Hello Hello Hello! Happy New Year dear friends! I hope your start to the New Year has been fabulous!
This post is going to be recapping some of my best moments of 2018 in Toronto, through some of my favourite photo selections. 2018 was a year full of growth in a multitude of senses. Reflecting and looking back at the these photos truly brings me joy knowing that I got to experience and accomplish a range of new things this past year. I am super excited to create the next set of memories this year including ticking off the items on my bucket list!
At the beginning of the year I was able to properly set up my office in Toronto and the photos above show some of the sights around beautiful North York where my office is setup.
In March of 2018 I got to visit the National Home Show. There were a variety of vendors at the show ranging from home decor, to outdoor living and recreation. My favourite part of the show was visiting the glass house/ orangery that I am pictured with in the first photo above.
West Elm is one of the stylish home decor stores in Toronto. It was fun hanging around the store discovering their latest products. One can sure be tempted to buy the entire store since so many of the items are quite nice.
Eaton’s centre is one of the busiest malls in Toronto and when I have visitors to Toronto I will sometimes take them there, as it is one of the best tourist spots in the city for shopping. During this trip we got to check out the new pedestrian bridge that leads from the Eaton’s centre to the newly opened Saks Fifth Avenue Store.
Doors open Toronto is one of the most popular public events in Toronto. It’s a time when a lot of buildings are open to members of the general public to check out the architecture. Back in 2016 I attended my first Doors Open Toronto where I tried to visit as many buildings as possible throughout the day. In 2018 however I only planned to visit one building, and that was the 1 Spadina building. This building is home to the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Architecture, Landscape and Design, and so you can imagine how I excited I was to get to check it out! There were a number of neat architectural features that mixed the old with the new, and I quite liked the building overall.
It was a beautiful summer in 2018 (although we had some incredibly hot days). One of my favourite things to do in the summer was to take a stroll in the downtown area of Toronto. This particular time I went to the part of the downtown where the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO) and Ontario College of Art and Design (OCAD) are located. I had a meal at a local restaurant and some great coffee at a cute coffee shop where they encouraged visitors to take a polaroid and pin it to their “Wall of Guests”.
The Unzipped Pavilion by Bjarke Ingels was one of the most popular attractions in the city this past year! I was lucky enough to get to check it out before the pavilion came down, and headed west of the country. I had one of my team members from my Costa Rica office (Diego) come visit me in Canada during this time, and along with one of my team members from my Canada office (our photographer Karimah) we headed to the pavilion to take some of what are my favourite photos of 2018.
Everyone needs to take time to unwind and enjoy a day surrounded by nature. In Toronto we are lucky that even though we live in an urban city, we are never too far from either a park, ravine, lake or forest. Scarborough Bluffs are one of the best/ prettiest natural locations in the city and it was a refreshing feeling to get to explore the site on an early Saturday Morning.
Okay folks so that brings me to the end of this blog post! It truly was a lovely year in 2018, and I am excited for what this New Year holds for us! My wish for all of us in 2019 is that we take the time to explore more of our neighbourhoods and involve ourselves in activities that contribute to expanding our views and mindsets. All this as we continue to find and live out our purpose here on earth!
Until next time love and light always my friends!
-Katia