Back in mid-April, Ford of Canada gave me the opportunity to test drive the 2013 C-Max Hybrid for a week. I was pretty excited, as it was my first time having the experience of driving a hybrid vehicle, and I wanted to see just how efficient the vehicle really was. I wanted to see if hybrids really lived up to what they're marketed as. To really put it to the test, I decided to take it down with me on a weekend getaway to Banff & Calgary.

But let's talk about the vehicle itself first. The model I was given was such a unique colour - blue candy metallic - and I absolutely loved it. It's one of those colours you either love or hate immediately. This vehicle isn't a crossover, but an actual car, and I had imagined it to be long like a wagon (think soccer moms?). To my surprise, it was shorter and I didn't mind the streamlined shape to it. While driving the car, I definitely sat higher up than I do normally driving in my Civic, so it was nice to be able to see more of the road! The vehicle didn't feel too big as I drove it, and it accelerated as quickly as I would want it to while driving around the city.

The interior featured leather seats and soft plastic accents, and the MyFord Touch system in the centre of the console. The vehicle itself had plenty of headroom in the front, the seats were roomy and comfortable, and there were seat warmers that could be customized to five different levels for both the driver and passenger. As with the Escape that I test-drove, the touchscreen system in this C-Max was identical. It was user friendly and had tons of great features ranging from bluetooth options and up to date GPS navigation. The Active Park Assist system was also available to me, and it really does come in handy when needing to parallel park into a small space. The rear view camera also featured grid lines to guide the vehicle as you reverse. There isn't much to complain about besides the fact that the climate control settings are a little hard to reach with the gear selector sitting right in front of them.

Like most of Ford's newest models, the C-Max Hybrid uses a keyless start, which I actually really enjoy because I can skip digging through my purse to find the keyfob. The drive itself throughout the city and on the highway was smooth and very steady. In the city, I often found myself driving way faster than I perceived, as the vehicle accelerated so quickly and quietly that I didn't notice it at all. Fear not, I got no tickets that week! A great feature of the vehicle was the Brake Coach - a system to teach the driver how to brake efficiently with each stop in order to maximize the regenerative capacity of the brakes to increase fuel economy and reduce wear on the brake pads. The braking energy normally lost is actually used to help charge the car battery. It honestly was great positive reinforcement, cause I loved attaining 100% returns on energy usage!

On the highway, the C-Max performed just as well, accelerating quickly but steadily as we made our way down the QE2. For the entire duration of the trip, we used the ECO Cruise control option which is designed to maximize fuel efficiency during cruise control. After driving from Edmonton to Calgary, cruising around Calgary for lunch, and driving all the way to Banff, we managed the trip in less than 3/4 of a tank of gas and the vehicle reported mileage of 6.9L/100 KM. On the drive back to Edmonton, we averaged 6.2L/100 KM which is awesome, considering the manufacturer lists the value to be around 4L/100 KM in the city and 5L/100 KM in highway conditions.

Overall, the experience with the C-Max Hybrid was a positive one - I enjoyed the steady ride and it was quite suitable for little me. Despite being a small car, there was a surprisingly large volume of space in the trunk - by flipping down the back seats you could get additional room as well. With all the features in this vehicle, the price came out to just under $36 000, but it starts at $25 199. While it may be more expensive than your average vehicle, I think the reason to commit to a hybrid vehicle really comes down to how much you value the environment. In the long run, the amount of money you save from gas utilization could also be worth it. Although the C-Max Hybrid probably isn't going to be my next vehicle purchase, the experience with it has definitely opened my eyes to the hybrid vehicles and I would take the feature into consideration.

Disclaimer: This vehicle was provided courtesy of Ford Canada. I was not expected to feature this vehicle on my blog, nor obligated to do so. This post is 100% my opinion, and as always, my priority is to you, the reader, to present an unbiased, thorough review.

I've always wanted a restaurant in Edmonton to be dedicated to shabu-shabu or sukiyaki. It's something I always seek out while I'm in Vancouver, cause there's nothing like it here! While there's places to have hot pot, sometimes I crave the soy-based broth and not the typical soup seen in Chinese hot pot. I know that Sabu Sushi Bar previously offered shabu-shabu, but I don't know if that's the case anymore. So when I saw the signs for Urban Shabu on 97 St. go up, I was really excited, hoping that there was finally going to be the place I had dreamed of!

Urban Shabu - 9700 105 Avenue - Edmonton AB

Urban Shabu has taken over the spot last occupied by Spicy Garden, which I used to frequent as a young child with my parents after Chinese school on Saturday mornings. It isn't really anything to be missed, but walking into this new restaurant made me appreciate all the renovations that were done. The interior is very modern, with marble accents and lots of interesting lighting. On the walls are pictures of various cities around the world, including London and New York - and the white furniture makes the place look and feel clean.

Urban Shabu is actually related to Urban China - the restaurants are both opened and run by the same owners, hence the 'Urban' in their name. Having opened just a few days ago, the restaurant was bustling with activity at 6:30pm on a Monday night. Many tables were full of patrons, talking and eating, while a handful of staff walked around helping to bring out food and clean up tables. Now, unfortunately for me, this isn't a restaurant dedicated to shabu-shabu. Instead, it's an all you can eat hot pot place, yet again. Can someone please make my wishes come true!?

Anyway, Urban Shabu offers individual pots for each patron, with tables able to accommodate groups of 2 or 4, but tables can be pushed together for larger groups. Price wise, it's a little more expensive at $25.95 per person, with $2.00 per specialty soup base (chicken both is free), and no drinks included. Their sauce bar offers quite the spread of 16 options, including some special sauces like fermented red bean paste, oyster sauce & xo sauce. My one gripe is that they don't have fish sauce - always essential in my sauce mix!

Although the restaurant is a little more expensive, they have one of the most extensive lists for food that I have seen here in the city! I counted 90+ "raw" food items, and 6 cooked ones that you can order from the list that is included in the all you can eat price. They also offer some deluxe offerings like sliced geoduck (+$15) and fresh lobster or crab (+$ market price) if you so please. But based on the list included in the price, I was pretty happy with what was available on there. Notable item? Deep fried buns (man tou), which I loooooove to order when I eat Shanghainese! The soft buns are deep fried to have a crisp outer coating and soft interior, and served up with condensed milk. When warm, they're seriously delicious, and Urban Shabu doesn't disappoint!

Buns aside, the ordering system here requires you to peruse a sheet of items, and check off everything you want. Within 1-2 minutes of ordering, food starting showing up at our table! Talk about service. All the items were extremely fresh and thawed out if previously frozen (like beef balls & fish balls), but the shaved meats were definitely sliced upon ordering and sent to the table immediately. Items to note? The shaved lamb and beef were shaved paper thin and incredibly tender, while the lamb didn't have a strong gamey flavour. The white fish balls I also loved, because they were massive in size and had a nice 'elastic' bite to them. And I can't forget their shrimp - wow they were HUGE, literally the same length as my hand. The kitchen did send the ingredients out in smaller portions than I would expect, but for all you can eat, that may be better, as people tend to underestimate how much they can actually eat.

For the dessert crowd, Urban Shabu offers four different options after your meal: Japanese Style Sesame Balls, Sweet Tofu, Mango Creme Sweet Soup & Osmanthus Cake. I tried out their soft tofu (dow foo fa) which was very smooth and served likewarm with a light ginger simple syrup - a great end to the meal. I'm pretty curious about the sesame balls though, and will definitely try them out next time!

Although Urban Shabu isn't my dream shabu-shabu restaurant, I quite enjoyed my visit. The food was fresh, and individual cooking style gives everyone freedom to cook and eat at their own pace. I had the chance to try out their Tom Yum Goong broth which was very flavourful and I would highly recommend it as a soup base here. There are plenty of staff on hand and they're all very friendly as well - a huge bonus in a self-serve type of restaurant. Based on the environment, food, and service quality, I'd say the higher price is definitely justified. I'll be back when the weather is colder and I'm craving hot pot again, but in the meantime, for your visit, make sure to call ahead and make a reservation ahead of time!

Hi everyone! Hope you've had a wonderful past couple of days - I feel like I completely fell off the face of the planet and left social media behind over the weekend. It was kinda nice spending lots of time with friends out and away from the big city. I spent time in a tent sleeping under the raining sky - the sounds and temperature was soothing and relaxing. Ah, back to reality.

One of the products making a lot of buzz in the nail polish world right now is the gorgeous duos released by NARS in collaboration with Pierre Hardy. When I first laid saw the whole collaboration, the makeup products were pretty, but my eyes were drawn to the gorgeous polish duos. I absolutely love the contrasting duos, and can't wait to share when I've picked up with you!

Each duo has just one name, with one polish being 'left' and the other being 'right'. So this week on my tips, I have Sharks Left, which screams Spring to me. It actually kind of resembles the shade of pollen that comes out of pine trees - which totally showered all over me this weekend while running around trees (gross) - but nonetheless, the colour is a lovely pastel yellow. The shade itself is quite light, and could actually lean towards looking chalky on some skintones, and it gave my skin a darker appearance. What I unfortunately wasn't too impressed with though was the formula: it was thicker, and streaky upon application, requiring a full three coats to achieve a smooth, opaque coat. After two days of wear, I started to see my first chips, which also wasn't too impressive, as they progressively became worse over the week. I'm hoping its just this one colour that has wear issues, as the polish certainly isn't cheap at $33 CAD/duo! We'll find out with Sharks Right next week!