Step 1: We admit that we are powerless over our flakiness -- that our blogs had become unmanageable

  I was going to write my thoughts about the Bridget Jones novels, but I was drawing up blank and when the things get hard, I hide. So much for blogging regularly. I'll be back on Sunday (which was just yesterday, but obviously I mean this coming Sunday).

Things I'd like to do when Visiting a New (N. American) City

  I found the cheap spiral notebook that I used as a diary, to-do list, and general repository of scribbles to be forgotten. Uploading them online doesn't help much either because which app should I use? I have accounts with Spring It, Kippt, Wunderlist and Evernote and documents on computers and Dropbox that I don't know where things are. I used to think how my high school classmates would tediously keep color code their assignment notebooks frivolous and flippant but it turns out that it's a transferable life skill.

  Anyway, long story short, since people are travelling this week and summer travel is generally upon us, here's a list I made of things I'd like to do when visiting a new (N. American) city:

1. look for an (old-fashion) soda jerk
2. try local candy, cake or baked treats [I guess I meant local confection in general]
3. lingerie, sunglass and hat shopping
4. go on easy hike
5. fabric shopping
6. listen to music/performance
7. bookstore!
8. perfume shopping
9. local spirits/beer
10. gardens
11. "heritage" apparel [to look, less likely to buy]
12. cemeteries/graves
13. Top Chef restaurant
14. get a haircut
15. speciality stores: Marimekko; clogs; Moomin; Tintin, etc
16. buy local traditional crafts
17. fashion-forward boutiques
18. Goodwill
19. Antiques/flea market
20. historic residential neighborhood
21. specialty stationery store
22. artists/craftsmen's workshop

Over half are shopping related (11), but not all of it is typical clothes, shoes, accessories shopping, and four are food related.

New additions:

23. architecture tour
24. coffee tea cocoa
25. alternative sports/recreation
26. parks
27. fishing
28. antiquarian books
29. usual museums
30. unusual niche museums
31. try out different (historical or unique) modes of transportation
32. swim in public pool, skate in skate park, etc
33. shoe shopping
34. try out boutique fitness classes (nyc!)
35. roller coaster
36. buy wall maps preferably in specialty map store
37. walk, bike or hangout by the town's riverwalk
38. buy seeds of plants that are endemic or indigenous or specially cultivated in that area
39. tour the local university (hopefully it has a beautiful campus)
40. go to farm, orchard or garden and pick fruit

  I wonder if there's anything to add..?

Moomin Haulin

My Moomin T-shirts

  I was supposed to buy one Moomin t-shirt, one Moomin tunic, and for my friend A one Snoopy t-shirt at Uniqlo, but ended up buying three Moomin t-shirts for myself. They were on sale and look, only one is gray.
  

You can't see them, but the style of the sleeves is "French" aka slouchy shoulder, shorter than cap sleeves, not set-in and not raglan either. The sleeves and the torso are one piece of fabric.

Moomin and Snorkmaiden on a Boat

  A bought me a present from Hong Kong. It's a Moomin diary. While she was there we messaged over Viber and said that she saw Moomin figurines in a character store. Mucho dinero. I wasn't expecting to receive a present so I'm very happy with it. Thank you A.

  On a side note, while at Uniqlo I asked the shop assistant to use my own reusable bag to pack my t-shirts which he did, but proceeded to put the pair of sunglasses that I bought along with the t-shirts in a plastic bag before putting it in my own bag. The three t-shirts and sunglasses fit in that bag.