a survey of Canadian cities in seven days: Ottawa

Continuing my stories of each Canadian city I visited during my seven day sprint across the country:

When I arrived at the MacDonald-Cartier International Airport in Ottawa, I thought about how an airport never looks so welcoming and lovely as when you've come home for the first time in a long time.

The infamous rings of Jack Purcell Park...read the story here

my first Suzy Q doughnut

home-cooked meals by mama

But after a while, sometimes you find that home has changed and doesn't feel like home and soon you are writing about it like a tourist, in a blur of memories.

I got lost on my way to a party because I couldn't remember where things were. I had to consciously remind myself to look both ways before I crossed the road.

Crissi Cochrane performs at Fringe Fest

HIGHS performing at Fringe Fest

I went to a dance party at a jail bar that was advertised as a rehab pizza party. Because pizza was being served, which is a great idea. It is a bar that used to be a jail. The dance floor is the old gallows where people were once hung. Now people dance and eat pizza in the courtyard under the protective cover of a giant tree. Between the branches I can see the Big Dipper constellation. I am experiencing night time for the first time in months.

There is a performance by a band called Stakr - proncounced Stalker but made less (or more?) creepy by removing some of the letters. It consists of a big guy rapping at the top of his lungs while his partner works the beats behind him on a laptop.  The crowd loves this and keeps on dancing.  I try busting out my zumba moves on the dance floor.

The pizza arrives, and suddenly there is a giant mob descending on the cardboard boxes. 

I sit on the washing machines while I wait in line for the washroom. I listen to the other girls in line talk about where they can go for the cheapest hair cut.  They complain about having to spend $30 on a hair cut when they have short hair like a boys.  They say, maybe they should just give up and go to a barber.  I think about how it would be nice to have a hairdresser in Cambridge Bay.

After these parties, we often stand in the parking lot, some of our friends having drunk just enough to be filled with indecision. That lovely indecision stemming from having too many options, paralyzed with freedom. What do you want to do? Where should we go?

I found out that Ottawa has a new self-serve frozen yogurt bar.

Everthing is decked out in pink.  You have your selection of fro-yo and then you go to these seemingly endless buffet table of toppings. You pay for your gluttony by weight, and then you sit in a pink seat and watch the Simpsons on the big flat screen TV.  So basically it's heaven for adults who grew up in the 90s but still refer to themselves as kids (me).

I was overambitious

Speaking of bars, Ottawa also has a new brow bar. This is a different kind of bar, where you sit in a chair, and a lady who doesn't speak English pulls out your eyebrow hairs with a spool of thread, and then you pay her ten dollars for the painful process. I think this is a genius concept. Sometimes you have to leave home to properly fall in love with your hometown.

leaving Ottawa in an empty airport...time to shoot a Celine Dion music video?

a survey of Canadian cities in seven days: Toronto

Continuing my stories of each Canadian city I visited during my seven day sprint across the country:

Toronto is an assault to the senses for every Canadian that is not from Toronto. It's the biggest Canadian city. As an outsider, you are pretty much guaranteed to be overwhelmed every time. There is ten of everything. Two Korea towns. Millions of people. Cars everywhere, even in the suburban plaza parking lots. Traffic jams at midnight.

I have fallen in love with the pace of small town life, but I confess that even as I continue to live in Cambridge Bay, I often dream at night of going back to Toronto. In these dreams, I always have a limited amount of time and a burning desire to see everything while I'm there. Shopping on Queen West! Lounging at the Beaches! Soondubu chigae at Bloor & Christie! Ramen at Momofuku! Soju bars at Yonge & Finch! Plus dozens of friends I'd like to catch up with.  In my dreams, there is always a continuous theme of not having enough time to see all the things I want to do in Toronto. It doesn't help that I hadn't been back there in years.  Having moved to Nunavut, all of our trips down south are to Ottawa, and we usually just don't have enough time to make a side trip to Toronto.

This time, however, we made it happen. I had twenty-four hours in Toronto. There was no way - no matter how much sleep I was willing to give up - that I was going to have time to do everything, or really, anything, that I had been dreaming of doing. I certainly wasn't going to have time to see any of my friends, so I kept my presence in the T-dot a bit of a secret, slipping in under the radar.

The official reason we were in Toronto was to celebrate my grandmother's birthday.  The entire family came out, and I think she was pleased that we had all gathered for the occasion.  We met up at a Japanese-style Korean restaurant, one of those joints where the food that is served is inspired by Japanese cuisine but in reality is run entirely by Korean staff serving a Korean clientele, because Toronto is big enough to have those things.

A sushi boat

the "kids"

birthday girl

Shortly after this photo was taken, the birthday cake caught on fire.  My grandmother is no spring chicken, you know, and there were a lot of candles on the cake, which was made out of mugwort.  As the flames started and everyone started panicking, my grandmother reached her hand out in the most nonchalant manner possible and put the fire out with her own fingers.  She's so tough.

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family photo

After dinner, we went to a Korean karaoke bar at Yonge & Finch. With my grandmother.  Let me tell you something about my family: we love to sing.  Impressions of western-style karaoke seem to involve drinking several beers to gain the liquid courage to go up on stage and sing an old classic in front of a crowded bar full of strangers.  My family, we love to sing. We'll sing completely sober. In a private room. Korean karaoke style.  With lots of snacks, of course.

Well, if I wasn't going to have time to do everything while I was in Toronto, the one thing I wanted to do was hang out with my peeps (Koreans) in my place (Korea town).

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Afterwards, some of us younger folks went downtown to a club. Clubbing in Toronto is always a radically different experience than Ottawa and other smaller cities.  It involves walking through the clubbing district while barkers try to get you to go into their club. If one of them happens to be working for the club that you actually want to go to, you stop, pretending to be bored and disinterested and express to them in a bored and disinterested manner that you just don't want to pay $20 cover to get in; can he not give us a deal?  Also, we don't want to wait in line.  It's useful to bring young good-looking people around when you engage in such negotiations. I doubt I would have gotten very far on my own with my rural sensibilities and my grey hairs.

This, however, is pretty much our second home in Toronto:

Galleria

The Galleria is one of many Korean grocery stores which are the size of T&Ts and Loblaws but devoted entirely to only Korean groceries.  Considering the fact that I come from a town where I am the only Korean and the only grocery store in town is about the size of the Galleria's produce section, it's pretty easy to be dazzled.

It was a whirlwind 24 hours where I managed to squeeze in sushi, karaoke, clubbing, and grocery shopping.  My list will be much longer the next time I come back to Toronto (whenever that will be), but hopefully I'll be in town for more than a day.

buckshot lake

Last weekend we drove up to Buckshot Lake to spend some time at the cottage. Every time someone asks where the cottage is, my only answer is "somewhere in the middle of nowhere." The nearest "big" city is Perth, and that's an hour away. The nearest town is Plevna, a village that nobody has ever heard of before. It's the perfect place to have a cottage.

path to nowhere

wild turkeys on the side of the road

the cottage

going canoeing...trying to take photos at the same time

swimmin'

nice little walk along the shoreline

all that playing in the water leaves us tired

this puzzle kept us up half the night

playing croquet
My favourite part of the weekend was a little furry friend who I named Theo. This chipmunk was a big fan of my partner.

It was like a magical scene out of a Disney movie.

kingston in pictures

sometimes you just feel like leaving town, getting on a train, and exploring a random city. I did that one weekend with my mom, partly as part of a birthday trip for her, and also as what's probably going to be our last trip together before i get married.

our hotel, on the water
city hall. and a boat.

when we arrived in Kingston, there was some sort of festival going on, involving giant boats. they were pretty pretty big. and fancy. it was like Cruise Night in Kanata at the Hazeldean Mall, except with giant boats, on dry land, pulled by trucks that were also so huge people sat under them to eat lunch while they hid from the rain

a lovely picnic under the truck

whoa check it out - the Rideau Canal

we had dinner at Chez Piggy's, one of those places in Kingston that everyone says you gotta try. The weather was looking promising when we sat down on the patio, but soon enough it started to rain again. The waitress ran around bussing tables while wearing a handkerchief on her head like a babushka.

in the evening, mom and i hung out at the hotel's hot tub and then got facials.

the next morning, we went for breakfast at Pan Chancho's, which was another place that everyone tells us you gotta go. they are actually also owned by the people that run Chez Piggy, so maybe everyone i talk to gets a special commission for recommendations.

breakfast burritos! my favourite!
after breakfast, we took a walk around the harbourfront. the big boats were still there. we asked a local what event was going on.

"poker run," he said.

"ah," we nodded. wait. poker didn't explain the boats at all.

fancy boats at the harbour

fancy mac's downtown

we took the ferry over to Wolfe Island, which was free. free! Ottawa take note. free ferries are awesome!

mom, waiting for the ferry

the ferry ride gave us a beautiful view of the water and all the people out in boats doing apparently poker related things, all enjoying the summer day.

spot the poker reference. because we couldn't.

a school of kayaks! or whatever you'd call a group of them.

i named this island Sad Tree Island
finally we arrived at Wolfe Island, which was full of all sorts of quaint shops.

okay, maybe "full of" is a bit of an exaggeration. it's a quiet sleepy place, like islands often are. we went to the tourist office to find out what there was to do.

"do you have a car?" they asked.
"no," we said.
"hmmm. there isn't much to do here," the tourist office said. I appreciated their honesty.

but wait, where are these people going to? after some wandering around though, we discovered one thing that i'm not sure how the tourist office forgot to mention. the Wolfe Island Music Festival. hell, yeah! As if I didn't get enough summer festivals from the previous weekend, mom and i snuck into the festival to see what was going on.

it was mostly the bands sound checking. oh well. mom and i got back on to the ferry to enjoy the boat ride back.

there was an ambulance on the ferry, lights flashing with a patient inside, but we were on island time. you can't hurry a ferry.

there were also horses on the ferry, and small children driving them.

once we were back on the mainland, we did the next most touristy thing: Fort Henry!

the fort goat. his name is Henry.

although massive and impressive and simulataneously beautiful, our tour was a reminder that army life is not for me. at least, not early 20th century army life under British rule. i saw what those toilets looked like.

there were, however, small children running around with rifles, some of the kids so small their rifles were bigger than them. they seemed to want to join the army. i found this sight to be somehow both adorable and mildly disturbing.

after the Fort, mom and i did pizza at Woodenheads.

we ended our stay by hanging out at the harbourfront, watching black swans compete with Canadian geese for the best parts of the pier, paramedics drink beers on the pacing boat, wedding guests file in for dinner at Kyle and Kylie's reception (I wanted to crash it). It was a lovely stay.