As most of you know by now I am one of the four organizers for the first ever Canadian BlytheCon to be held in Vancouver at the Sheraton Wall Centre Hotel on Sunday August 9, 2015. We are all extremely excited to welcome all of you to our beautiful city. Here's a video of our venue: Our theme will be "Always The Bridesmaid Never The Bride" and we have lots of surprises, workshops, contests and giveaways planned to make of your visit a truly unforgettable one. Let's just say that a little bird told me that we have over twenty custom dolls to give away the day of the event - and we are not talking about unknown customisers either - we are talking about some of the most respected customisers in the industry. Our featured doll will be Nicky Lad (RBL) and you can see her featured as our ‘main girl’ in our illustrations made by the amazingly talented Chun Fu (puppy52). We’re very excited to invite everyone to bring their Nicky Lads to BlytheCon Vancouver for a c...

Last night my friend Natalie, my husband and I decided to go out for some tapas at a local Japanese restaurant called Zakkushi. The restaurant is located in the Mount Pleasant neighbourhood and the vibe is very modern and fun. As soon as you walk in you get greeted by the cheerful staff who yell out something in Japanese to welcome you. The menu selection is quite large as the restaurant offers sushi rolls, skewers, fried rice, noodles and dessert. Here are some photos we took last night. As you can see, the food is nicely presented and the taste is great too. Let me know what you think if you decide to give it a try! www.zakkushi.com

  Photo by: Esther Y Yesterday I decided to visit GUU Izakaya for the first time. I live in downtown Vancouver and therefore I always saw big lineups of people waiting outside of their restaurants as I walked by. I had heard great things about this traditional Japanese tapas restaurant but I had never actually ventured in to try it. My friends and I decided to go to the Thurlow Street location but there are various ones to choose from. I will start my review by saying that Japanese people are a lot like us Mexicans - we are both loud, friendly, and very welcoming. As we waited outside for our table, the hostess kept shouting (in a friendly way) at the customers who entered the restaurant in order to welcome them. It was almost as if they were old friends who hadn't seen each other for a decade or two - personally, I think this was a nice touch but others may disagree. About twenty minutes later we were given a nice table for four with cute little Japanese-style benche...

A few months ago, one of my co-workers introduced me to a set of small creatures that live underneath his PC screen at work - he referred to them as "Dunnys". At first glance, Dunnys looked like new millennium toys that a child could pick up and play with. However, it wasn't long before I realized that there is much more to them than that. I always tend to be drawn to any form of art expression and as such these tiny characters quickly became my new craze. This " designer toys " are brought to life by artists all over the world, many of who have gained further popularity by deciding to participate in these projects. Dunnys are made by the internationally renowned toy and fashion apparel manufacturer Kidrobot . The best part of purchasing a Dunny is that you have no idea of what it will look like until you open the box it comes in. This makes for a novel experience and it promotes online forum participation of Dunny...