Owl of Minerva, and Joons Korean Cuisine. We walked by Imonay and Tofu Village, both of which have 100% ratings on Urbanspoon with 24 and 16 votes, respectively. NPY liked the look of Tofu Village better so we ended up there. After a wait, we were seated in a packed dining room.

I hate to point it out but I was jarred and then a little worried because my usual barometer to read how good a place can be had to be re-calibrated. In North York, all of the customers are Asian. It’s the nature of the neighbourhood and proximity to Richmond Hill and Markham. I like the flaked firm tofu that came with our banchan and each time I see the bean sprouts dish, I am reminded of how I want to figure out how to make it. I ordered the oyster soon tofu (tofu soup) “medium” on a scale including plain, mild, medium and spicy. We were a little full from the day but tofu soup will open up my appetite.

Lil Sis was visiting that weekend and for the fun of it, I dragged out unwrapping the box and each time she would pass by the box, it was little more unwrapped. I likened the reveal a little to how people make an occasion out of opening a new Apple product. So, if you don’t subscribe, here is what unwrapping a Glossy Box is like.

Here is the obligatory shot of the postcard that describes the products enclosed in the Glossy Box.

And… here are the samples, 5.5 of them.

Here are my thoughts on the March 2012 products:

Aveeno Daily Moisturizing Lotion
71 mL, $2.40 (card indicates $11.99 for 354 mL)
Okay, I have to admit that I was a little crestfallen to at first to see this product in my Glossy Box. It’s something so normal and you could pick it up at Shoppers Drug Mart, not a designer brand you would see at Sephora. My sister, new to the idea of Glossy Box and waiting to be wowed, made a passing remark about the Aveeno product. I read a couple other reviews and it seems to me that while I got Aveeno moisturizing lotion that you could grab in the sample section of Shoppers Drug Mart, some people got Bailey lip gloss which cannot be got at Shoppers.
On the other hand, will I use this whole product? Yes! It is a no-nonsense lotion that sets about the task of moisturizing without frills. It has a healthy “oatmeal” scent that doesn’t interfere with other scents you might want to wear.

Bailey Cosmetics Kabuki Brush
1 unit, $40
Bailey as in Brian Bailey of Project Runway Canada, not that I watch the show. He naturally started off in fashion and has now branched out into cosmetics and it seems you can get to know his line best by watching The Shopping Channel which purports to be the exclusive provider. I didn’t even know this counted as an item and the highest value item in the box, at that. When I tried it with the blush below, I did experience the luxurious feel of the goat hair bristles. I finally own a Kabuki brush and at a steal of a deal!

evian Brumisateur Facial Spray
50 mL, $7.00
The one product in the box you wouldn’t find me buying, ever! Refresh? I traditionally think the most refreshing thing is a good blot and adequate hydration. But it’s the toning feature of the facial spray that I was most intrigued by although I don’t quite know how to quantify the results of skin toning. As a runner, I recall the feeling of running through light mist and it is nature’s gift which can apparently be canned and be put in your purse. The nozzle of my evian spray was wonky so the dispersal was less misty and more spray bottle, but you know what to expect.

Pandora’s Makeup Box Blush St. Tropez
1 unit, $18
Watching some Extra Petite videos recently, I felt thoroughly admonished for not adding some colour back whenever I wear a “foundation” (usually tinted moisturizer, infrequently real foundation) with a quick sweep of blush. Another problem is I didn’t have blush. Now, that problem is solved!
The blush comes in a summer-inspired cute floral package with a paper closure that opens up and looks like open arms waiting to hug you. The packaging truly makes me happy to wear the product and it did indeed go on very light, natural-looking and lasted all day.

Sebastian Re-Shaper Hairspray
43 g, $19.95
I have finally learned how to do some things with my long, coarse, heavy, unmanageable hair but the styles still keep falling out and I realized I don’t have in my arsenal and could stand to pick up some hairspray and look what comes along!
The nozzle seemed a little wonky on the sample size bottle and as I used it, the scent seemed to me like perfumed flowers and pleasant. I  swept my hair up in a bun to be all serious at work and it worked well to keep the wispy pieces in place.

Algemarin Foam Bath
15 mL, $2.40 ($3.99 for 5x 5mL)
I’ve been meaning to take a bath and allow myself to relax with a long soak in my tub. After having house guests for four straight days and two hard 10K training sessions within 24 hours, tonight was the night for a bath. This little pouch from UK brand Algemarin was a most fortuitous arrival! The indigo-coloured product makes your bath a brilliant turquoise blue and bubbles up luxuriously. The scent was natural and refreshing and my skin was happy and soft afterwards.

Total value of the box, as per enclosed Glossy Box postcard: $89.75. A monthly Glossy Box subscription is $15 and includes shipping for which I mentally knock down the price a little. This month, I appreciated the mixture of every day products (lotion, hairspray) with the pampering ones and I was highly impressed with the value of the box. It sounds like the next box is on its way and I look forward to what it will contain!

It is with the heaviest heart ever that I have the time to blog and write this post because it means that NPY’s weeklong trip to Toronto is wrapped and he is back in Vancouver. After last October’s trip that was nothing short of disaster on all fronts, I needed to make sure this trip did not permanently scar him about the city that will, in some way, always be a part of me, my home-away-from-hometown. So these are the things that I did to make sure I struck a balance between presenting the city as a place to call home and making it feel like a trip with new things to see and do (emphasized in bold).

Part way through the week, he asked me if I wasn’t making it so nice with the activities I had planned that he could stay. Yes!! No!! I just wanted him to have a good trip. Toronto ain’t so bad….

• cleaned out a drawer so he wasn’t living out of a suitcase, freed up a bathroom bin
• apartment tour to show off the amenities like fancy gym, squash courts, basketball court and pool
• a home-cooked pasta “carb-loading meal”
• a trip to my local market, Longos in the fancy Maple Leaf Sports complex
• meeting up with me and Lil Sis at the Exhibition grounds after the Yonge Street 10K
• indulging in one of our traditional post-run brunches at swanky Thomson Diner

• getting good use of our two-rides-for-one TTC day pass zipping to Bloor-Yonge/Yorkville, Bloor-Christie (Koreatown), Chinatown and Kensington Market, including a visit to Carole’s Cheesecake Cafe for taffy apple cheesecake that pleased NPY (apple) and me (cheesecake)
• watching the Canucks’ last game of 2011/2012 on the two-storey screen at Real Sports (North America’s best sport’s bar, according to ESPN)
• “road trip” to the ‘burbs to check out large and new-ish Vaughan Mills mall that has the Banana Republic Outlet that delights us
• visiting an enormous bubble tea house, Destiny Tea House, at the “plaza” of big box restaurants at Highway 7 and East Beaver Creek
• an all-you-can eat Japanese food feast at Ten-Ichi in Scarborough where NPY ate three handrolls

• DYO salad and DYO grilled cheese lunch from Druxy’s, a favourite and standby for me
• my gift of a $10 GC to Second Cup so he can enjoy the honey vanilla tea latte I discovered
• on-the-point directions through the PATH from my work (southern tip) north to the Eaton Centre
• meet-up with his client at a Panera, in Canada only in Ontario so far
• take a dip in one of two condo hot tubs followed by visiting the sauna–not just for fun but therapeutic reasons
• lunch at Clipper Cafe, for Bay Street people “in the know”
• pre-movie dinner at Bannock for Canadian-sourced comfort food
• finally watching The Hunger Games and NPY, who ignored all reviews, was roundly impressed and says he’ll read the next two books in the trilogy!
• lunch from Soup Nutsy was marred by it being 1 p.m. and they were out of the sherried lobster bisque I wanted NPY to try and the chunky chicken noodle soup he wanted to try; dessert to our lunch was a divine chocolate cupcake with strawberry icing from Prairie Girl Bakery
• totally spoiled him for dinner because I can now easily execute two dish dinners in my dream kitchen (i.e., roomy, bright, modern, long counters); dinner consisted of beer mac & cheese, soy sautéed asparagus-zucchini-grape tomatoes, NHL Alumni Hat Trick wine (a blend of Riesling, Gewürztraminer and Chardonnay), fresh fruit dessert of mango and strawberries, and a second cupcake from Prairie Girl Bakery with chocolate cake and cafe au lait icing.

• lunch at Marche was unfortunately very average
• dinner with L&V at swanky, lounge-y Spice Route and an eye-opening tour of SPiN, the table tennis club found in New York and Milwaukee
• since making it for myself a few weeks ago, I was looking forward to making Spam & Egg “Mc”Muffin with hashbrown patties as our lazy Saturday brunch dish

• followed by a big exploration day on the TTC pass we could share: Toronto Music Garden where we made our own fun, St. Lawrence Market, Distillery District and a visit to Mill St. Brewpub to catch part of the NYR-WAS game until all the screens were changed to Blue Jays baseball, bleh. We strolled through Trinity Bellwoods Park and sought out the exterior of Being Erica’s apartment at 337 Palmerston Boulevard. We ate in Korea Town at Tofu Village which has exceptionally high reviews.

I almost feel like I was on a week-long vacation with some work that occurred at regular intervals during the day. It was brilliant but real life resumes now.

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