We had a guest stay at our house from Chicago over the weekend. What do you do when you have guests from another country? Take them to Niagara Falls. I made a vlog of the day and check out some photos below! The full set is available on Flickr.
Taken with my GoPro Hero 3+ Black:
Taken with my Canon 60D:
Last year, for Nash’s birthday, I started the tradition of taking him to a ridiculous burger joint. We do burgers all year, when they’re in the vicinity of where we happen to be but on birthdays we’ll actually travel for the next wacky thing. Anyway, this year we ended up at Holy Chuck at St. Clair Station.
Their menu has a variety of interesting creations. Nash ordered The Village Cow ($12.99), which had two patties and seared, melted kefalotiri cheese, red onions and greek olive oil. We’ve never heard of that cheese before, but it was deliciously fried and creamy. He also had a side of fries which came in a generous portion.
I went for the Le Croissant Du Paysan ($12.99), which was egg, pancetta, fries and burger on flakey croissants. The croissants were soft and sweet. Altogether the burger was like a very complete breakfast.
Ok time for the star of the show! Since it was his birthday, I totally splurged on the Black Truffle Fries. Real truffles were always a thing I dreamt about after watching too much Food Network but Holy Cow had actual shavings on their fries (and one of their burgers that we didn’t order)! There was also a nice aged cheese on the fries but we were more intrigued by the unique wood-like taste of truffle. It was really addictive. To top it off, it was also served with a truffle mayo. So much truffle, but so much delicious. These are fries I’m still thinking of a few days later.
I bought these masks from The Face Shop mainly because of the adorable packaging. There’s a third, but it’s mainly for breakouts which rarely happens nowadays. Both were very affordable at $6 each.
The Pore Ghassoul Mask is made from Moroccan ingredients and supposed to remove dirt as well as smooth and even skin tone.
The bottle inside was just as cute as the packaging! When you open it up, the product inside is not so appealing in colour (it’s grey). It’s a wash-off mask that is left on for 15-20 minutes. I found it worked very well at removing any oil on my face. I didn’t really notice a difference with blackheads but my face definitely felt clean and smooth.
The Waterful Grapefruit Mask is a sleeping mask that moisturises dry skin.
It also has a charming monkey container. The product is pink like the packaging and has a citrus smell. I found my skin totally sucks this up over night and does feel smoother but doesn’t stay hydrated for that long. Therefore it’s not that skin clogging and I use it a couple times a week. You don’t need to put a lot on your face so one package can last a very long time.
Koreatown is full of restaurants that look like they serve the exact same thing. Usually for soup the destination is Owl Minerva, but since there’s a whole couple blocks of similar things, we ventured into another for fun. We ended up at Lim Ga Ne. It had a nice homey feel, like someone’s Korean mother was going to cook us dinner.
When we placed our order we were soon presented with these chive pancakes. At first I was slightly confused and thought the waiter heard our order wrong. Apparently this is one of the freebies you get and it was delicious.
Then we were presented with even more of the traditional sides.
I ordered the Yukgaejang, which was shredded beef brisket in a hot broth. The portion was very hearty. I enjoyed it for the most part, except these weird veggies that looked like coffee stir sticks, but they were easy to pick out.
Nash had the Kimchi soup with pork. Despite both our soups being red, they were actually different in taste. His was more sweet and sour and mine was more meaty and spicy.
What we didn’t realize until we got our bill is that taxes are included on the menu so everything is conveniently round numbers. This is definitely a place worth checking out, even for the freebies!
Excuse the shitty photos, I was hungry and ate the soup right after I vlogged it, so they are screen captures.
When I was at the Face Shop a few weeks ago, I picked up this inexpensive nail polish set for $6ish.
Inside are three different colours labelled 1, 2, 3. They are to be applied in layers from the inner nail bed to the tip of the nail resulting in a gradient effect.
The above photo is a test with only one coat. I found the sparkles in bottle three to be a little bit too large to effectively apply on the tips-only. Otherwise, I love the colours together! You can watch me test it out in this vlog.
The full line of Face it Gradation Nail Polish is available on Amazon!
As a side, we shared an order of 1/2 sweet, 1/2 regular fries. I love that they had that as an option! It’s a great compromise for those that can’t decide and they gave us a decent amount for $3.50.
Watch my vlog for the day:
On Monday, the weather was still nice so we headed up to the Halton Hills Conservation areas and hiked in a few of the parks. Check out my Vlog of the adventure and photos below.
My search for fall scenery led us to the Caledon area. We visited Cheltenham Badlands, a small series of soil erosions which turned into beautiful scenery and also Forks of the Credits Provincial Park for a mid-afternoon hike. Check out my video log of the day and some photos below.
I’ve been wanting to Vlog for a while. If you’ve been a frequent reader of the blog, I tried to at the end of summer but I ended up finding it cumbersome to be doing it on a DSLR. I enjoyed using the GoPro during the Canadian Club campaign and had wanted to buy one since. GoPro announced their new Hero 3+’s last week and on a whim, I ordered the new Hero Black!
I’m still testing the ropes on vlogging and according to frequent Youtubers it’s “Vlogtober” this month. It’s month-long challenge to vlog at least once a day. I’ll be doing so in a sort of daily snapshot-of-my-life-and-thoughts way. So far I’ve learnt a lot, including my own mannerisms in nervous situations (ie in front of camera) and the logistics of vlogging in general.
Recently, I dug my original Nintendo Entertainment System out of the closet because I wanted to experience the nostalgia of old games once again. Like all old NES systems, I was cursed with the infamous flashing blue screen.
I Google the problem on the internet. I cleaned my games with alcohol and a Q tip. I took the system apart and attempted to repair the 72 prong connector. None of this worked, the blue screen still flashed.
Then I decided to use the method that made the least sense. I hit it. I gave the system a smack and lo and behold, Mario 3’s curtains appeared on the screen. Sometimes what works is not always what can be easily explained.
I think it’s an interesting life lesson to live by. The road we choose may not always be the most logical, but they may lead to something awesome. The answer to problems might require thinking outside of the box (or in this case hitting the box). However, giving up should never be the conclusion.
Tiana Feng 