80. Sequins, Estee Lauder, Club Monaco

I went to Pravda on saturday night with my friends. I'm really really mad because all the pictures I took from that night are gone!! I hate my phone - it somehow deleted them. Pravda was really cool that night..they were having a masquerade party! I got the coolest mask ever. Well it was sort of like a gladiator headpiece - covered with blue sequins and lots and lots of feathers. We had to leave the masks there when we left so I have no photos of it :( Oh and we also got free champagne!



Yesterday my mom came downtown and we went to Yorkville for a bit of shopping. First we went to Holt Renfrew to finally pick up her Gucci bag and I got some skincare stuff.




The haul of Estee Lauder skincare. The serum bottles are so pretty.


Shopping for beachwear at Club Monaco.
After my mom left, I met up with a friend. We cooked some food then ate it up at his rooftop patio (which had an amazing view!)
I'm very excited for the upcoming few days! Tomorrow morning I'll be going out shopping with my friend yet again. I still need a few more things for the beach. Then at night we're going lounge-hopping! First we'll be going to Panorama..then heading over to Pravda (YES AGAIN). Then coming back to my place until maybe 4am (yep, middle of the night) when our other friends come..and then we're all heading to the beach to spend the night there and to watch the sunrise. Hopefully we get good weather.

79. Pop the Glock

Me and my friend Joanne - I'm the one on the left.
Last night I went to the Jack Astors patio above Dundas Square with my friends. Nice view and the drinks were cheap.



My drink! It was called "Where's Nemo"
with Hpnotiq + some other good stuff





In the above photo, the blue drink was mine. My friend took this photo so that's why it's way better quality than like..all my cell phone photos put together. After Jack Astor's I came back home by myself. My 2 favourite bartenders were working at my lobby bar, and offered me more drinks. So I sat here for the next couple hours talking with them about school, fashion, life, boys. It was really nice. It's times like these when I really really love living here..

78. Pravda

I'm really going to miss this summer when its over..I hope I'll always remember these days. Actually I'm pretty sure I will.
My friend and I had the entire night yesterday planned out. We were going to go to Pravda with a group of people. Pravda is officially my favourite lounge in Toronto. It's a Russian themed vodka bar (an upscale club/lounge on Weds-Sat nights) and they have really amazing music! It's literally a 3-5 minute walk from my place. It's for the older/more mature crowd I guess..well-dressed (for the most part) late 20s/30s year olds..a lot of business men in suits since it's beside the financial district.
I'm definately going to come here all the time from now on. I love the decor & atmosphere.


Starting off the night in my lobby with Hpnotiqs. The bartender also came to talk to us for a bit. Awhile later another man from NJ comes to sit and talk with us since he was lonely sitting by himself at the other end. Gosh it's so easy to meet older men at my lobby bar. Around 1am our other friends finally arrive so we were off to Pravda.


Here's a video I took as I was waiting for my friend getting his drink. You can't see anything but I love this remix..

There's a guy I know who lives in my building who comes to Pravda every week. I immediately sent him a text asking if he could bring me back there the next time he comes lol. It's going to be one of my new "usual" hangouts.


Pravda's 70+ vodkas from around the world.
As I was waiting for my friends to come back with drinks, 3 really drunk guys came up to me. One of them kept saying to me he was "the messenger" - I know it's weird but in my head I was thinking of Hermes, the messenger god lol. He kept leaning in and tried for a kiss. My mind was pretty blank at that point but fortunately my friend Daniel was walking by so I grabbed him to come help me escape. Pervy drunk guy sat at the stool in front of me for a few minutes staring before walking away.


Final photo - Chris with his appletini. All in all, a great night. I predict more Pravda nights to come.

77. Hpnotiq

Its 5am..came back up awhile ago from sitting at the lobby talking with my neighbour David. Long conversations about life.





After our drinks/around 2am we decided to go to McDonalds for some food. I suggested we have a picnic in the penthouse. Of course I was thinking of sitting cross-legged right there in the middle with all our food laid out.
But David, being all high-maintenance, didn't want to get his pants dirty so we sat here beside the window..50 floors above the city. Eating Mcdonalds inside a $6.5 million penthouse suite. Kinda ironic?

76. Louis Vuitton: A Passion for Creation

May 22nd - we went down to the Hong Kong harbour again for the LV exhibit! I was so excited for this. I HAD to go on the opening day..
Why? Because Frank Gehry & Richard Prince were both there that day to give lectures!! (you can see the schedule on that white paper)




Here is the Hong Kong Art Museum


The exhibit was pretty cool...I really really REALLY wish I could've taken pictures inside but it wasn't allowed. There were 1-2 security guards inside every room to prevent anyone from sneaking photos too.
There was a lot of art, videos, antique LV trunks, pieces by Takashi Murakami, Stephen Sprouse, Richard Prince..very nice. If I had the money to buy real art, I'd definately buy a few of Richard Prince's LV paintings.


This beautiful building is designed by Frank Gehry, to be constructed in Paris as the Louis Vuitton Foundation for Creation (opening in late 2013 I think). Sixty-five thousand square feet of exhibition space will contain modern and contemporary art, as well as original commissions produced specifically for the space. These items will likely be themed around LVMH products and symbols.


Richard Prince!




The only "souvenir" available from the exhibit, so of course I had to buy one!!
It's a limited edition book - they created only 500 especially for sale at this exhibit. I love how it comes in a glass-like case (also wrapped in a box when I bought it) but it was extremely heavy.

75. Royal Garden Hotel, Guilin, China | *****

Guilin Royal Garden Hotel
Lijiang Road No.186-1
Guilin, China
541004
T: 0773-5688888
E: dyxsb@public.glptt.gx.cn




I really liked this hotel. The service here is excellent and rooms are very clean. If you had a chance to read what I wrote before I deleted it all, this was the hotel with the cute hotel bellboys I talked about in my travel post ;]

Every morning we'd go upstairs to their banquet hall/huge dining room for a buffet breakfast. There was soooo much food - easily the widest selection of food I've ever had at any hotel buffet breakfast. I guess they make food differently there because most things tasted a bit weird to me, even normal white bread. I really liked their noodles.

Unfortunately at the time of my trip I had not expected to do hotel reviews when I got back, so regrettably I do not have a lot of photos from here :(

74. King Edward

So last night was quite an experience..I went to a nightclub and met a Japanese guy who gave me that rose hahah. I usually don't like clubs (prefer lounges) but those people from my hotel I met a couple weeks ago with my friend asked us to go last night so I just went. We got there at 11 I think and left at around 3am. Nightclubs are alright but I wouldn't go back for awhile..they are good when taken in moderation.

At first we got there and ordered cocktails. Just stood around for awhile...then squeezed into the middle of the dancefloor to dance a bit. Then went back upstairs to get another cocktail. That was when we noticed a couple guys dancing in front of us. They looked soo Japanese and had cool hair so they stood out to me. ahhhh remember my vacation post when I talked about my obsession with Japanese boys in Tokyo?? Well these guys looked like them (the hair, the clothes, etc). We're sitting there when suddenly the 2 guys come up to my friend & I and asked us to dance. I ended up staying with my guy for almost the entire night (in the club - didn't let him come home with me!) But now we're still in contact.


Today we went to the lounge/bar at the King Edward Hotel. I prefer this scene more than the nightclub to be honest.
We both got a cosmo..I really liked that bowl of snacks the bartender gave us. They tasted exactly like those bags of nut snacks you get from airplanes. I have such a strange obsession with those! hahah. So we sat here for awhile..all I can say is that it couldn't be more different from last night. Here we lounged around on sofas sipping cocktails, listening to french lounge, talking about life and how we should make a goal this summer - to visit as many different lounges as we can, find the perfect one, and visit there often until we're on first-name basis with all the bartenders. If cocktails weren't so expensive (& if I had people at my disposal) I'd go to a new lounge every night.

73. Hong Kong | Victoria Harbour

The colourful city lights of Hong Kong on our evening stroll. We stayed in Central - to get to this side/Kowloon was about a 5min ferry ride.
In my opinion, Hong Kong has the most impressive city skyline! Every night at 8pm they have a "light show" that lasts for 15min. Unfortunately my camera wasn't so good at taking night shots so Google images probably has nicer photos..






The art museum where the Louis Vuitton exhibit was held.

72. Hong Kong | Contrasting Areas

Some photos from Hong Kong.






Those streetcars remind me of tin cans. Hong Kong is a city with very contrasting areas. There's some really dirty areas like you see above, and also..






Lots of designer stores in the most beautiful malls! Every mall was really glitzy and had pretty much every designer you could think of. Just noticed the woman in my photo of LV is smiling at me hahah - not sure why..