Our Favourite Places to Eat and Drink Around the GTA

My husband and I love supporting local businesses, eating good food, and consuming good beverages. Some of these places are hidden gems that deserve more recognition, so I’ve made a list of places where we love to eat around the Greater Toronto Area.

New Year Reflections 2023

At the start of every year, I reflect on the past and share a few goals for the future. This time, it’s pretty simple and I can categorize it into two things: the biggest takeaway from 2022, and the biggest goal for 2023.

How Did I Become So Good at Saying No?

Like many people I know, I used to be bad at saying no. And like these people, I ended up saying yes to too many things. My early twenties was filled with responsibilities that I didn’t want.

But today I can say that I am pretty good at saying no. I’ve even learned to take delight in it.

So how did I go from too-nice-to-say-no to becoming the queen-of-no?

Action Stories for Women: A Reflection on Choices

I have always loved stories with high stakes.

Usually those high stakes translated to a matter of life and death. This meant that a lot of stories I liked happened to fall into the action genre. There were some kung fu flicks, some fantasy quests, some FBI car chase scenes – you get the idea.

But of course, the world used to be different. When I was younger, people thought it was weird for a 13-year-old girl to keep sketches of medieval weaponry in her desk and perform her grade 8 dance project with a stick and martial arts moves.

15 Quirky Date Ideas from Haidan and Roland

What are the most common questions that couples ask other couples?

#1: How did you meet?

#2: Do you have any good date ideas?

So this article is dedicated to listing 15 unusual date ideas that Roland and I enjoyed. Being strange, quirky people, our taste might be a little different from yours, but we hope that you find this list helpful.

(These ideas are in no particular order.)

The Best Skincare Products I’ve Ever Used in My Life

Hi friends, this article lists the top 10 skincare products I have ever used in my life. It’s intended to help those of you who are either interested in skincare or are just looking for a solution to a specific skincare problem.

I wrote this blog article because I had some really bad skin problems from when I was around 12 up to my early twenties. I cannot recall a single girl in my high school that had worst acne than I did. We’re not talking about just lots of pimples; we’re talking about cystic acne (Google it and it will gross you out). This had some profound consequences on my body image and overall self-identity.

Vaccine: The Battle and the Lesson

This blog post started out as the story behind why I decided to get the vaccine. It was a long, complicated story, because my decision to get it was long and complicated, with many setbacks, doubts, and reading science journals and pharmaceutical lab results at 4 AM. I was not one of those people who jumped at the chance to get vaccinated or accepted what authorities told us without at least 4 hours of my own research from at least 25 different sources based on domain authority and SEO relevancy.

How I Realized I Never Loved Reading

I have read a lot of books.

I read a lot of books as a child and into my teenagehood. Then I read a lot of books because I studied English Literature and Sociology in university. Then I read some books after graduating because I finally had time to read whatever I wanted to.

I remember my parents, my teachers, and other kids in elementary school would assume I loved reading. And for reasons unknown to me at the time, this assumption never sat well with me.

The Ethics of Buying My Clothes

I like clothes. This is a sad and materialistic reality, but I do. I also like compliments, good deals, Robin Hood, Chinese people, and not destroying the Earth too fast. All of these things come together to create Haidan’s ethics of buying clothing.

I’m going to give you the list first, because that’s what it all boils down to, and then I’ll go through each point on the list to explain how it got there.

The Grandparents’ House

It’s apparently the Lantern Festival today, so I went through my photos of my time in China to find this one of my grandparents’ courtyard. I miss this place a lot—not just the way it looks but also the sounds and feelings and the routine that happens there and my memories of them. I was always on vacation when I was there (whether as a child or as an adult), so the combination of feeling no stress and being welcomed by my relatives made it feel like a kind of beautiful escapism. It is an experience I want to share with Roland because it is so unique and core to my long term memory.