Tea for two.

Theres this cute little place tucked into the middle of young street in aurora called Bonsai Hill. They have over a hundred, carefully selected loose leaf teas from major tea producing regions of the world. Many of the teas are organic and fair trade products. Tea is served traditionally in-house and available for purchase so you can take it home too! Theres also coffee, homemade sandwiches, pastries...

& even traditional English afternoon tea, high tea and tea tastings made by reservations on sunday afternoons.  (ooh, fancy!)

The walls of BH are decorated with different types of vibrant original oriental artworks and gifts such as traditional Chinese brush paintings, Chinese folk paintings, paper cuts, bamboo carvings, handmade Yixing tea pots, 100% silk scarves, and some simple jewelry.

"At Bonsai Hill, you will enjoy nature, green, peace, and culture..." 

If you are in the area, I highly suggest giving this place a try. 

P.S Excuse the bad quality photos, they are from my blackberry! 

May & Mothers Day

French toast, strawberries & fresh orange juice with a gift from Banana Republic for mom... As the blossoms bloom and the sun comes out, the sweaters come off and I start having sneezing attacks that scare people.  LOVELY. ahah

xo

Tea lattes & Textbooks

Just around the corner from my house is a coffee culture, soo convenient for when you can't get any work done and are in need of a chai latte. Or a brownie.... 

me and leslie decided to go there last night for a much needed pick-me-up.

:)

yum. 

p.s what do you think of the new banner!? 

petits déjeuner

Being a vegetarian on weekdays, I find it tricky to feel full sometimes. I found when you take some goat cheese, sliced baby tomato's and place them on a whole wheat baguette with a little salt and pepper...you get a lovely little lunchy, brunchy snack that fills you up until dinner. Not to mention that the bread is the worst/most fattening thing for you here, the creamier the cheese, the better it is for you. Those brick cheeses are horrribblleee for you and goat cheese is a very yummy option.

beach day

frozen yogurt, beautiful weather... sucking up the last of summer :)

i could do that... right?

I can't cook. Everyone who knows me, knows this. I don't know why, my best friend is a good cook my whole family are good cooks but for some strange reason that gene fell short with me, and i have yet to pick it up (or have the motivation to). The only meals i can make somewhat successfully and would actually serve to other people is perhaps my breakfasts. you know, the easy stuff like french toast, scrambled eggs, smoothies etc. BUT i can bake.  I don't do it very often because it is super time consuming, and costly... if your making good stuff and not only is it costly, but the ingredients you need such as almond flour or whatever always end up with an insufficient amount leftover so that it just sits in an unmarked plastic baggy and collects dust and when someone finally has a need to use it, and then they throw it out because they have no idea what it is or they don't have enough etc. Me and Kaitlin made a promise to each other that one day (when we have our multi-billion dollar empires under our power...kaitlin with an event planning, hotel owning, tourism-y thing etc and my designy-ness) we will open a bakery together... the cutest little cupcake and sweet shop ever.. baby pink all over. It would be called 'Icing on top"... of course i would be in charge of the design and Kaitlin, the recipe's. Ahhhh i talk too much. Im on my third coffee and its not even lunch yet! ..i guess thats what finals does to a girl. haha. anyways, Kaitlin brought these cute little bite sized cookies home about a month ago from her school's bakery...I might have blogged about it already, but i don't care i came across these this morning and had an overwhelming desire to try and make a few. So i thought it was worth a second post. It's too bad i have no time for certain hobbies like this one.... or is it? i might be the size of a whale if i did... ahahaha. Ahhhh anyways, enough distractions!... back to studying.

the loveliest 'pick-me-up' ...

...the loveliest 'pick-me-up'

 I have been feeling really down lately, and really stressed out... which is why yesterday was the perfect pick-me-up. Nooshin and I had scheduled a little brunch at la crepe cafe to catch up because we have not been seeing much of each other lately due to school and social lives being overly stressful in the past little while. i invited Kaitlin to come along too, so the three of us walked to the cute little cafe on queen and just sat, chitchatted and caught up with eachother. we sat there for a few hours with our coffee and crepes (although i did not get a crepe i got a bocconcini and tomato sandwich instead... still, just as delicious) and we just caught up. which is so nice to have friends like that and i am so thankful to have a good handful of friends like that... although we may drift apart for a while we know that its not because we want to, and that we will always be friends no matter what.... and be able to call each other to hang out or help get each others minds off of things. we then headed over to the eatons center for a quick browse around, (we cant shop we are too broke hahaha) we could just window shop... and spend some of the gift cards we have not used since we got them at christmas. Nooshin got a beautiful fluttery, coral colored tunic from aritzia, and kaitlin got a very flattering white, rouched tube top from Abercrombie&Fitch. we laughed and just spent time together, which is nice. we are so silly together, crazy moments are in abundance and i always find people staring at us because we are laughing so hard. (or when kaitlin knocks someone in the face with a clothes hanger, hahahh). then we decided to get our eyebrows done (seeing as mine had started to look like caterpillars were making a home out of my forehead or something) hahaha. We went to L'attitudes in the mall and wowwww did it hurt to get them waxed. jeeeze. but she did a great job...and it was the perfect day to go there too because they were giving away gift bags filled with all kidns of goodies like a magazine, tons of gum, sebastien hair products, coupons, gift certificates, a razor etc. so we really got our moneys worth i'd say (hich is important to students like us).... then me and kaitlin came home, made a yummy yummy dinner, chicken and pasta.... and the 3 roommates (kaitlin, jenny and I)...  then finished the day off with not only cheesecake...but cheesecake WITH strawberries... WHILE watching greys anatomy & cuddling. 

girl talk, shopping, lots of comfort food, and laughs, beauty time, best friends and Greys Anatomy!!??

what more could i ask for    xox

Hey lucy's & one forgotten camera :(

so, these pics are just from google, due to the fact that i forgot my camera on yet another one of our nightly escapades. 

Hey lucy's is located on king st. west downtown, and is our favorite place to go, whether we have nothing to do or just want to get out of the house.

they have great 4$ martinis on wednesdays, 5 wines for 5$ on thursdays, (a student has to keep these things in mind you know), awesome music and great little appetizers, like calamari. OH

and also, a deep fried cheesecake that i have yet to try (ahem, 'deep fried'...) but i am so tempted to every time.

me & kaitlin headed there after work & school to just hang out, seeing as we wont be seeing each other over the weekend because i will be out of town visiting my family.

 (i miss them so much!...& i can't wait to eat! hahaha) 

we also met up with some new friends, had a couple drinks.. and i was very upset about not having my camera with me. (which happens a lot unfortunately). i wanted to take pictures of there atmosphere/decor... they have handmade mirrors made out of soup cans, and art on there old brick walls and beautiful vintage chandeliers oh, and zebra printed couches. Im in love with this place.. hopefully i go back again soon, and take some REAL pictures. 

buttons!

ughh the midterm today was so hard, i blacked out.. i don't even remember what i wrote, but im pretty sure i passed (hopefully!)...i saw these little button shortbread cookies at Forty-sixth at grace and they made me smilleee :)

these are the cutest thing i have ever seen... i plan on making these one day soon!

sisters birthday- spring rolls

last saturday was my sisters birthday, and we went to dinner and a movie.

we ate at spring rolls at yonge & dundas square, we got cute little appetizers of 'tornado shrimp' that looked really strange, almost like little hairy shish-kabobs or something. the dipping sauce was yummy, but it was prettty messy to eat. for the main course, it was pad thai all around. they have a ton of different options to choose from (of course my sisters pad thai was vegetarian & my moms was curry).  Leslie also got a tiramisu birthday dessert (mmm..) 

I got her a book that is illustrated by our favorite artist, and then i inscribed on the inside front page a little message & then i hand wrapped it in yellow tissue and made a few little flowers and glued them on top and wrapped it up with some pretty ribbon.

 Kaitlin also made Leslie one of her beautiful handmade cards (hallmark should hire her, i swear.) complete with a sweet little message.

after that, we went to the starbucks lounge at indigo beside the movie theater. 

(i got a tall skinny cinnamon dolce latte, like always)

chit-chatted, then went to see the new scary movie with 

leonardo Dicaprio called Shutter Island. it was so twisted, and was never boring, which i like. 

really haunting though. like all movies with twists, you can usually guess what the twist is going to be... but there are a few of them in this movie, some of them me and my mom were able to guess, others not. 

they dropped me off back at my apartment and then leslie and all the girls went back to moms for a sleepover.

overall it was a nice night catching up with mom leslie. & i think she and her friends had fun taking manymany pictures : )

best roomie evarr!

I have the best roommate ever. tonight she not only made me fetuccini alfredo with peppers and zuchini complete with spiced chicken. but she also brought us home some mini, sweet pastel color cakes for dessert which she got from her school's bakery, where they have lots of little confectionary items that the students in culinary arts and baking make during class.  nom nom nom...... 

i love her! and  click here for a link to her beautiful blog 

& congrats on the good interview hun!