One good thing about midterms..

Quality time after school with friends.
We get off at 11am, which gives us potential to hang around for quite a while.
Today we walked to Kensington and had a very nice time.
The weather was great and the stress of an essay in social was basically over, although when we checked our blood pressure in Shoppers Drug Mart it seemed a bit high. Mine was 121/60! (Well, 60 is pretty low). Shoppers Drug Mart is quite an interesting experience, ironically it happens to be one of the highlights of Kensington sometimes (sometimes). We bought a card for my friend who is moving to Dubai very soon. It's for someone's 50th birthday...
Then we headed to Livingstone & Cavell and played with their toys for a very long time. After that we marched down Kensington road to 10th Street, where we craved some Crave cupcakes, did some window shopping and inhaled both the Roasterie and Tandoori Hut. After that it was Vietnamese at "a Touch of Ginger". I had vegetarian spring rolls on rice vermicelli and a mango juice. It was very delicious! Then we headed down the street, and stopped at Trend (the clothing store). After perusing through the shoes, we headed down 10th street a bit more. We decided to go into Hot Wax records, somewhere I don't regularly go when in Kensington. It always does have good selection+good taste though, so I like going in even if I don't buy something. And I was thinking of asking about their policy for exchanging records, I have a whole bunch of my dad's doubles to cash in on. But this old guy and jean-jacket guy with very curly hair and Buddy Holly glasses were kinda looking at us like we were annoying pretentious teenagers so I decided that it was cool. They were probably pretty nice, but when someone is silent when 4 loud kids come into their shop, you have to wonder... I'll probably come back though to exchange my dad's records, seems like a great place. Then we went to Crave and had cupcakes. Then walked back to my house. It was a fun day though, it's interesting to discover new things about places you go to regularly. In celebration of this, I will make a list of my regular places in this neighborhood. People probably won't be interested because a). they live 10 hours away or b). there are many other nice places in this city besides Kensington. Anyways,

Clothing/Accessories:
Manana kind of across from the Plaza on Kensington road. All imported stuff. They have very nice smelling incense, and cool hats. The staff are friendly and the merchandise is very interesting.
Trend fashion on 10th street at the end by Memorial drive. Sometimes they have some really cute stuff, nice shoes and nice shirts.
The Rocket custom T-shirts are always nice.
if you want shirts with bands on them...
head down to Charisma it's kinda gothy, but I find they have an excellent selection of Clash t-shirts.
There's this place called Manhattan-something that my mum likes to go to. It has nice clothing..
Mission and the Source are good if you are into skate-boarding, snowboarding etc.

Food:
Tandoori Hut on the west side of 10th street, my personal fav. for Indian. Great for special occasion kinda things. Good food, good service. You can smell the deliciousness from the other side of the street. Maurya is also good for Indian food.
Charlie Chan's under Swimco on Kensington is good solid Chinese food.
Two good Vietnamese places. Vietnamese Fortune which is beside Chicken-On-The-Way on 14th and Kensington and A Touch Of Ginger on 10th.
Nellie's on Kensington Road is good for breakfast. Bernard Callebaut on Kensington road is always delicious for chocolates (I recommend the little heart things). As well as Crave cupcakes (the icing is so good you don't notice how bad it is for you). On the west end of Kensington road you have Charlie's Bakery with delicious pastries and breads and stuff and Janice Beaton cheese (great variety of cheeses, a lot of them are really good). If you're a wine-ish person there's the Kensington Wine Market in the same area.
Cafe's:
There's a Higher Ground, nice atmosphere, but the coffee isn't very good. Or Starbucks beside it (yeah okay I'm a horrible person). There's also the Roasterie on 1oth. There are more then this, but these are the ones I've been to more than once.

Entertainment:
The Plaza Theatre is a great place to go, (you can go see Borat right now). Usually have good picks and they put on a mean Rocky Horror Picture Show. I spend a lot of time playing and observing the toys at Livingstone and Cavell, they have some cool stuff. Shopper's Drug Mart is entertaining for the teenager in you. Page's bookstore has a great selection of books. I saw Tommy Chong there..

Miscellaneous:
If you are a church-like person, Hillhurst United is an engaging and tolerant church. Urban Barn is great for furniture. Beadworks has expensive but very pretty beads.
Disappointments:
There's a store on the corner of 10th and Kensington that always changes. But the point is, it's always a crappy generic coffee shop, don't go there. Chicken On the Way is a legend, but a gross tasting legend indeed.

Now I have to go to sleep, I have a science midterm in less than 9 hours.