Hello Everyone - Welcome back to my blog! I'm going to take a short pause on my escape adventures to share a super fun makeup tutorial with you guys! If you don't know I am a HUGE Harry Potter fan! I am super excited as I will be making my way back to Universal Studios Orlando in about 2 weeks! This time around I decided it wouldn't be right if I didn't go back dressed as a student from Hogwarts. I've seen so many people do it so I decided to put together my Harry Potter look!
Let's begin!

To start off I got my robe and tie off from Ebay. There are SO many sellers that sell Harry Potter robes and ties off Ebay, so just take your time to look through each one for the best quality. Disclaimer: I know these are not the authentic robes and ties (like the one they sell at The Wizarding World of Harry Potter) but since I'll only be wearing these one time for pictures I didn't bother dropping $200 worth when I can get them much cheaper off Ebay. As for the glasses I also got it off Ebay a while back!  For the wand however, it is the authentic one I got from the park 4 years ago and it's Ron Weasley's wand. Wands from the park does cost a bit so if you are looking for a cheaper alternative you can always check on Ebay as well!

On to the makeup - I thought the whole orange eyeshadow went very well with the Gryffindor look! I won't go much into the detail as you can all watch the video. I added some freckles as I thought that would match the whole ginger vibe - What do you guys think?

 Freeing Canada: Unmask

	9625 Yonge Street, Unit 2F Richmond Hill, Ontario
	60 Minutes
	2-8 players
	$25.00 per person – Wed - Thur  $28.00 per person – Sat - Sun
	Unlimited hints
	Freeing Canada
	647-800-7622

           

Hello Everyone - I'm back! I apologize for the MIA on the blog! Today I return with the continuation to our Freeing series. Today's room will be on one of my favourite from Freeing Canada. I say, half the experience is based on the people you escape with. This room was made extra fun because of the small memories made by my teammates.

Room Quality:  I would say this room definitely felt more put together. The props used for this room weren't cheap and it didn't feel cheap. I wouldn't say Mission Incredible was cheap but it just lacked something that drew me into the room. This room however has a twist to it and it is rather interesting in my opinion on how the theme shifts. I don't want to expose too much, but again this was definitely on the creepier side - nothing terrifying like my previous experiences but there are some good catches.

Puzzle Design:  YES! For some reason I personally really enjoyed the puzzles of this room. The level of difficulty was just right! There was a lot of observation involved which kept us all very entertained. The amount of locks was just right - we pretty much had to go through everything to decode puzzles. I find this so much more fun in comparison to just one puzzle to the next. I love exploring and just digging through everything to look for hints. With that being said, this room was extra fun because of the creepier moments I mentioned earlier. Let's just say if you're the unlucky one (like me) you will be caught off guard.

Overall:  Once again this room is recommended for people that are a bit more new to escape rooms. Puzzle design was a bit on the easier side which is great for beginners. If you are looking for something a bit more high end, you can skip this room. I would recommend a party of 2-3 for this room. It's not that spacious so if you go with a bigger team it might get a bit too tight in the room. I also thought going with three people was perfect because the creepy vibe does get to you especially when it's just a few people in that room. There's no jump scares so you don't have to worry about that. I personally just find anything dark to be scary, but it wasn't pitch black to the point you couldn't see anything.

Happy Escaping!

 Mystery Room: Pandemic 

	52 W Beaver Creek Rd, unit 16&17 Richmond Hill, ON
	60 Minutes
	4-10 players
	$22.00 per person
	Unlimited hints
	Mystery Room
	905-707-5829

   

Taking a short break from our Freeing Series as I want to write a review on our most recent escape adventure at Mystery Room. We took our adventure to their newest(?) location at Richmond Hill last night. Given the fact that we are such addicts when I discovered there was a Richmond Hill location, it was almost an instant go. Background story, we've actually been to the their Downsview location before and in all honestly it was a low budget escape facility. It was not necessarily a bad escape facility, but of course compared to the higher end ones it did lack in terms of tech and props. However, with that being let me share with you our experience!

Pre-Room Experience: I honestly thought their location was the old Esc-It location! I still remember when escape rooms first came out and the level of sketchiness was so high in my opinion. Their Richmond Hill location is located right on West Beaver Creek. Location was great for us as half the time we grab dinner on Hwy 7 and it's much closer than other escape facility. Once again it gave off the sketchy vibe as we pulled into their facility. There were no car which made it even much more sketchy haha - We seem to have been the only booking they had all night. As we enter, the lobby was small but there was another room full of board games and more tables. I'm not too sure if it's because this location is new or what not but it was pretty much dead. The staff were friendly, but it did seem like he was nervous as we were the only guests haha. Oh, here's the catch - before arriving we were told that each player needed to have a fully charged phone. This was such an interesting call for us because as you know most escape facility don't allow cell phones. Before we entered the room - we were all asked to download an app. Here's where it gets interesting....

Room Quality:  Continuing from our pre-room experience. The theme to this room was a virus breakout and we all needed to survive and escape. As I stated earlier we were all asked to download an app. As we enter the room, we were told to connect to their wifi and the app. We each created an IGN and basically this was our "health" status. Basically how it all worked - the app indicated our status with each a health bar, hunger bar, injury bar and thirst bar. We needed to maintain each bar in order to survive. Throughout the rooms there were resources that we needed to find to keep us all alive. Once resources were found there were QR codes on them which we then scan through the app. Resources that were scanned will increase our status keeping us alive. Cool! Putting this app to the side the room itself was alright - not the best but not too bad. Props weren't as high end in compared to other escape places. The design of the rooms somewhat lacked in my opinion. For example the last room was pretty much just an empty room with very minimal props. I would say they could easily do so much more if more money was put into it. I can see the potential. In other words, it was a budget room.

Puzzle Design:  There were a few downfalls in terms of puzzle design. The whole app experience was quite fresh and interesting to all of us, but mid-way through, half my team gave up on "surviving". This was because maintaining the status of your health was so distracting to us. Half our team were decoding the puzzles while I was trying to feed everyone food and water. The purpose of it also seems very unnecessary as mid-game one player ended up dying but still proceeded with the game. There was also difficulty in terms of scanning our resources. Some resources were empty, which wasted a lot of our time trying to scan another resources. One player's phone barely scanned anything and by the time it did it was already too late. In terms of their puzzles, it wasn't too bad. Nothing impossible and it all did connect. I would say though a lot of my time was spent trying to keep everyone alive so I did miss out on some puzzles.

Overall:  Not bad I would say. I can definitely see potential for them if they invest a little bit more into their rooms. The whole concept of the room was fresh and new. Even though with some distraction and glitches the room did keep us all entertained and we didn't feel bored at all. I would say the biggest downfall I found was the app having to be open the whole time. I didn't have enough time to figure out how to keep my iPhone screen on the whole time so I had to keep tapping the screen to make sure my phone didn't sleep. This made it super hard to do anything else! With that to the side, this room was very spacious. So if you are looking to go with more teammates you will not feel crowded. Oh, also if you don't have a cell phone or if your phone dies they do provide you with chargers and also spare phones. Overall, we had fun and it was a very interesting room. However, if you are looking for higher end rooms with "wow-ing" tech, you won't be able to find it here.

Happy Escaping!

 Freeing Canada: Painter Murderer

	9625 Yonge Street, Unit 2F Richmond Hill, Ontario
	45 Minutes
	2-6 players
	$20.00 per person – Wed - Thur  $23.00 per person – Sat - Sun
	Unlimited hints
	Freeing Canada
	647-800-7622

           

Hope everyone is enjoying the Freeing series! Today's post will be on their second 45 minute room called Painter's Murderer. This room is similar to their Black Swan level, so if you are looking for something a bit more advance and more challenging I would suggest you to by-pass this review. If you are still interested then go ahead and continue reading!

Room Quality:  The room quality is very basic. It's a dark room with paintings everywhere. I guess it does fit the room theme, but if you are expecting high tech puzzles or secret pathways, this is not the room. It's a very simple room, but I wouldn't say the props were cheap and random. It actually does give off a very creepy vibe that fits well with the theme.

Puzzle Design:  Puzzle design was alright. I wouldn't say it's challenging but given the fact that this is one of their easier room it was up to its standard. I wouldn't say it was all lockboxes for this room, but there were some. Puzzles were still abstract enough to allow you to think outside the box which I thought was quite impressive for an easier room. Puzzles were well designed and did fit the theme. With that being said, the lockboxes did fit well into the story. I believe this room was like Black Swan where the second part of the challenge was to figure out what weapon was used for the murder.

Overall:  Once again this room is recommended for people that are a bit more new to escape rooms. Puzzle design was a bit on the easier side which is great for beginners. If you are looking for something a bit more high end, you can skip this room. I would recommend a party of 2-3 for this room. It's not that spacious so if you go with a bigger team it might get a bit too tight in the room. I also thought going with two people was perfect because the creepy vibe does creep up on you especially when it's just two people in that room. There's no jump scares so don't have to worry about that. I personally just find anything dark scary, but it wasn't pitch black to the point you couldn't see anything.

Happy Escaping!

 Freeing Canada: Mission Incredible 

	9625 Yonge Street, Unit 2F Richmond Hill, Ontario
	60 Minutes
	2-8 players
	$25.00 per person – Wed - Thur  $28.00 per person – Sat - Sun
	Unlimited hints
	Freeing Canada
	647-800-7622

           

Happy Friday! Continuing with our Freeing series, today's post will be on Mission Incredible! Hope you all enjoy this series as much I enjoy typing them up. If you are new to my blog - Welcome! I am an escape room addict as you can see. Oh - just like the Omescape series I will be skipping the pre-room experience, if you would like to know how that is please check out "Black Swan".  Ok - let's begin!

Room Quality:  Ok I'm going to spoil one aspect of this room because I feel like this room is very focused on this. So if you don't want any spoilers maybe you can by-pass this review. This room has lasers! I'm writing this review a lot later than I should, but from what I remember this was the very first room that had this so I was pretty much mind blown. The best part of these lasers were that it actually goes off when someone touches them. I will go over this a little bit more under puzzle design. I think the room quality definitely went up because of the lasers. It fit the theme so well! I think the only thing that really threw me off from this room was the background music haha - yes it was 60 mins of Mission Impossible music! Other than that the whole room was super well designed!

Puzzle Design:  Alright - I want to talk a little bit more about the lasers. It was such a struggle going through them! Legit my boyfriend and I spent a good 30 minutes trying to wiggle our way through. I wouldn't say it was frustrating as it was so much! It does suck that you needed ALL your teammates to make it through in order to shut it down so it might be a lengthy process. What's good about it is that it doesn't deduct any time if you touch the lasers, whereas other places do. The rest of the puzzles for this room were actually quite challenging. Not impossible but it did require thinking, especially the last puzzle (which we struggled pretty hard at.) The puzzles weren't extraordinary, but it was fun and kept us entertained. The puzzles connected well and it wasn't just random.

Overall:  Overall, I would recommend this room because of the lasers haha - it was such a fun experience and if you are into the whole Mission Impossible theme you will enjoy this room! Theme and quality was very well put together. No glitchy tech and no confusion in terms of what to do next. Puzzles were fun and challenging and will keep you going. I would recommend maybe a team of 3 for this room though. It is spacious, but like I mentioned earlier it does require the whole team to make it through the lasers before you can shut it down. Going with a larger group can result in a longer time. However, I still really enjoyed it although my boyfriend and I struggled so hard.

Happy Escaping!

 Freeing Canada: Unforeseeable Pyramid 

	9625 Yonge Street, Unit 2F Richmond Hill, Ontario
	60 Minutes
	3-6 players
	$25.00 per person – Wed - Thur  $28.00 per person – Sat - Sun
	Unlimited hints
	Freeing Canada
	647-800-7622

           

Welcome back to my Freeing series. The very first room at Freeing didn't wow us at all which made us play their hardest room Unforeseeable Pyramid literally right after our go on Black Swan. We were seriously that disappointed. After discussing with the staff they told us this was their hardest room and we will probably enjoy it a lot more, so here it goes.

Room Quality:  I forgot to mention in the Black Swan review, before entering their rooms we were all given glasses to cover our eyes (which I love because it adds to the suspense so much!). Before going into this room we each got a flashlight ... eh what's the word for it. Basically it was a flashlight but you wore it on your head haha - That itself was already a cool start! As we enter this room it was pitch black! The theme of this room is Egypt based, which got me super excited because I've done a theme like this before and my standard was left pretty high. This room definitely did not disappoint! The quality was on point and the props were on point. They even added sand to the whole room for experience! This was truly higher quality compared to the Black Swan! I would say the tech in this room was comparable to Omescape.

Puzzle Design:  This was the best part of the room, the puzzles. I actually had to come back for this as we ran out of rime the very first time and we barely made it out. Both tries were just as fun as the puzzles were just perfectly designed. The theme does go off a bit and will make you go "wow wtf" but it's a good "wtf" haha. Puzzles were not just lockboxes, in fact I don't recall any lockboxes in this room. I wouldn't say the puzzles are impossible, but it was definitely on the more challenging side. There were a lot of puzzles in this room that really made you think outside of the box which added to the whole experience!

Overall:  Overall, if you like escape rooms this will be a really fun room. In comparison to Black Swan this room is definitely much more challenging and a lot more fun. I love the theme of this room! They really put a lot of time and effort into setting up this room. Their puzzles were fun and the prop used for this room was also very good quality. There was tech in this room that really added to the whole room experience. As such, I would recommend this room for sure!

Happy Escaping!

 Freeing Canada: Black Swan

	9625 Yonge Street, Unit 2F Richmond Hill, Ontario
	45 Minutes
	2-4 players
	$20.00 per person – Wed - Thur  $23.00 per person – Sat - Sun
	Unlimited hints
	Freeing Canada
	647-800-7622

           

Thank you everyone for enjoying the Omescape Series. I thought I would continue on with these series. Today I will be bringing you to another escape game facility my team and I have completed and that is Freeing Canada. Freeing is actually a world-wide franchise branching off to Asia, which I thought was super cool! When I visit Hong Kong I gotta try it out haha - Alright lets begin!

Pre-Room Experience:  Freeing Canada is located right beside the T&T supermarket on Yonge  and Weldrick. The first time anyone noticed this facility was actually my mom and during that time we were all very hooked to the higher ends of escape rooms such as Downsview's Escape Game Canada, so we never made our visit. We finally decided to give this place a try when my cousins (who are also huge room addicts) hit me up and we went. Yes - it gave off the sketchy vibe as the entrance was off to the side and there were a flight of stairs to reach the facility itself. I wasn't sure what I was suppose to expect but let me tell you - I was pretty impressed with their lobby. The lobby was huge! One of the biggest and cleanest! The staff were super friendly and we even got free popcorn while waiting. I guess when we visited, the facility was still a bit new so everything was super clean and fresh!


(photo credit: torontoescapegames)

Room Quality:  The very first room we played was Black Swan. I wasn't too familiar with the back story nor did I knew what the theme was. I usually read up reviews before going to an escape room facility but since my cousins spontaneously called me up, I just went with it.  This room in particular had two parts to it: 1) you must escape 2) you have to solve the crime. I particularly don't like these kind of rooms because we never have enough time to do both I feel like or maybe my team just suck at being CSI haha. The room was small, but it wasn't cheap looking. The room theme did fit the theme I guess, but it was nothing "wow-ing".  The room itself was very plain and it was single room, so if you are looking for something with multiple rooms this isn't it!

Puzzle Design:  Puzzle design was ok but nothing special. This room did mainly focus on lockboxes for their puzzles. From what I recall it was almost all lockboxes! I think the only thing that stood out to me about this room was one particular puzzle. Without wanting to expose too much I would say, it did involve yoga poses and it was almost too funny to see your teammate try it out. Other than that, the room was plain and nothing stood out to me.

Overall:  Overall, this room was definitely not like your high end rooms. However, I wouldn't say this room is terrible. It was more so for the beginners or someone that has never done escape rooms before and don't want to be overwhelmed by everything. It was a great starter room in my opinion, but for my team and I it was definitely on the boring side. If you are like me and are a room addict I would just by-pass this room. If you are new to all of this then it will be a great beginner room.

Happy Escaping!

 SUSHI AOI 

	10620 Yonge St, Richmond Hill, ON L4C 3C8
	$$
	Mon – Closed Tues – Sat, 11:30AM – 10:30PM Sun, 11:30AM – 10:00PM
	905 787-0087

   

I have to add a few posts to my Sushi Diary! Ever since I've discovered this place it has become one of my go-to for good and cheap sushi. What's best about this place is how close it is to me! It's right on Yonge Street a little South of Elgin Mills. Alright let's break it down.



 Facility:  Funny thing is, this place used to be called Ichiban and a good 5 years ago I went but never returned. I forgot the reason why my boyfriend and I spontaneously visited this place, but it is now renamed and I believe with new management as well. The staff here is extremely friendly! I believe it's the owner, but she is awesome and always greeting us with a huge smile! The facility is very spacious and the seats were very comfortable as well.

Price: Their price is very average. Sushi rolls range from $10.00 - $15.00. They have set combos that range from $13.00 - $20.00. If you visit during "Aoi Hour" (11:00pm-3:00pm) you get an extra 10% discount. They also have lunch specials that range between $10.00 - $15.00.

Food Quality:  The food quality is AMAZING. Sashimi are always fresh! The rice portion is just right compared to other places where its just a huge chunk of rice. There are various choices on their menu for you to choose from. Everything tastes excellent. Each meal comes with a salad and miso soup like most Japanese restaurants. I think the miso soup is a little bit on the salter side, but nothing too crazy. I was never a fan of the salad but compared to other places the salad looks a bit more presentable (it wasn't just lettuce and sauce on top). Here's my favourite part - each meal also comes with a noodle soup. It's a small soup like the miso soup but with white noodles inside! It's so delicious.

Overall: I would highly recommend their "Orangeville" roll. It is a bit pricier ($15.99), but in my opinion, it's worth every penny for the quality you are getting. Orangeville comes with scallop, avocado, crab meat, cucumber topped with spicy salmon. It is seriously the best thing ever and it melts in your mouth perfectly! I would also recommend their Spider Roll. I don't remember the exact price but it's cheaper than usual places and the portion of it is perfect! Definitely worth a visit, their sashimi are all very fresh. Staff are super welcoming and friendly!