A Very Toronto Valentine

What's Love - Fat Joe Featuring Ja Rule & Ashanti

What's love? Got to do, got to do with it? What's love? Its about us, its about trust.

This hit song of 2002 is the best song that could open this blog post describing my Valentine's day. It is not only "Love" aka Valentine's day themed, but it was also a song, that both my Valentine and I reminisced about during our day together. So how did my first Valentine's day of the new decade go? Pretty epic to say the least.

The morning started pretty early as I had to get downtown to meet my valentine at the bus station. She was travelling down from Ancaster, and I was travelling down from North York. After meeting at the station, we decided we would start our day by heading to the CN tower. Toronto radio station Kiss 92.5 were holding a Valentine's day inspired "KiSS"ing booth event at the base of the CN tower, so my valentine and I decided we would start our day off by checking it out. After circling the tower a few times in and out, we eventually found it and head to where all the buzz was.

As we walked in, we were greeted by these hostesses who were handing out samples of Baci chocolate. The chocolate was pretty good; it had a taste and similar consistency to Ferreror Rocher, though Ferrero Rocher, in my opinion, is far better. As we continued walking, there was a booth with large speakers set up playing KiSS 92.5 music with Adam Wylde (KiSS 92.5 DJ/RJ). There was a spinning wheel, plenty of Baci chocolate, and a kissing booth that seemed to have been sponsored by the film Valentine's Day.

Upon reaching the booth, one of the KiSS 92.5 representatives told us that we could get a ballot to win a trip for 2 to the Dominican Republic if we kiss in the

booth. My valentine asks, "Should we do it?". Before answering the question, the guy tells us it has to be in the booth, not where we were standing (I guess he didn't realize she was asking me a question, not suggesting to do it right then). We move into the kissing booth, and without any questions, bam. Kiss me, down by the moonligh--okay that song is too romantic for the situation, how about...She want that lovey,dovey, that kiss, kiss, in her mind she fantasize 'bout gettin' with me...Okay that's way better. What a way to start Valentine's Day, eh?

Thanks to KiSS, and us kissing, we got ourselves not only a ballot for a chance to win a trip for 2 to the Dominican (we decided we'd take each other if either of us won...neither of us won) AND we got 2 free passes to go see the movie Valentine's Day each (oh and of course, quite a bit of Baci chocolate)! We went to the spinning wheel, and just our luck, we won more chocolate.

After leaving the CN tower, my valentine and I became Toronto tourists (despite it being both of ours millionth time there, figuratively of course) taking pictures with random objects and interesting buildings on our way to go shopping. I needed to update my spring collection, and my valentine knew my style and gave me honest advice, so she helped me pick some stuff up. We went to Forever 21 where I found a few staple items, and then decided to go for lunch before continuing our shopping.

While heading to lunch, I got a "tweet" from Adam Wylde asking why I didn't come say hi when I was at the booth (I had tweeted about getting Valentine's Day passes). The truth was at the time it was quite busy at his station, so I told him we'd go back after lunch. We went to lunch at

this restaurant called Spring Rolls where we both ordered Pad Thai. It was a classic at that restaurant, and was absolutely amazing. While at the restaurant, our waiter told us about how he had scored a date for Valentine's day this year and it was his first time on a date in a long, long time. We weren't sure if he was being genuine with this story, or if he just wanted a bigger tip...regardless, it was cute. During our lunch, the two of us started naming some of our favourite Valentine's Day inspired songs (this was inspired from my "tweet special" I did on Valentine's Day). Talking about this and other things eventually brought us both to the end of our dishes and we began making our way back to the CN tower.

We decided to "slowly" make our way back, stopping at different places on the way. I stopped by two HMV's to look for this old Jennifer Lopez CD (J to tha L-O - The Remixes) which

neither had (though I eventually found it on eBay and ordered it from there). The talk about the CD brought us to reminisce about

some classic songs we used to listen to in middle school. Among

these songs, a popular one was "What's Love?" by Fat Joe featuring Ashanti and Ja Rule. This is what eventually inspired

the opening of my blog. We went through the Eatons centre where they had a Vancouver 2010 Olympics Booth sponsored by Bell,

giving people the opportunity to hold the torch and get their

picture taken. Naturally being "patriotic" about Canada holding the Olympics this year, we got our picture taken. While making our way through the mall, we found other Valentine's Day events including a wall where you can write a message to your valentine. "J'adore le Khizer" is what my valentine wrote. After browsing through a few shops we left the Eaton's Centre and continued our journey back to the CN tower.

Our walk back was very nice, we spoke about many memories, and were able to catch up on quite a few topics...of course we threw some picture taking in our walk too. Eventually we made it to the CN tower...got more free Baci chocolate, and met up with Adam Wylde. It was my first

time meeting him after a few phone call and tweet exchanges, and

we both found that he was a really cool guy. During our conversation with him, myself, Adam and his tech friend tried to convince my valentine to create a Twitter account. Although hesitant at first, peer pressure eventually got her to say okay. We took some more pictures, and then made our way to more shopping. In disbelief, I asked my valentine if she was really going to make a Twitter. "No!" she exclaimed. So much for peer pressure.

After our second visit to the CN tower, we made our way to the other side of Queen Street, my "valentines side of Queen street" as we call it. There we went to shops like H&M, Urban Outfitters, Lush, and another HMV (didn't find the CD there either). I picked up a really cool piano themed belt from Urban Outfitters, while my valentine found some things at H&M. As much as I tried to bring myself to get at least one item from H&M, I couldn't. As much as I tried, nothing there significantly caught my appeal. Sorry H&M, maybe next time.

As we finished the last of our shopping, our day was coming to an end. Although we wanted to see a movie and go do a few more things, we both needed to catch our

respective trains and subways to get back home at a decent hour. We talked about our day and how we both felt it was "epic" as we both say. It was getting darker, and we both had to say our goodbyes. I waited with my valentine at her station stop for her bus. It eventually came and we said our final goodbyes and gave each other some big hugs. Just like that, Valentine's Day for us was over.

Reading through my blog, words don't really seem to capture our day with much justice, however it was the simplicity of our day that made it so good. Spending time with each other where it was by walking or by shopping was fantastic. Ultimately, can anyone take a guess to the secret of our successful Valentine's Day?

Neither of us are dating.