I'm back from Toronto. Oh my what an experience. Before I start, a big big thank you to Alvin, Yizhuan, Chin Ning, Luke, Wei Xiang and Howie (I hope I got the spellings correct...) for taking good care of us. Thank you very very much :)
Oh yes, Edmund kindly informed me about a grave mistake in my previous post. Mid-AUTUMN festival, not midsummer's. Hmm, I must have been thinking of Sec 2 literature *sheepish grin*. Thx Edmund!
16 Sep
We were supposed to set off at 5pm but Cherlyn and I were waiting at the wrong pick-up place (oops) so we only set off at around 5.30pm. There were 2 cars and 8 of us. Yizhuan, Denise and Cherlyn were in Alvin's car; Chin Ning, Jowyn and I were in Luke's car. It was a 4 to 5 hour drive to Toronto. There was still a couple of hours of daylight so I spent most of the earlier part of the drive looking at the scenery. It was sort of cloudy, so the view wasn't spectacular, couldn't compare to New Zealand. We stopped at Burger King for dinner at one of the service areas along the interstate highway. I had a humongous Angus Shroom Burger or something like that, which is acutally the equivalent of Singapore's Mushroom Swiss but 1.5 times larger. Then the rest of the girls ate smaller burgers so that made me look like pig la... Self-esteem went down several notches... Anyways, there was this really interesting machine there also. You insert a penny (1 cent) and then crank this lever which will compress the penny into this mould and out comes this oval shaped thingy with words and designs. Er think my descriptive skills ain't too good hor, paiseh. Yeah we had to insert 2 quarters along with the penny and I actually didn't have enough. Then cos I'm always so slow, so the guys had already gave away all their quarters to the other girls (boo hoo!). So I went up to a couple of other people in BK to ask for change for a dollar. Then this really really nice guy just fished out all his loose change from his pocket and dumped it in my hand and refused to take my money. Very touched *sniff*. Nice person number 1.
Anyways, we finally reached Toronto at 11.30pm or so and we went to check-in at our hostel. They messed up our reservations. We reserved 4 beds in an all-female room but when we got there, they only had 3 beds available in the all-female room and 1 bed in the mixed room. Needless to say, we were freaking pissed at them. We decided to take the 3 beds and forgo the 4th bed. So Jowyn and I shared a bed in one room while Cherlyn and Denise to the other 2 beds in a separate room. But it was ok, the bed was pretty spacious and the both of us are pretty small-sized so I had quite a sound sleep. We took the upper bunk next to the window. While we were settling in, one of the other girls sharing the room returned. She's from Germany and has lots of experience backpacking. She pointed out that we probably should draw the curtains cos there were people looking in. Jowyn and I totally did not notice it. Gosh. Yeah she also gave us a few tips here and there. Nice person number 2. The room was hideously untidy la, but i think the mess was from the other 2 girls who hadn't returned even when we went to bed at 1 am.
17 Sep
The guys picked us up from the hostel at approx 9.30am where we took a tour of University of Toronto. We then walked towards Chinatown where Yizhuan went to visit one of his friends. We then had dim sum for lunch. Oh yesh, it was heavenly. I think I'll dream of the siew mai tonight. I guess I should clarify, Wei Xiang and Howie are Chin Ning's friends at U of T so they basically showed us around. They left us for the afternoon to go rock-climbing so we wandered through Toronto city in the afternoon. We visited the harbour and CN tower. CN stands for Canadian National. It's a tourist attraction and typical of all tourists' attractions, it charges a nice exorbitant price too. We visited the gift shop though. Then we headed to the Princess of Wales Theatre to pick up the Les Miserable tickets for the night. By that time, it was about 5+pm, close to 6pm, so we've been walking one whole day and everyone just felt like their feet were going to give way. We found a place, sat down, took out the cards and started playing taitee. I can see you shaking your head already hee.
Wei Xiang and Howie met up with us at 7pm and brought us to this nice Jap restaurant for dinner. Problem was the show was at 8pm so we basically gobbled up our food within 20min and ran back to the theatre. Which was really quite a waste cos we didn't have a chance to savour the taste of the food. Shucks.
Les Mis was really good. I watched it before more than a decade ago so I understand much more of the plot and themes now. We were unfortunately sitting apart cos the tickets were sort of purchased last minute. But it was good. After that, we wanted to go to this building that had a bar at the top. The view is supposedly very good too, as good as CN tower and minus the entrance fee. When we reached there, you can't believe what happened. The bar was closed for a private function. Argh! We were all stunned. Gosh... what luck we have.
We (the girls) also had to make a few decisions. Cos we didn't want the night to go to waste and no one felt like sleeping i.e. more taitee perhaps. But the guys were all staying at the U of T pple's apartments, and we were at the hostel which wasn't that nearby. Then Jowyn and Denise also wanted to run the Terry Fox Run the next morning so if we were to stay in the hostel, the guys will have to wake up even earlier to pick them up. The only solution was to go stay over at the guys' place, which we did. There wasn't any refund, but I guess it's not the hostel's fault cos it was afterall a last minute decision.
The apartment is like a hotel room. We were glad to be there, even if we knew we would spend the night on the floor in the living room cos it's carpeted. Haha no la. We didn't even sleep that much. We were playing this really addictive Playstation 2 game called Taiko. Think it's the name for the Japanese drum. It's just like DDR but instead of moving ur feet to the beat, u hit the drum. There were also many other mini-games that were damn silly but a hell lot of fun. The walls were sound-proof so we didn't have to worry about waking up the neighbours. Yeah so we just kept playing that until 4 or 5am.
18 Sep
Chin Ning, Howie, Wei Xiang, Denise and Jowyn went to the Terry Fox Run. The rest of us slept in a little later. I eventually woke up at about 10.20am or so. We were playing taiko in no time haha. The rest came back from the run after 11am. Oh yeah, one more thing to clarify. Luke's girlfriend is in U of T for exchange programme too. She's from NUS. Yup so Luke drove up to visit her. He gave us a call and said he'll go buy the egg tarts and roast pork for us. I think the total order was like 96 egg tarts and more than 3 kg of roast pork. Then after an extended farewell to Howie and Wei Xiang (because Alvin left the road directions, and then his car keys in the apartment), we left for the Niagara Falls.
We reached the Canadian side of the Niagara Falls at 5pm. It's gorgeous. Breathtaking view. We took some pictures and I got my first Hard Rock Cafe t-shirt (yipee!). The view on the Canadian side is prettier but the boat rides on the American side is more fun so we drove across the border. However when we arrived, we discovered that the boat ride had closed for the day already. We actually missed the last boat by 15min. For the second time in 2 days, we were stunned. Really speechless about our luck. While we went to the ladies to freshen up and regain our composure (really! it was such a let-down cos the boat ride would bring us close to the Horseshoe Falls, which is the most majestic-looking one there), the guys went to check out the other attraction for us. Turns out that one was still in operation. The Cave of the Winds is this route that brings us down to near the bottom of one of the smaller waterfalls so you can get "baptised" by the Niagara Falls water. Well "drenched" is more appropriate actually. Anyway, we decided to go for that one since we already missed the boat ride. They issued us rain coats and sandals before we took the elevator down 75m to the base of the waterfall. The attraction has been in operation since the 1940s I think. It's a walkway constructed of wooden planks actually. Every October, they'll tear it down, and when spring comes, they'll construct it again, so it's really pretty safe. Yup so I literally had a close look at the waterfall, collected a bottle of Niagara water. There's this Hurricane Deck also, which is the closest you can get to the water fall, so basically when you walk to the closest edge, you are almost underneath the water already. Damn shiok!
After that, we left the cars parked at the USA side and walked back over to the Canadian side to the Rainforest Cafe to have dinner. It's a short walk, about 15min only, across this bridge. After dinner, we headed back for Ithaca so that sort of marked the end of our trip. Now for some pictures :)
Oh yes, Edmund kindly informed me about a grave mistake in my previous post. Mid-AUTUMN festival, not midsummer's. Hmm, I must have been thinking of Sec 2 literature *sheepish grin*. Thx Edmund!
16 Sep
We were supposed to set off at 5pm but Cherlyn and I were waiting at the wrong pick-up place (oops) so we only set off at around 5.30pm. There were 2 cars and 8 of us. Yizhuan, Denise and Cherlyn were in Alvin's car; Chin Ning, Jowyn and I were in Luke's car. It was a 4 to 5 hour drive to Toronto. There was still a couple of hours of daylight so I spent most of the earlier part of the drive looking at the scenery. It was sort of cloudy, so the view wasn't spectacular, couldn't compare to New Zealand. We stopped at Burger King for dinner at one of the service areas along the interstate highway. I had a humongous Angus Shroom Burger or something like that, which is acutally the equivalent of Singapore's Mushroom Swiss but 1.5 times larger. Then the rest of the girls ate smaller burgers so that made me look like pig la... Self-esteem went down several notches... Anyways, there was this really interesting machine there also. You insert a penny (1 cent) and then crank this lever which will compress the penny into this mould and out comes this oval shaped thingy with words and designs. Er think my descriptive skills ain't too good hor, paiseh. Yeah we had to insert 2 quarters along with the penny and I actually didn't have enough. Then cos I'm always so slow, so the guys had already gave away all their quarters to the other girls (boo hoo!). So I went up to a couple of other people in BK to ask for change for a dollar. Then this really really nice guy just fished out all his loose change from his pocket and dumped it in my hand and refused to take my money. Very touched *sniff*. Nice person number 1.
Anyways, we finally reached Toronto at 11.30pm or so and we went to check-in at our hostel. They messed up our reservations. We reserved 4 beds in an all-female room but when we got there, they only had 3 beds available in the all-female room and 1 bed in the mixed room. Needless to say, we were freaking pissed at them. We decided to take the 3 beds and forgo the 4th bed. So Jowyn and I shared a bed in one room while Cherlyn and Denise to the other 2 beds in a separate room. But it was ok, the bed was pretty spacious and the both of us are pretty small-sized so I had quite a sound sleep. We took the upper bunk next to the window. While we were settling in, one of the other girls sharing the room returned. She's from Germany and has lots of experience backpacking. She pointed out that we probably should draw the curtains cos there were people looking in. Jowyn and I totally did not notice it. Gosh. Yeah she also gave us a few tips here and there. Nice person number 2. The room was hideously untidy la, but i think the mess was from the other 2 girls who hadn't returned even when we went to bed at 1 am.
17 Sep
The guys picked us up from the hostel at approx 9.30am where we took a tour of University of Toronto. We then walked towards Chinatown where Yizhuan went to visit one of his friends. We then had dim sum for lunch. Oh yesh, it was heavenly. I think I'll dream of the siew mai tonight. I guess I should clarify, Wei Xiang and Howie are Chin Ning's friends at U of T so they basically showed us around. They left us for the afternoon to go rock-climbing so we wandered through Toronto city in the afternoon. We visited the harbour and CN tower. CN stands for Canadian National. It's a tourist attraction and typical of all tourists' attractions, it charges a nice exorbitant price too. We visited the gift shop though. Then we headed to the Princess of Wales Theatre to pick up the Les Miserable tickets for the night. By that time, it was about 5+pm, close to 6pm, so we've been walking one whole day and everyone just felt like their feet were going to give way. We found a place, sat down, took out the cards and started playing taitee. I can see you shaking your head already hee.
Wei Xiang and Howie met up with us at 7pm and brought us to this nice Jap restaurant for dinner. Problem was the show was at 8pm so we basically gobbled up our food within 20min and ran back to the theatre. Which was really quite a waste cos we didn't have a chance to savour the taste of the food. Shucks.
Les Mis was really good. I watched it before more than a decade ago so I understand much more of the plot and themes now. We were unfortunately sitting apart cos the tickets were sort of purchased last minute. But it was good. After that, we wanted to go to this building that had a bar at the top. The view is supposedly very good too, as good as CN tower and minus the entrance fee. When we reached there, you can't believe what happened. The bar was closed for a private function. Argh! We were all stunned. Gosh... what luck we have.
We (the girls) also had to make a few decisions. Cos we didn't want the night to go to waste and no one felt like sleeping i.e. more taitee perhaps. But the guys were all staying at the U of T pple's apartments, and we were at the hostel which wasn't that nearby. Then Jowyn and Denise also wanted to run the Terry Fox Run the next morning so if we were to stay in the hostel, the guys will have to wake up even earlier to pick them up. The only solution was to go stay over at the guys' place, which we did. There wasn't any refund, but I guess it's not the hostel's fault cos it was afterall a last minute decision.
The apartment is like a hotel room. We were glad to be there, even if we knew we would spend the night on the floor in the living room cos it's carpeted. Haha no la. We didn't even sleep that much. We were playing this really addictive Playstation 2 game called Taiko. Think it's the name for the Japanese drum. It's just like DDR but instead of moving ur feet to the beat, u hit the drum. There were also many other mini-games that were damn silly but a hell lot of fun. The walls were sound-proof so we didn't have to worry about waking up the neighbours. Yeah so we just kept playing that until 4 or 5am.
18 Sep
Chin Ning, Howie, Wei Xiang, Denise and Jowyn went to the Terry Fox Run. The rest of us slept in a little later. I eventually woke up at about 10.20am or so. We were playing taiko in no time haha. The rest came back from the run after 11am. Oh yeah, one more thing to clarify. Luke's girlfriend is in U of T for exchange programme too. She's from NUS. Yup so Luke drove up to visit her. He gave us a call and said he'll go buy the egg tarts and roast pork for us. I think the total order was like 96 egg tarts and more than 3 kg of roast pork. Then after an extended farewell to Howie and Wei Xiang (because Alvin left the road directions, and then his car keys in the apartment), we left for the Niagara Falls.
We reached the Canadian side of the Niagara Falls at 5pm. It's gorgeous. Breathtaking view. We took some pictures and I got my first Hard Rock Cafe t-shirt (yipee!). The view on the Canadian side is prettier but the boat rides on the American side is more fun so we drove across the border. However when we arrived, we discovered that the boat ride had closed for the day already. We actually missed the last boat by 15min. For the second time in 2 days, we were stunned. Really speechless about our luck. While we went to the ladies to freshen up and regain our composure (really! it was such a let-down cos the boat ride would bring us close to the Horseshoe Falls, which is the most majestic-looking one there), the guys went to check out the other attraction for us. Turns out that one was still in operation. The Cave of the Winds is this route that brings us down to near the bottom of one of the smaller waterfalls so you can get "baptised" by the Niagara Falls water. Well "drenched" is more appropriate actually. Anyway, we decided to go for that one since we already missed the boat ride. They issued us rain coats and sandals before we took the elevator down 75m to the base of the waterfall. The attraction has been in operation since the 1940s I think. It's a walkway constructed of wooden planks actually. Every October, they'll tear it down, and when spring comes, they'll construct it again, so it's really pretty safe. Yup so I literally had a close look at the waterfall, collected a bottle of Niagara water. There's this Hurricane Deck also, which is the closest you can get to the water fall, so basically when you walk to the closest edge, you are almost underneath the water already. Damn shiok!
After that, we left the cars parked at the USA side and walked back over to the Canadian side to the Rainforest Cafe to have dinner. It's a short walk, about 15min only, across this bridge. After dinner, we headed back for Ithaca so that sort of marked the end of our trip. Now for some pictures :)
University of Toronto
5566. From left: Yizhuan, Chin Ning, Wei Xiang, Howie and Alvin. Think they were waiting for us while we (the girls) were busy snapping pictures hee.
Chinatown
Siew Mai!! *drool*
The CN tower is the one in the middle.
The theatre where we watched Les Miserables.
The Niagara Falls.
1 comment:
OMG i love The Niagara Falls~!!!
Post a Comment