Tempest7: Blogger

Return to Toronto Part 1

My first stop in Canada of course is Toronto. This was kind of a sensitive area because my parents initially wanted to pick me up from the airport and wanted to head back to Sarnia right away. Since the weekend is the best time to meet and see my friends I really needed to use them wisely. I ended up telling my parents to stay in Sarnia while I went to meet up with friends in Toronto.

Simon picked me up, of course, and he's just been helping me get around everywhere. Saturday afternoon Arthur drove up to Mike's place in Sauga then they came down to Pacific Mall to have dim sum with me. Korean Justin Lee was there to keep us all entertained. We got to catch up a little and have a few good laughs talking about Justin's experiences, Arthur's work problems (mainly due to Gene recommending some girl to work for him), and of course Mike's marriage.

After lunch we walked around the mall a bit and chatted. We ran into John Fung (another recently married friend) who was waiting for his wife to finish her facial. With another guy in tow we went to find a place to get some drinks. We ended up at the RBT Cafe in Market Village where Simon and Noel joined us as well. Actually they were at the dim sum but they left to grab something from FedEX while we were walking around.

That night we went to go for hotpot at "Hot Pot King" with my brother, his girl friend, and my traveling to Asia companion Steph! Steph will be returning to Japan soon and so I won't be seeing her in Toronto again any time soon. That's okay I kind of want to travel back to Japan myself.

Sunday we had a belated birthday lunch with Jesse and Alison at Cafe Nervosa down in Yorkville. In attendance was Coral, Amy, Andrea, Alison, Wayne, Simon, myself, and of course Jesse. I miss these types of meals. Good food with good friends. We chatted away, I was just catching up with everyone. Some people have been doing really well for themselves. Andrea fired off some tough questions that I really needed to ask myself. Once I get myself back on track I'll have to thank her. It really brought into focus why I returned to Canada. To clear my head of Hong Kong and to focus on my life again. We took a look at the remains of Sassafraz Cafe and did some shopping down at Holt Renfrew.

Since we were downtown, and since Janice was yelling at me the night/morning before, I asked Simon to drive down to the Beaches to look for some house to drop off a present for her. Luckily Simon asked me to print off the map we looked up earlier. After some time driving we managed to find the house but I had no way to confirm the inhabitants were really the ones to receive the present. The doors were left unlocked and open, like most Canadian residences, but there was no one inside. We checked the mail box for mail with a name, we walked around the back and yell inside. We ended up going to the neighbour's house who told us to go away because she thought we were trying to sell things. Their neighbour was an elderly person and even after she confirmed what we wanted to hear I was still uncertain she heard us correctly. But it was getting quite late and I had made a commitment to go visit my grandmother Sunday night so we left the package by the door and left.

We stopped off at Pacific Mall again to pickup a phone card. I had someone to call in Hong Kong plus I needed to pick up an adapter for my brother. I made a recent purchase on his behalf but the provided plug was intended for Hong Kong of course. We ran into Carol and her friend at Pacific. Now both Carol and Simon firmly stand by the fact that they rarely go to Pacific Mall. Yet, within 10-15 minutes Carol was talking to 3 to 4 different friends.

Simon dropped me off at my grandmother's place and I stayed there the night. I had dim sum in the morning with her before meeting up with Simon to go downtown. He took me down to Korea town to get my hair cut and then to the train station. I had my first bite of juicy, tasty, delicious, Harvey's since I got back to Canada.

It was about a 4 hour ride on the train but at the end it was nice to have both of my parents come pick me up at the station. They made a comment about how I should cut my hair, and they were quite shocked when I told them I just had it cut earlier. The differences between Asia and Canada.

Labels: Canada, Friends, Travel

posted by Tempest7 @ 04:23