EPiC Vancouver

Today, I met up with my cousin and aunt at the EPiC exhibition being held in the Convention Centre, I usually spend the day (Sunday) with my mom so I asked if she wanted to come along and figured it would be nice for her to catch up with my aunt. Also, this way I won't feel so guilty about not spending the entire day with her if I went without her. Wow, EPiC was not what I thought (altho I have never been so I wasn't even sure what to expect) and I ended up buying a lot of great items, spending $200 or more which is surprising because I didn't think I would end up with much at all. I bought way more items from here than EAT and I usually pick up a lot of great stuff at EAT. I wasn't expecting to spend more than an hour there but ended up wandering and stopping at many stands for over 2 hours! I will def make this exhibition every year and I really enjoyed learning and picking up new products. I was very excited to find Hardbites at this exhibition cos I was disappointed there were not at EAT yesterday. With so many great products, I'm just going to list them in bullet form:

• Amazing all natural BBQ sauce, Rufus Teague
• 100% organic and fair trade cotton face towels, fibrEthik
  
• Soup mix, Glenlochar Kitchens from Victoria
• Citrus Hand Sanitizer, Natureclean
• Organic green tea powder and a bamboo whisk for mixing the tea, DOMATCHA
• The most amazing and smoothest coffee I've ever had and couldn't believe these coffee beans are from Thailand! Doi Chaang
• Pure wild blueberry juice and wine grapes but non-alcoholic, a super juice and 100% natural without sugar, PureBlue
  
• Local Savings for Sustainable Living, GreenZebra - coupon book at half price
  

Also I picked up a lot of brochures and information on some great eco-friendly and / or sustainable products which I either ran out of cash (many stands did not take credit cards) or did not have the item to buy at the exhibition. Edible products like Winds of Change (imported by International Cellars) - BC's first fair trade wine and 100% organic and Denman Island Chocolate - organic dark chocolate. There was even a wedding section that featured local or recycled or sustainable items for your wedding, one designer named Caroline Calvert Couture caught my eye, she has options and started offering eco-friendly fabric choices! I also found some lovely home items like in Bed organics - offers great natural latex rubber pillows and organic wool comforters which are locally produced and 100% natural - I plan on purchasing one of these pillows in the near future; Living Wood Design - beautiful, practical and eco-friendly oak or pine furniture; Living Edge Design - amazingly beautiful reclaimed or refined furniture altho a bit more expensive, I would love to one day own a few pieces from their collection; Essentia - natural memory foam mattresses, petroleum-free foam with many unique benefits, I didn't get any prices on these mattresses but I'm sure it's worth every single dollar as it's biodegradable and 100% natural latex. One item that caught my eye as well is the Bokashicycle, a non smelly indoor compost, very cool.

Louis Vuitton Going Green

Today, I dropped by Louis Vuitton for a visit since I will probably not be able to buy another piece for a long time cos Kay's braces are going to cost me at least a couple of years worth of Louis's. My fave Louis Vuitton SA greeted me and while I was looking around, I mentioned that I might pick up another item before Xmas (maybe a small key chain?) and she told me that LV is going eco friendly by phasing out the nice sturdy brown boxes given with your purchase. Good news and bad news, I for one enjoy collecting those little brown boxes (can come in quite handy) and good news, I'm sure there will be less of those boxes in the waste yard cos I'm sure many customers (who buy a lot of Louis Vuittons) probably just throw them out! Must get another box before they are no longer available!

Water Bottles

I have been eyeing these glass water bottles for months and finally, I decided I needed to buy one for the office cos I was tired of drinking out of my ceramic mug. Chapters sells both sizes and I wanted to buy both but settled for the small bottle for my desk. I decided to google these glass bottles to see who made them and found out these were from Crate and Barrel in the US (Toronto just opened the very first Canadian C&B). At Chapters, the little one sells for $15 and I think the larger one is $25, such a bargain! Never have to use a plastic water bottle again plus I don't like drinking water from a stainless steel bottle either but didn't think I had a choice (water tastes better from a glass). With google, I found another company that makes very pretty glass water bottles, a company called Love Bottle, I am def going to pick up one from them as well (if they ship to Canada) and you can customize your glass bottle, how neat is that??!!??

PNE

What an evening at the PNE! The very first thing we did when we got there was to grab some grub! As Jas and Nadine had not eaten much all day cos they were holding off for the PNE junk food! Jas went straight over to Jimmy's burger stand while Nadine and I headed over to grab our grease from the Fish & Chips stand - wow, I had forgotten how expensive it was to eat at the fair!! Halibut and chips were $13!! Once the food was gobbled down, we picked up a very sugary virgin margarita to help wash down the grease. It was 7pm and Ruth mentioned she wanted us to catch the pig races so we walked over to the animal farm to watch those little piggies run and boy can they run! Apparently, it is a must see and now that I've seen it once, I don't think I need to do it again. Forgotten how stinky it was to be in a barn. After the race, we headed over to the Those Little Donuts stand cos I must have mini donuts when I'm at the PNE. Only $2.50 / bag of 13, how can one pass on that deal? I think this would be one of the least expensive food item at the fair. Plus so filling, after finishing off those donuts, I was done with the food which is pretty good cos I usually can eat. Usually, I have a BBQ chicken as well but I skipped it cos I knew than to stuff myself esp since I've done so well in losing a couple of inches and I worked really hard to lose them. After donuts, we headed over to the Marketplace to do some shopping! I did pretty good and didn't buy much except for Nellie's All Natural Laundry Soda (2 large tins - 120 loads each for $20!! That's a PNE price!!) I had been debating about purchasing this product (like that's it's eco friendly and all natural product) but it's pretty costly at LD so I never did buy it. We do use a natural and eco friendly liquid laundry detergent from Costco and it works great! We don't get the perfumey smell and the laundry room does not have a chemical fume plus our clothes come out smelling clean and fresh, we love it. It's also quite large and we don't need much so we are going to be using this for a while! Now we are competely stocked for laundry soap!! At Nellie's, they were also selling organic bamboo towels (which I have been looking at and wanting to purchase) and sheets, gosh, the sheets were $120! But silky soft and eco-friendly as bamboo is a renewable source. I know of Shoo-foo in Vancouver which sells bamboo products including towels so I will have to head over there to pick up some towels when my current cotton ones are worn out and they are getting close to it. Once we were done in the marketplace, my cousin Nadine did pretty good - she got lots of great things, we lined up for the PNE show home. It wasn't too busy as it was getting close to the end of the night but none of us were impressed with it this year plus it's all the way out in Kelowna so if you win it, it's def a summer home. By 9.45pm we decided to call it a nite cos it was late and we were all getting super tired. It was such a fun evening and we must get together more often, it's always so much fun hanging out with my cousins Nadine and Ruth!

Update: I just found a mini donut article by CTV BC and I didn't realize there were THREE mini donut stands! I must try Mr. Ken's Donut Factory (apparently many flavours of mini donuts) and Fundunkers (a PNE stand). I would love to try the chocolate, honey and coconut donuts at Mr. Ken's Donut Factory! Mmmm..... donuts, must head back to the PNE one more time ($5 admission after 9pm) for another taste of donuts!!!