MUJI: Aroma Diffuser

I’ve been so stressed these past few weeks, stressed at work, stressed with personal life, really difficult to fall asleep. And my neighbour is a night queen so clicking his heels at 1am doesn’t help. Lack of sleep at night, tired at work, can’t fall asleep at night, it is an unhealthy pattern.

I’m trying lots of ways to relax and trying to get some good few hours of sleep. Muji finally have in stock this aroma diffuser. It’s not cheap but it is compact and have good coverage area. It is also dual as a light as well. So I made the purchase to try it out. It’s pretty nice, cold vapour with aroma of the essential oils. I got the relax blend – lavender & citrus. I don’t know if it has helped me relax but it does bring a nice scent into the room.

Blue Jays vs. Mariners

Catching my first Blue Jays game this season at Roger’s Center. It was a perfect day, it was cool this week, back down to 16C but today, was summer weather again at 28C. The dome was open, sunny, hot sun shinning on me during the game, working on my tan at the same time. The Jays haven’t been playing that great this season. If only we can bank in the extra runs in some games to use in other games when we struggle to score. It seems like a pattern that if we don’t score at least 7 runs, even if we have the lead, our pitching will give up the lead and lose. But when we do score, we can score big and high scoring games are the only games we win.

We have lost the last 2 games to the Mariners in this series, we couldn’t afford to lose the last game. Today was Sanchez pitching and Bautista was out of the line up. Kawasaki was called up from Triple A for this series so we were lucky to see him play, the crowd loves him. He got the most cheers. Sanchez put in a solid performance (our starting pitchers have been very unstable with very high ERA). He pitched a solid 6.2 innings, giving up only 2 runs. We were losing but then we finally came back, first with Goin’s first homer of the season – a 2 run homer, then another 2 run homer by Encarnacion in the same inning. We had another 4 run inning in the 7th to make it a 8-2 win. Woohoo, we have only won 2 of the last 9 games so witnessing a winning game was a bonus.

It was also Country day at the park so they were giving out trucker hats for the first 20,000 fans, we went a little early to make sure I got one, I needed a new hat. Nice Sunday afternoon catching the Jays game!!

Tomorrowland

This was probably the only good thing that happened today. Was not planned but saw a movie theatre, had lots of time to kill, so why not catch a movie. And this movie just released today, saw the trailer when I was watching Avengers, looked pretty interesting, and there is George Clooney so went for it. Since it was an afternoon matinee, not many people even though it is opening day. The movie was pretty good, interesting storyline, very different. I didn’t look anything up as to who was in the movie, so I was surprised when I saw Dr. House. It’s a sci-fi, fantasy movie, again, not my typical type of movies but I enjoyed it.

So why was I not working on a Friday afternoon? Well, I took the morning off to get my car service, booked an appointment for 10:30am, got to the dealers before hand, dropped my car off, then they tell me that there was a lot of walk-ins this morning that I have to wait for a few hours before they will look at my car. WTF?? What’s the point of making an appointment if I can’t get service around that time?? Not everyone has the whole day to wait around. If you don’t have available technicians, then don’t say you have availability. When I booked the appointment, they say it will probably take 3 hours, that was fine with me, thinking that I drop the car at 10:30am, should get my car back around 1:30pm, get back to work for the afternoon.

Now what it turns out, they didn’t look at my car until probably around after 1:30pm, didn’t get my car back until 5:30pm!!! That is 7 hours!!! So basically, I wasted the entire day waiting, couldn’t do work (as I didn’t bring my laptop with me) and was stranded as the dealer drop me off at Fairview and I had no where else to do. I ended up had to take the entire day off from work, meaning I will have to make it up this weekend. Wasted my valuable time doing nothing other than catching a movie and walking around the mall. Since I didn’t get my car back till after 5:30pm, I was stuck in traffic going home for an hour (which was not planned as I thought I was going to get my car back mid-afternoon to avoid the traffic). I’ve been going to this dealer for 6 years now and I think this experience has pissed me off that I will not return. I cannot waste another day for a car service, will go to one closer to me where I can get work done. They will be hearing from me in my feedback form with frustration. >_<

Quack quack quack

The babies were so cute, the siblings were all fighting to eat the yellow flowers.

Dumpling House Restaurant

I’m always in the mood for dumplings. We originally wanted to try another place but we passed by this place first so we tried it. It was packed even when it was only 5:30pm. The place was not that big and the tables were very cramped together. We got a table right away but then the people afterwards had to wait. The service was very quick as they qant a quick turn around to free up the tables. Lots of servers running around and the boss was there so if any of them had a moment of freedom, she will tell them what to do.

We ordered these dishes:

• hot & sour soup – decent authentic compared to the other ones I had, not too spicy, lots of sesame oil
• pan-fried pork and chives dumplings – very hot and crispy on the bottom of the dumpling. The dumplings are actually not sealed so there is opening. Very tasty, didn’t need to add soy sauce at all
• steamed pork and cabbage dumplings – freshly steamed, hot and juicy in the inside.
• green onion pancake – freshly made, very crispy and flaky

All the dishes were very good, The food came pretty quickly and price is cheap, portions are decent. They were really rushing to get you out. The moment our plate was empty, they took it away. I felt so pressured eating, like all eyes were watching me and I couldn’t even finish my tea as they were cleaning up my table.

Dumpling House Restaurant
328 Spadina Ave
Toronto, ON M5T 2E7

Koyoi Restaurant & Bar

I have fallen in love with Japanese food again ever since I’ve been back from Japan. I especially like the Izakaya type places, where it serves small dishes of food for sharing. Last time we tried to eat here and it was packed so we couldn’t try, weekday nights are much better, no reservations needed.

My friend and I ordered a lot as we were stress eating. It was a hot day so eating inside was very stuffy, it took a lot of cold water before we cooled down.

We ordered these dishes to try:

• Beef tataki – very fresh with radish and green onions in sweet ponzu sauce
• Scallop carpaccio – with seaweed and salad, scallop were fresh but not much taste to it
• Deep fried chicken – very juicy meat in the inside while crispy on the outside, delicious
• Grilled Ox Tongue on hot plate – served with bean spouts, love the hot plate but need to eat right away so the beef doesn’t cooked too long and the tough to bite
• Okonomiyaki – this is the first I’ve had found in Toronto. They don’t cook in front of you but they serve it done on a hot plate. It was delicious with cubes of octopus.
• Sukiyaki – with beef, tofu, mushroom, cabbages in hot pot. I love the soup, very tasty. It was a small pot, wish there was some udon in it.
• Green tea cheesecake with ice-cream – after eating that, there is still room for dessert. I like just about anything with green tea so a cheesecake is no exception. My first time having a green tea cheesecake, its good, not sweet and have flavours of green tea. A good light dessert option.

The place is decent size but the tables are pretty cramp together so not very comfortable. Not here for the ambiance. Noisy as in you can hear clearly the conversation next to you but not loud that you have to scream at each other across the table. They have a variety selection of alcohol too so if you want to chill in the patio for drinks, its an option as well.

Koyoi Restaurant & Bar
2 Irwin Avenue
Toronto, ON M4Y1K9

Avengers: Age of Ultron

It’s kind of sad that during year-end time, a highlight in your week is that you get a break to watch a movie. Well, that’s how this week has been .. pretty rough week. Finally got to see Avengers 2 and we went all out to watch the IMAX 3D! It’s a pretty awesome movie, lots of action of course. I like this one better than the first one. The problem with 3D movies is that it only focus on one point and the rest of the picture is blurry which kind of annoyed me at some point.

High Park Cherry Blossoms

I think this year the weather played a big part in it, having a week of 20+ degrees on the blossoming week of the cherry blossoms and no rain. It was very pretty at full blossoms. Also, now that High Park is getting more notice about the existence of cherry blossoms, it has attracted a bigger crowd each year. It wasn’t the first time I’ve been but I feel like each time I come, there are more and more people. I was already smart and took public transit over there as there are huge car line-ups to find a parking spot, plus, the road into High Park is one way so once you are in, you are stuck in the 2 km/hr drive until you reach the other end of the park for the exit. I know some people that just drove in and out as they couldn’t find parking.

I took a few hours off work to get there around 3pm on a weekday and it was packed. Did everyone take time off from work?? Geez, the park was already filled with families, groups of people that were having a picnic under the trees. It’s like they have been hanging out there for the day and still not ready to leave. It was nearly impossible to take any picture without human figures in your way. So other than aiming the camera up to the skies, you will get people photo booming your pictures.

But the cherry blossoms were beautiful especially when you have the sunny blue skies as the background. Every picture I took was amazing. And with the buds close to full blossoms, you can see clearly all the petals out and none on the ground yet. I think I spend about a few hours just walking along the trail with the trees by the pond and took over 200+ pictures!! It was a nice stroll and scenery and also enjoying the nice summer-like weather. Thanks Japan for giving us these trees!

Happy Mother’s Day

Mother’s day dinner at our favourite dumpling place.

FNL @ the ROM

Second time going to the FNL at the ROM (Royal Ontario Museum). Learning from the first experience is to buy advance ticket so we don’t have to wait in line. Though the catch is that you have to get in before 8pm. And if you have a big group, waiting can take time but we were able to get in before 8pm. The layout is about the same as previous time, different food and bar stands are spread out around the museum. The only problem was there were line-ups and line-ups everywhere. I feel like the whole night we were in line for something. From line-ups to buy ROM bucks to lining up for drinks and for food. Some food lines were so long, and we were walking around the museum to wait until the line dies down. But next thing we knew, many of the food vendors were closing out or food was sold out. So we had unused tickets which we couldn’t use … now I either have to come back for another night to use them or sell them off to someone.

The food was pretty good – at least the ones we tried. Meatball sandwich from Little Tomato ~ so delicious (not just because I was starving), it was a good portion size of a sandwich. I was lucky I lined up when there were only a few people as later, I heard it was almost an hour wait for the food. We wanted to go back for the shortcake sandwich dessert but it was sold out when we went back. 😦  The other thing we had was from Hot Bunzz – red eyed BBQ beef stuffed bun. It was warm right in front of you, juicy.

The music for tonight was ok .. it was Cinco de Mayo night so Salsa and Latin music. Not really that much dancing music, everyone who was on the dance floor was just moving up and down. When they finally played a hip hop song, people started to get alive and started jumping away. But then they went back to the mellow music even though the crowd like it. The party ends around 11:30pm and they start kicking people out.