036: paint the town

Today we were off to a family gathering for the Chinese New Year. Traditionally, you should wear some gold & red OR wear some new clothes.


I decided to go bold with the red & wear a vintage dress that was my mom's in the 70s! Typically, I wear very few bold colours (I'm an all-black gal) and I'm not very good at implementing too many vintage pieces into daily wear either. I told Sam that I really wanted to try to dress a little more "70s" this year, so this was my first stab at it :) I don't think I look particularly 70s boho, but it's a change!


prescription sunglasses from zennioptical.com, gold leaf hairband from UO, dress from my momma, cardi & jacket from ub, pixie wedge boots by jeffrey campbell

another first: curling my SHORT hair! seems like an acceptable practice in this growing-out phase. not sure if I like it that much yet.




Lacking any bright red pieces in her wardrobe other than some skinny jeans, Sam decided to go small on the red details. Her head & feet seem to say Pocahontas, & her body says ballerina girl :)


hairband made by sam, dress from ub, wool coat by talula babaton, mukluks from softmoc.

We feasted on some Indian hakka/Szechuan food for dinner & snacked on all the lovely treats we've been making all week! Pretty good day! I didn't realize that at the end of the night we would be facing another dumping of snow. It had snowed another couple of inches, making for slow-driving conditions. In the approx 50km drive home, we saw about 4 accidents... one was a snowplow truck fallen in the ditch of the highway! Crazy. DRIVE SLOW DUDEZ.

Anyone doing anything fun for the superbowl? I typically go to "superbowl parties" but it's basically an excuse to eat horribly unhealthily for a day & watch a half-time show. haha.

xo

035: the way i am

Yeap, this post is a late one...4am is a good time to post no?
Well yesterday we went out for a sushi buffet dinner in celebration of Chinese New Year. =)
Syl and I are extremely hungry from looking at these pictures this late at night.
We love our sushi buffets, can you tell?

Delicious Sashimi

Firehouse Roll: [Tempura Shrimp, Bananas inside; topped with Spicy Tuna Crunch and Scallion] & Bushido Roll: [Tempera Shrimp, Mango inside; topped with Avocado, Spicy Sauce & Eel sauce] These are some of my favourite rolls

Eel Sushi (Unagi) & Salmon Roses (Ikura)

On completely different note, I spent the night listening to vinyls. They're a good time! I found my mini collection of vinyls. Do you have your own collection?

Small collection but I love them.

My vinyls and their babies. Can you tell who my favourite bands are?

I didn't have much time for an outfit picture today...I watched Inception last night and The Fighter tonight. =) I enjoyed both movies quite a bit.

Anyways, happy weekend to you all!

034: happy new year!

So it's the Lunar New Year! Gong Xi Fat Choy, Xin Nien Quai Lo!
There's a lot of Chinese people in this world and there are cultural differences based on regions, I guess... and our family is actually from India, so I'm not sure how much our traditions differ from others...

Here are the traditions that we participate in:
- we 'bake' (deep fry actually) a ton of treats leading up to new years, including the rosettes I wrote about the other day, the ma-hwa shown below & prawn crackers etc.
- we pray & make an offering to the ancestors the weekend prior
- we clean (sweep, change bedsheets) the night before & on the day of new years, you shouldn't shower or sweep, lest you sweep away all your new good luck that is coming to you on new years day
- we have a few big family gatherings
- we exchange red packets! yay!
- we feast on new years eve!


this was our new years eve feast. clockwise from top left: hakka chilli chicken (the most famous dish from our culture!); Soup with tofu, enoki mushrooms, carrots, peas & egg drop; deep fried pork rolled in toast (I dunno what it's called, but it's a variation of shrimp toast); tempura shrimp!


I was saying that we did a lot of baking, so I wanted to share some photos of us making "ma-hwa". It's a yummy cookie that tastes a little like fortune cookies but flakier & with sesame seeds! I'll let the photos speak for themselves!








how to make a "braid" or "twist"!
It's the easiest way I could think of to explain ;)









YUM!

When we were younger, red packets used to be simple red envelopes with gold embossed letters. They'd often just have good luck & well wishes printed in Chinese... More recently they've been becoming these crazy 3D popup characters that you can even insert coins into! These are the ones my mom gave us today!






Happy new year to anyone who celebrates! & even if you don't, check out this adorable site that my bff sent me... in honour of the year of the rabbit, Daily Bunny. EEE FLUFFY!!!

xoxo

033: snow day

Since yesterday, the news was reporting the severity of the impending snow blizzard that would be hitting the Greater Toronto Area. 20-30 centimeters (or about 8 to 12 inches), and winds of about 50-70km/h ! From my facebook news feed, I was seeing that a lot of schools were already declaring snow days, even before the snow had begun falling. & this morning, my feed was flooded with word that most people had no school or weren't going to be going in to work! Did you get hit with the storm? Did you take the day off? What did you do?

We are still in the midst of preparations for the Chinese New Year, so we ended up doing some more 'baking', which I'll post some photos of tomorrow! And I wanted to give a quick thank you to Mai for identifying our last batch of Chinese New Year treats as "rosettes"!

We went outside and took some photos in the middle of the 'storm', which ended up being quite pretty... but I don't know how long the novelty will last, as it's preventing us from transitioning into our spring wardrobes :(




hair bow by lipgloss and black, glasses by derek cardigan, wool pea coat by talula babaton, shearling lined sweater from urban behavior, skull knit leggings from ebay, boots by emu.

the snow was just fluff (not packing snow) so we couldn't make any snowballs or snow men :( but at least it's easier to shovel when it's not so wet!



hat by lipgloss and black, leather jacket from ub, pink sweater from stitches (for $5! what the!), leopard jeans by silence+noise, pewter boots by doc martens

Well, enjoy the weather, wherever you are! & stay safe in the snow-- don't rush when you're driving anywhere!

xox

032: black & black

I've been friends with my girl Sarah for 20 years now. She's been in & out of town for med school & is luckily in town for a few months again, so we've been seeing each other every few weeks :) She asked me if I wanted to see a random midday movie, so I was super excited. Usually I try to see all of the movies nominated for academy awards & this year, up until a couple of days ago, I had seen NONE. haha.

So we decided to go watch the Black Swan & it was so good. The actors were all amazing & I can't even imagine the disciplined training it took to pull off those dance scenes. Natalie Portman really does deserve all those awards & Mila Kunis just kills it too. I keep thinking about the movie, so I guess it left quite an impression on me.

So I wore my outfit again that I had worn on Saturday. All black (for black swan!) & some grey to keep it ~lively~. bahaha.


buttoned ALL the way up + cropped sweater! yay!
plus winter shorts.

I also just watched Toy Story 3 & I laughed & then CRIED.
Surprising that I have only JUST watched it now since Sam saw it waaaay back in June! So that's two down & I still have quite a list to work through...
-The Black Swan
-Toy Story 3
-Inception
-The Fighter
-The King's Speech
-The Social Network
-True Grit
-127 Hours
-The Kids are Alright
-Winter's Bone

Do you get excited about the Academy Awards? I just take it as a fantastic excuse to see a bunch of movies I might not have particularly chosen to watch myself! I'm super excited to see Anne Hathaway & James Franco host though. :)



xoxo