Swarovski Tree 2

Ice Ice Baby

Merry Christmas Everyone! This is what the 2006 Toronto Christmas will probably look like. (J1 has better pictures with her fancyshmancy camera....I've gotta get me one!)

J1 has come and gone

With only a one hour delay, J1 arrived safe and sound from Boston. We came home and caught up a little, and ate salad rolls. After a couple weeks of anxiety over what we were going to do during her visit, we all decided that we'd wake up and wing it. Of course, I still had to plan out the weekend. But I had to try to not make schedule, cuz if we didn't follow it my face would start twitching. Here is a summary of the visit, as I remember it:

Saturday: Breakfast at Tulips, drive down Cherry Street to take some pictures of the Toronto skyline, then off to Niagara. There was minimal talk about going to Buffalo, just some teasing about bringing passports etc. We went to the outlet mall, no one bought much of anything. J1 scored a repackaged MP3 player at Sony. Then we went to a mall, where a Bay was closing. However the lines were too long and I had to get out of it. We ate at good ol' Swiss Chalet, we all had the quarter chicken festive dinner without the cranberry sauce (yuck)! Then we went to the Fallsview Casino, we made a pit stop at the Hilton so we could take some photos of the Casino across the street. I got two cute pics of J1 texting someone. We eventually made it to the casino and walked straight to the back and out the door to see the falls. The only thing, and I feel kind of bad, is that we got there after it got dark. I don't think either of us got a decent picture of the falls. Then we went into the casino where I immediately won some money, but no one was there to witness it except for the father and son sitting beside me. Seeing that I was the only person to win anything, I bought us some celebratory fudge. We left Niagara in the early evening, but for some reason it felt super late. We pitstopped at Loblaws to pick up some breakfast provisions. I spent the remainder of the night wrapping Christmas gifts for the next day, while Russell Peters was playing on the DVD player. Good times.







Sunday: Made pancakes and breakfast sausages. Hung out and made J1 some egg rolls. After that we went to First Markham Place, then up to Richmond Hill for the annual family Christmas party. It was agreed that we'd do a potluck dinner, except I couldn't think of anything to cook, so our contribution was some appetizers. We enjoyed our evening catching up with the cousins and Aunt T. It was great to see everyone.



Monday: We took the streetcar across Queen Street, then up Spadina to the station, then back down again and got off at Kensington Market. We then went thru Chinatown and had $1.68 dimsum. After that J1 and I went up the CN Tower, it wasn't the best day seeing as the polution dome was very low and we could barely see to Bloor Street. I think they should give deals on admission when visiblity is low. We took a bunch of pictures, and went to the glass floor level. Where I bravely put my right croc (with my foot inside) on the glass. We also witnessed a man with a video camera video taping all the women, not the views of the city.


Lettuce Knit in Kensington Market.








I'll post more about Monday and the remainding days next Monday!

J1 is coming to town!

Only 9.5 hours until I see J1! We have 4.5 whole days together, this is the most time we'll have spent together in our entire adult life, or since I left Sydney 15 years ago. We have alot of catching up to do, so there probably won't be any blogging for a while. Wish you could be here too J3! Love you!

Swarovski at Eaton's Centre

It was difficult to capture the glitz and glamour of the annual Swarovski tree, its like nothing you've ever seen before. The tree is adorned with over 10,000 crystal stars along with 24 hr security I suspect.

In the corner

While photographing Gumby, I noticed one of the office plants had its annual bloom. Unfortunately, its tucked away in a corner where no one really works in so no one can see it.

Gumby at work

My coworker asked me to take a photo of a necklace she recently bought from etsy so she could post it in a forum there.

No more construction

Finally all the construction and equipment has been removed from the Four Seasons Centre for the Perfoming Arts. I love seeing the goings-ons inside while I pass on the streetcar. (I wasn't on the streetcar for these picks.)

Cavalcade of Lights

For some reason I thought there would be more lights at Nathan Philips Square, nonetheless these are quite impressive. I'm going to try to make it to the big trees between the office towers in the next few days with J1 for some more pics.