hi, my name is...

I feel like I need to reintroduce myself on here after leaving this blog on the back burner (secretly hoping that I'd visit and the blog design would completely change on its own - but yay for a little facelift!). So, howdy! My name's Nikolett, though it's more of a nickname. I'm an almost 24-year old and I still feel a little at odds with the world, although I yearn to see as much of it as possible. And I think it's safe to say that my caffeine addiction is still safely (?) intact. 

This time last year I was marveling at the shallow but beautiful waters of Lake Balaton in Hungary, and am now fully regretting not purchasing the Nikolett 'license plate' that I noticed at a vendor. For my Wednesday Wish, I wish I could just magically teleport or time machine-myself back to last year and relive my vacation in Europe whenever my thoughts turn into daydreams. 

Hungarian cuisine on the left; and a DIY ponytail holder on windy days.

My postcard of Lake Balaton.

This time, this year? Well, I'm safe and sound in Ontario, trying to find a job in the education field and also ready to jumpstart my web/graphics design company after years of maybe/maybe not. Soaking up summer as best as I can is my main objective these days since the whole finding a job part is turning into a morbid and depressing scenario. 

Apart from that, I've been addicted to watching the London Olympics 2012 (Team Canada was robbed in women's soccer, I'm just saying) and slowly morphing into a gym rat - the endorphin rush you feel after a workout is better than coffee for me (: What have you been up to lately? 

I'm so excited to make this place more alive again and talk about things on a more daily basis rather than just dumping whatever's happened in the course of 2-3 weeks. Thanks for sticking by me & coming back to read!

Where do you wish you were this Wednesday?

Hope it's a great day!

left a piece of my heart

I'll admit, I left a little piece of my heart back in British Columbia. While the rest of my life might be in Ontario (or Onterrible as some B.Cers call it), my heart remains back where my sister and my niece and my new brother-in-law are, where the sea meets the sky over a highway, where I can meet amazing people like Sarah and Kym (again!!) and do lots more jumping/levitating photos. There's so much to say about that one week in B.C. and I know I couldn't sum it up in one post ... so instead, here's some 'teasers' of what I've been up to :)

My sister & J said "I do"

The invite promised it'd be "anything but boring" and it delivered: a teary-eyed ceremony with a beautiful bride and groom, followed by a relaxed dinner with amazing food (and my dad losing a tooth, but more on that later! haha), then taken up a notch when all the 'adults' left leaving us late teens, 20s and 30-somethings to party it up and have the time of our lives (and dancing to BEP's "Time Of My Life"). I promise, lots more details to come (unless my sister wants to share them, in which case I won't spoil it!). Either way it was a beautiful night and I am SO happy for her and J!

Being vampires at the after-party :D

P.S. I've got The Boy hooked on The Vampire Diaries, bwahaaha.

All dressed up with my mamusia.

When I wasn't spending time with my family, I managed to meet up with two awesome gals; though I only got to see Kym for a bit, I loved every moment and wished we lived in the same city (or at least province!). We graduated to levitating photos, ate some yummy gelato, and got suckered in by U.K. accents (more on that here!). P.S. shameless plug, vote for Kym and her amazing t-shirt line here!

Bees + Kym! And trying out an Italian eatery with a southern name with Asian employees haha :) Love you lots Patty!

A British man held my camera to take this photo haha. 

Gah, Vancouver scenery is b-e-a-utiful.

This trip felt entirely too short - there's so much of Vancouver I wanted to rediscover and explore, but I'm psyched I got to see where my sister now lives (Squamish) and do the touristy things every tourist has to do while visiting Whistler! Plus, see how darling my niece is and how genius she is ... especially when pretending to be a raptor or a zombie :D

In Whistler, baby!

Since then, life has been about catching up with friends, reclaiming my summer school job, learning how to drive(!!!) and planning The Boy's upcoming birthday :) OH! And finding out that I now have 200 followers ... you are ALL AMAZING. I love following your blogs, love the friendships that have been made, and am definitely planning a proper way to say THANK YOU!!!! to come soon :)

Thank you for the well wishes for the trip - it's one I won't forget and I just hope I get to go to B.C. again soon. And now I just have to get back into the swing of blogging properly again, we'll see how that goes!

Is there a place that you've left a little piece of your heart to?

And any plans for the weekend? Hope it's great! :)

my first & second meeting with cats

It's been an amazing week-and-a-half so far with my fave blogger/sister, exploring different islands and areas of Vancouver ... and then, last Friday and just yesterday on Thursday I had the pleasure of meeting another amazing blogger/designer - Kym! It was my first ever blogger meet-up and it was comforting to know we both had pre-meeting jitters, but we had such a good time last week that we decided to meet up again! Here's a little recap of our meetings (Kym has all the video footage since I need to make room on my memory card).

Last week was hugs in front of the Vancouver Public Library, heading off for my first eating at Japadog which has amazing hot dogs, exchanging presents with Kym (I now have my first official herro hachi item of clothing and an adorable "I <3 Coffee" pencil case, thank you!), getting harrassed by a spa guy who called us "hot chicks", talking about how teenagers nowadays frighten us, and then heading off to Cafe Crepe for delicious Nutella crepes ... because Nutella is the stuff. And then we filmed our first shout-out video which featured my infamous beat-boxing skills - basically it's boots and cats really fast (I am now Boots and Kym is Cats). 

Backwards recap in pictures:

 Last photo from our first meeting - we asked so many random strangers to take photos of us :)

Nutella and strawberries with a hint of cognac crepe = yummy in my tummy.

Nom nom nom-ing on some Japadaog ... I love the stretching lady in the background, too!

The whole Japadogs seconds before we attempted to devour them but then got sidetracked by a guy asking us to purchase a spa package from him (oo-er).

My gift for her - a scarf from my/my mother's future scarf company!

Then came part two yesterday - meeting up in the Aberdeen Centre to go to Daiso, the BEST $2 store I have ever stepped foot in, complete with Engrish notebooks.  She then treated me to my first ever milk tea  before we headed out. As we got into her punch buggy Kym warned me, "I hope you don't get freaked out but I'm taking you to an empty parking lot." Immediately I fearetd being mobbed by some gang but fortunately she was just taking me out for food! (Food carts in random parking lots? A-okay by me!) We had Japanese fritters at Bakudanyaki and I had a chopstick fail (I'm Asian at heart, but not Asian with my skillz) but the food was scrumptious.

We then drove to Steveston (a quiant little fishing village) for a series of jump shots, walking on docks, holding our mouths closed to avoid swallowing flies, sitting on "make-out hill" and then transforming it to "scar-sharing hill" as we told each other about our various battle scars, and then indulged in some gelato before we *sniff* said our goodbyes. But not before we did some gangsta raps, did some air guitar/drums to "Summer of '69" and secretly yelled at people to get off our dock ... we are sane bloggers, indeed.

Wish you all could have been here!

Sketchy empty parking lots - thankfully not too sketchy in this meeting! And we're both repping the herro!

Delicious fritter - a surprise in every bite, literally :)

"Look ma, no hands!" teehee, just kidding ... she is an excellent driver :D

Jumping shots in Steveston! My camera had a timer fail so Kym has all the good ones - and looks like Buzz Lightyear in this photo haha.

Hanging out on a dock - we wanted to shoot a music video but it was too crowded (maybe in our part 3 meeting in the next few years?)

Couple photos by the water ... awwwww.

Would you like to be in our next photo? :D

All in all it was an amazing time meeting her and just added to the amazingness of this trip so far :) I'm heading to Cirque du Soleil tomorrow with my sister and then off to Whistler ... weird to think that by Tuesday my adventures in Vancouver will be coming to a close ... I've definitely fallen in love with the city and with the idea of seeing my niece and sister all the time. 

What have you been up to lately?

Sorry for the absence in commenting, I'll be back at it soon!