I had the pleasure of going on the Magic Winery Tour bus this fall and would love to share my visit with you all.

Magic Winery Tour Bus

When I booked the tickets, I didn't know what to expect other than that we got on a double decker bus which drove us around to multiple vineyards and we got to sample wine.

It is so much more than just that, and I will let you know what you will be getting yourself into, if you ever decide to do the wine tour.

Wolfville Information Centre

Our initial meetup was at Wolfville Information centre where the bus picks us up then drove us to our first stop, Domaine De Grand Pre.

Domaine De Grand Pre

All of the wineries that we went to were all loaded with information that I couldn't keep it all in even if I tried.  It was incredible how educated, passionate and invested the employees were in their field of work. 

One thing I didn't know and thought was pretty cool, is that there is a national historic park in such a small town. 

This is the view from the park, which was quite small and mainly used as a photo-op I am assuming.  Very pretty nonetheless.

The grapes in the vineyards that get used for our local wine!

I took a picture of this because I thought it was pretty cool.  Turns out there's quite the meaning behind it.  This little fountain and monuments were made by a Swiss man *I believe*.  The monuments each resemble a person from the family as Grand Pre is a family owned business and the water represents the wine. We had 3 complimentary wine tastes here, which was a record from them all.

I took a picture inside the store.  This was just a small portion of the barrels of wine alongside displays around the store.  It was extremely nice and *expensive*!  However, there was also accessories which you could buy as well.

Grand Pre also has a restaurant, which we opted to not go to today. However, I am sure that they have awesome service and foods for great prices. ^.^

Luckett Vineyards

Next stop, Lucketts.  Luckett is best known for his market stores called Pete's Frootique located in Bedford and Halifax Nova Scotia.

Luckett Vineyards is a fairly new establishment, however because he was previously known from the stores, it is a hot tourist spot.

Inside, there is a bar setting where you can order glasses of wines or tastes.  For 5$ you got 3 different kinds from the choice of the house and for 10$ you got to pick 5 different kinds for yourself.

That is a lot of wine!

Luckett's has an office room where you can book for staff parties or special events.  It has an awesome chandelier as well as a massive flat screen TV on the other wall. 

Even though you can't beat any view from the Annapolis Valley, we certainly  had the best view from Lucketts vineyard. 

Isn't it odd to have a telephone booth in the middle of a vineyard? .. I didn't think so.  You can make Canada wide calls, free! from this phone booth!

Lucketts also has a restaurant which we chose to eat at.  The only restaurant I've ever been at that gives you blankets.  It was a chilly day and your only seating options are outside.  How thoughtful, really.

It seems pretty fitting that the menus are made with real cork.

Phone Box Fizz

 I ordered the Blackened Chicken and the Phone Box Fizz.

I also split a cheesecake with my friend.

A great statue lol

 Instead of just soil, there are corks in the tree pot. A nice added touch really.

We had a total of one complimentary wine taste at Lucketts.

Our final destination was Gaspereau Vineyards.

Did you know: A vineyard is where vines are grow whereas a winery is where the grapes are transformed into wine.

Gaspereau has a lovely display unit.

Gaspereau has a vintage bike rental option which for $10 you can bike around the vineyard.  When the weather is nice, this would be great to do on a day out.

Something that all of the wineries and vineyards have in common is the Tidal Bay.  This is a label that specific wines get and are to be considered "Nova Scotia's Signature White Wines".  Wines get placed on a blind panel and tested to be paired with our local seafood.  Each wine on the panel are slightly different but also have to meet a certain set of standard.  Even though you reached the title of Tidal Bay, the wine must be tested every year.  If you fail to reach Tidal Bay standards, the wine goes back to the starting phrase and is tweaked for the following year.

The Magic Winery Bus tour has three departure times being at 10:30AM, 12:30PM and 1:30PM.   The bus drives around once every hour to pick people up and drive them to the next destination.  If you don't want to visit a certain spot, no worries, just stay on the bus until you've arrived to your desired area. If you plan on eating at one of these spots, it is highly suggested that you stay 2 hours at the location.

Most people don't know what they have in their own backyard.  I recommend anybody to go to their Information Centre and check out what's going on in your local towns.  There might just be something that interests you!

If you see yourself in Nova Scotia in the Annapolis Valley, I strongly recommend you go on the Magic Winery Bus tour! It's both unregretable and unforgetable!

Today I'll be doing a quick review on a small little cafe called Cafe Joie located in South Burnaby. My boyfriend found this place while browsing Instagram and they have the most delicious looking waffles I have ever seen! So we decided to go sometime this week and let me tell you the experience was 100 times better than the website.

Cafe Joie is not too far from the Metrotown SkyTrain station. I believe if you walk through Metropolis it's only a 10 minute walk. The cafe is located just off of Kingsway and Sussex. When you first walk in it has a very modern feel to it. The walls are painted an off white I believe, and they have unique lighting. Lots of little touches to the restaurant. I didn't take any pictures of it but there's plenty on the website that you can view.

It was so hard to choose what to eat. I decided to get the green tea waffles and my boyfriend got a roast beef panini and an iced coffee. We shared the rainbow cake.

The iced coffee was good. The coffee wasn't strong and it wasn't watered down, which I find is common with independent coffee shops like this. It had just the right amount of flavour with it not being too bitter or too sweet. I'm not a coffee drinker and I even liked it, so I would order myself one.

Next was the roast beef panini. Not sure what was in it as I didn't order it or what kind of salad it was ahah, but was it ever DELICIOUS!!! The bread was crisp, the meat and cheese was toasty warm so the cheese just melted in your mouth. I didn't get the chance to try the salad but the dressing was really good. I would definitely get this again, it was amazing!

The waffle was the most amazing waffle I have ever seen. I am a very big breakfast eater, so pancakes and waffles are my absolute favourite way to start the day. The waffle looks bigger than it does on the plate. It had a green tea and vanilla macroon on top (which was OMG AMAZING!), green tea ice cream, whipped cream, kiwi, strawberries, almonds, drizzled with green tea sauce, powdered with sugar and matcha. It was seriously the best thing ever. The waffle was so warm, that pairing it with the ice cream was absolutely the best thing that they have done. It was filling too! I would've ordered another one but I was pretty full after that one, plus I still had cake to devour. I highly recommend getting the green tea waffle!!!!

The rainbow cake was visually appealing, but wasn't much. The lemon frosting was delicious. I felt like it needed something else, some kind of other flavour to make it really POP but I'm not sure what it is.

Other than that, it has the visual wow factor but the taste was okay. Would have again though.

Pros

• Visually pleasing dishes
• Delicious - nothing was tasteless or bland
• Variety of selections to choose from even though the menu itself is quite small
• Does not need syrup to make these waffles amazing (which I'm into lately because we haven't had maple syrup in the house lately)
• Lots of desserts including cake in a jar, macroons, cakes, waffles, ice cream... I believe some other things
• Close to the mall
• Great atmosphere

Cons

• When you walk in, the menu is quite small. I have glasses and even I had a hard time reading it
• A little expensive. I think this was almost around $30.00 for the both of us, which isn't bad but this is a cafe. My waffle alone was $10.00. They just opened up though, so maybe their prices will go down eventually.
• Their website is horrible. They have a link to their 'menu' but it's just pictures and not even half of what they have in the cafe itself. No prices on it either. You just have to go in and trust that you're going to have a great experience (and you will).

Overall, my experience blew me out of the water. Definitely a place to check out if you're ever in the Metrotown area.

9/10 would come again.

Hello PYMUO followers! Today will not be a beauty review but a recipe on the infamous banana and egg pancakes. They're fairly simple to make, and I added in a few extra ingredients.

 Ingredients:

1 Ripe Banana
2 Large Eggs
1 Scoop of Chocolate Protein Powder
1 Teaspoon Baking Powder
1 Teaspoon Vanilla Extract
3 Teaspoon Olive Oil

Instructions

• Chop up one rip banana.
• Add in the two eggs and mush it all together!
• Add in the baking powder and vanilla extract. Mix it together.
• Mix in one scoop of your favourite chocolate protein powder. You can also substitute or add any other flavours. Sometimes I use fresh blueberries or chocolate chips, and sometimes cinnamon or nutmeg.

• Add the three teaspoons of olive oil in the pan. Heat the pan just below medium heat.
• After a couple of minutes, scoop out three tablespoons of your pancake mix on the pan. Each pancake is three tablespoons.
• Let sit for one to two minutes. Be gentle with these pancakes as they can fall apart easily. 
• Once the pancakes move around quit easily, flip them! Let the other side cook for another minute.
• The bottom two pancakes is what they should look like just put on the pan, and the top three is what it should look like cooked. They may turn out darker depending on the type of protein powder you use!

And that's it! These are fairly thin pancakes as you can see on the left picture.

These pancakes are VERY sweet, I didn't really need to put maple syrup on them! I use either honey or 100% maple syrup, and for a substitute for whipped cream I use vanilla greek yogurt (not shown).

I really hope you guys enjoy these. They're really easy to make and you can't really go wrong with them.

Inspired by this photo I decided to make my own because it looks so easy, and I like bananas. 

Ingredients you ask? Peanut butter and bananas!! It really is that easy! 

Because it's so easy I thought why not add another ingredient and make a frozen yogurt??

 I cut my bananas up like this.  Just as a reference point this is 2 bananas.

For  the recipe without yogurt I used one banana and one tablespoon of peanut butter.  Nothing too fancy, and then blend.

For the recipe including yogurt I used the 2 bananas, put approximately one and a half tablespoons of peanut butter in the blender and measured out one cup of yogurt.  I used coconut yogurt but virtually you could use any kind that you like or think might go well with bananas and peanut butter.

After you've blended all of the ingredients together, just toss it in the freezer for a few hours and then you have ice cream!
After tasting my homemade ice cream, the peanut butter aspect is extremely strong.  Even in the yogurt one where I added more banana, less peanut butter than recommended as well as yogurt on top peanut butter was still one of the stronger tastes.  It all depends on the ratio of your ingredients but if you don't particularly like that taste I wouldn't put a whole lot of peanut butter in your ice cream.  Other than that, this is a really simple, fast, amazing and healthy snack or treat.