| I got back from Eastern Canada Thursday midnight, July 21st---what a family vacation!!! We flew in to Toronto Sunday morning on the 17th and arrived 2 PM local time. We then rented a car from Avis and drove to Niagara Falls - my 2nd time there; first being 1989 or 1990! We saw the fireworks there that night and we were lucky enough to do so because they only put on fireworks on Saturday and Sunday nights at this time of year =)
Next morning, we went back to the exact same location 15-16 years ago where my mom took a picture of me looking out into the falls - quite the pic I gotta tell you; it's also in our elementary school gr. 7 gradbook! It's humid and disgusting in Niagara Falls and Toronto. We drove back to Toronto, but at half the duration of our trip out to Niagara Falls from there, mostly because traffic was not so bad coming out, and into Scarborough, where we renewed our car rental for another day and spent the night there after a mediocre supper at a not-so-great Chinese restaurant. Well, food's just food when you're on the road and in need of sleep. Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you we rented a 2005 Chrevolet Cobalt - shiny, smooth, and... cobalt of course :)
We got up early in the morning so Dad could return the vehicle and meet us up at our pick-up point for the tour bus to come pick us up at 8 AM. Our tour guide Jack was just amazing throughout our 3-day/2-night tour. He guided our tour in 3 languages: English, Mandarin, and Cantonese - quite an uneasy task for any commoner but surely his 8 years of tour-guiding experience did come in hand for this trip especially. There was a family of like 12 or so from Germany who were from Essen and Sonnlingen whom I had little communication with - partly because they were quite uninteresting. Funny enough, I just realized the other night that I got Essen mixed up with Erfurt!!! My goodness, how could I've been so confused!!! Erfurt's in Thueringen and Essen's in Nordrhein-Westfalen and so no wonder they were confused when I kept mentioning about Sonneberg (a city on the southern border of Thueringen)! Strangely enough, they don't seem to know where Coburg is either! Yikes... that sucks for my girl Isa - no recognition from her fellow German mates =(
So yeah, our bus trip took us to old city Kingston, then to Ottawa, Montreal, and then stayed overnight at the Sheraton Hotel in Laval by Carrefour Shopping Centre (second largest mall in all of Montreal)!
Next day, we went back into Montreal to check out the Olympic Stadium, Olympic Tower, and BioDome. They were just absolutely spectacular!!! I must've taken like 10 pictures of penguins coming towards me with just the glass between us! Later on in the day we drove into old town Quebec City and had dinner at the oldest (French) restaurant in all of North America (I'll try to get the name for you later... it's on 3 of my pictures or so). Our family had 3 lobster dishes and my brother ordered the steak. Although very pricey, this place is well worth it. My French got me mixed reactions from the locals - it was fun experience all in all! We stayed at the Clarion Hotel not too far away and I asked to play the grand piano there and was given 10 minutes to play whatever I'd like to play! And so I did, but the piano there sucked so I waited to use the ONLY public computer in the hotel! Holy jibbers, the girls in front of me took forever! I met this Mexican chick and she tried to communicate in English and told me she came to Quebec City to study English for a few weeks.
Next day, we went to Rock Port to visit the Thousand Islands (hence the salad dressing name) but in actuality, there are 1,863 islands out there. Thousand Islands is also home to the world's smallest international bridge which measure just approx. 10 metres long and connect USA to Canada! I'll try to post up some pictures when I can sometime. Later on in the day, we were dropped off from where we were picked up - yup, in Scarborough. We had dinner inside Milliken Centre and the restaurant was awesome! We ordered two cups of red bean shake with vanilla ice cream on top for just $1.50 each ($1.50 if you order a selected dish or something like that)! We had called some guy to take us to the airport for a fee and from there, we flew back home at 9 PM local time. And so, we got back home at 11:18 PM and drove back home from the airport at around midnight - cool, eh?!
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I woke up at a about a quarter to 6 in the morning on the 30th of June as I was all set and ready to go up to Kelowna for the Canada Day Celebrations. I arrived in Kelowna at about 8:10 AM and got picked up by 2nd violinist, Doug, who used to study in the same music school with the music director of the Kelowna Pops Canada Day Orchestra, Maestro Leonard Camplin, back in the good ol' days. So I got changed at the Best Western Inn hotel on Hwy. 97 and was later dropped off at the mall at around a quarter to 9. The malls didn't open until 9:30 AM or so I was told by the bus driver who was driving Bus #1, to Queensland, and so I went along with him anyway and got dropped off at the last stop which was downtown. As I got off the bus, mind you the zippers of the uppermost pocket of my backpack was already broken off by the time I got on the bus with my overstuffed "luggage", the pocket ripped apart entirely exposing everything. Luckily, nothing fell out. I got desperate and asked a buddy for help and thankfully not too far away, I saw a Thrift Store straight down the street next to the bus loop and so me and my helper buddy walked in. I bade farewell to him for his helping hand and left my shit of a bag in the receptionist's office and walked out with my wallet, camera, and cell phone in my pockets and waist.
Vietnamese Seafood Noodles: $6.00. Quite a disappointment - but here's a picture just to make y'all hungry ;)
This sculpture is called "Sails" and is probably the main reason you should come to Kelowna for because this baby stands more than 700 feet tall (no, really).
I left on the morning of the 2nd of July, at around five to 10 and got back home an hour later. I sat in 01A... what a seat! The beauty of a stewardess sat slight diagonally towards me. Yum! =)
Tropical cooler mix I had for lunch at Coyote's.
My grown-up buddies from Cornville, Chilliwack. (By the way, you can't really see but I've stuck a Canadian flag between the side of my head and my visor =D)
Gwyneth's hot daughter (you can see her in the background) treated us to post-dinner beverages. I don't think minors were allowed and so I kept my mouth closed when possible and tried not reveal my braces at all times. Glad I'm turning 19 soon!
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I arrived in Indianapolis at 5:33 PM, June 13th and met up with buddy Matt and Ryan who drove out from Arizona on the 11th and drove up to Cedar Point and back to Arizona just last night around 7:30-ish. In a week's time of road-tripping USA, we covered 8 states [:D] and I'll list all the places we drove through/passed by on our way back:
OHIO: Cedar Point, Sandusky, Pitt City, Findlay, Carey, Cleveland, Perry's Victory and International Peace Memorial, Toledo, Perrysburg, Lima, Bellville, Akron, Columbus, Wapakoneta, Piqua, Dayton, Cincinnati, and Eaton
INDIANA: Richmond, Cambridge City, Greenfield, Indianapolis, Plainfield, Greencastle, Cloverdale, Brazil, Spiceville, and Terre Haute
ILLINOIS: Silver Lake, Casey, Effingham, Vandalia, and Greenville
MISSOURI, the Show-Me State: Mississippi River, East St. Louis, St. Louis and the Gateway Arch, Eureka, Stanton, St. Clair, Sullivan, Leasburg, Cuba, St. James, Rolla, Fort Leonard Wood, Waynesville, Mark Twain National Forest, Lebanon, Marshfield, Springfield, Carthage, George Washington Carver National Monument, Joplin, and Neosho
OKLAHOMA: Miami, Afton, Vinita, Claremore, Tulsa, Sapulpa, Chandler, Oklahoma City, North Canadian River, El Reno, Weatherford, Clinton, and Erick
TEXAS, the Lonestar State: Shamrock, McLean, Conway, Amarillo, Vega
NEW MEXICO: Tucumcari, Santa Rosa, Vaughn, Moriarty, Edgewood, Albuquerque, Cibola National Forest, Laguna, Cubero, San Fidel, Acoma (Sky City), Grants, Milan, Bluewater, Crownpoint, Gallup
ARIZONA, the Grand Canyon State: Sanders, Chambers, Petrified Forest National Park, Holbrook, Joseph City, Winslow, Two Guns, Coconino National Forest, Walnut Canyon National Monument, Flagstaff, Kaibab National Forest, Williams, Hell's Canyon, Prescott National Forest, Ash Fork, and finally, Yavapai County which is a Tri-City region consisting of Paulden, Chino Valley, and Prescott.
My bud's place here in AZ is so freakin' nice. You can yell into the distance, but you will hear no echoes! The house sits atop a hill and out into the distance, you see nothing but valleys and rolling yellow hills and more valleys and lots of shrubs and medium-sized trees and a 12-acre backyard - holy smackers. Anyways, I'll be stopping at another friend's house in Phoenix before heading back home before the 30th. Then I'll be headed to Kelowna on the 30th in preparation for the performance with the Kelowna Pops Orchestra for the Kelowna Canada Day Spectacular 2005 (150th anniversary of the city).
Matt was photoshoppin' this picture almost for all duration for which I was there in the Yavapi Tri-City Region. I took this picture on last night of our road trip. As you can see, this finished product will sell for the trillions in the near future and it'll be all mine! MUAHAHA!!!
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I left Matt's house in Chino Valley (well, actually the house is on state property and just a couple of kilometres outside of Chino) on the morning of the 24th and Al and Matt drove me in their heavy diesel-powered 4x4 Dodge truck to drop me off in Phoenix but we stopped for lunch at the huge Anthem Mall in New River, which is just 11 miles outside of Phoenix, and so we had Lauren and Dayna (that's how it's spelled) come out of Phoenix and meet us up there. After lunch, I bade farewell to Al and Matt and thanked them for everything and assured each other that we would meet again sometime soon.
Anyways, Dayna and I stayed the night at Lauren's house. Dayna..... hot damn... anyways, we went to have lunch at Lauren's restaurant, Sing High, the oldest Chinese restaurant in Phoenix (opened back in the 1920's by her grandparents on her dad's side; she's half-Caucassian), and the food tasted completely Western-Chinese.
Say hello to Lauren's car; it's pretty damn nice I tell you. If you look just carefully through window on the driver's side, you can see her displaying quite an obscene gesture for Mr. Cameraman.
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The flight from Phoenix back home to Canada left at 2:00 PM on the 27th, and I got back home via a transfer around midnight =( It was 43.5 degrees when I arrived and 46 degrees when I left!
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