Toronto, Canada

On the way from Montréal to Toronto, signs became less French and more English.  We stopped by A&W.  I think I had not been there for maybe 15 years, since it had closed down in Holland Village in Singapore.  To those who know not of A&W, you are probably super young (ugh).  A&W is a fast food chain that perhaps went bankrupt and closed what I think is about 99% of their restaurants.  Their website says they are known for their root beer and root beer float, but really, they also used to be known, in my opinion, for their curly fries and coney dog.  So I walk to the counter, but I don't see the curly fries on the menu anymore.  I am disappointed as heck, and I ask the lady, and apparently there have been no curly fries for like 10 years or something.  (BTW I just googled it, and I think they still have curly fries at A&W restaurants in Malaysia.  Whaaaaaa?)  Also there was no coney dog on the menu, though they had hot dogs with an addition of coney sauce, but it just did not feel the same.  I ordered some thick cut fries and a root beer float.  The float was not even served in the nice mug, but a crappy plastic cup, and the ice cream was not very nice.  Makes me wonder if the Asia A&W service is different, and I think the answer has to be yes.  Anyway, my curiosity has been satisfied, and I think I will have to look for an A&W in Asia after this disappointing experience.

Our friend had visited a while ago, and told us to visit Momofuku, the famous Japanese New York chain.  However, there is always so much to do in NYC, and Momofuku never quite attracted us that much, so we never quite made it there.  However, in Toronto, we did not know much, so I decided to go there.  The building is quite a beautiful one.  Looked brand new, shiny glass building with weird dragon-esque metallic sculpture on the exterior, attached to the Shangri-la hotel.  It was not meal time, and I was solo, so I decided to check out the Milk Bar which sold sweets of some kind.  The sweet shop is actually somewhat unmanned, and one can probably steal a bunch of stuff from there, which is not too cool.  I suppose they assume people who go in are honest.  Anyhow.  Some other folks were in there with me and they were chatting among themselves, and I deduced from their conversation that the Crack Pie was the thing to get.  It was just disgustingly sweet, I kind of liked it, and I saved some for Lingon but he did not like it.  Later on, we got some cookies.  My favourite was some blueberry one, and also the cornflake one.  We got the compost cookie (??), but it seemed a bit dry.

That evening, we decided to return to the noodle bar.  We ordered the Momofuku noodle, dan dan mian (one of Lingon's favourite type) and the okonomiyaki.  They were all pretty tasty, nothing too unique about them, but nice to have Asian food.

I drove out for lunch the next day since I wanted Chinese food and had no cash and was sick of paying ATM fees and found somewhere that took credit card.  I ordered a mixed BBQ meat platter to go for our car ride (best decision ever), and then had porridge and dou miao there.  Pretty good and I was very pleased.

I spent some time being a tourist and got to see some cool sights of Toronto.  Black Mass red carpet event for the Toronto Film Festival.  Interior of the Shangri-La.  Cute coffee cart on my morning run.  Old City Hall (I think).  View of Lake Ontario from our hotel room.  A cool looking bar.  Some kind of government building.  Yorkville Park in Yorkville (shopping district, actually really really nice, good to stay there if we had been there for tourism) with its "650-tonne hunk of billion-year-old granite, cut out of the Canadian Shield and transported to the park in pieces".  Modern Toronto City Hall.

I took a drive on Queen Street with cool hipstar shops and cafes and stuff.  Also drove to the Distillery District where there was an old distillery building converted into retail and restaurants with a cool park, but ran out of time so no picture of that.  I thought I was taking the scenic route back on Queens Quay Road which was next ish to the water, but just saw a bunch of quarry looking things and warehouses and storage stuff.

By the way, if anyone knows where there are large groups of people outside Royal Bank Plaza in Toronto, please let me know.  The people did not look particularly like tourists, more like business people, but congregated like a tour group.  Maybe they were looking at the building across the road with gold windows, since I eavesdropped on a tour group, but seemed kind of weird.

Toronto was happening and most enjoyable, especially with the heat that we were graced with.  Very modern, nice and comfortable facilities.  I would be happy if we found our way back again.

Montréal, Canada

It was pretty wet and gloomy as we arrived in Montréal.  We checked into the W Montréal, and of all the Starwood hotels I chose this because it was only marginally more expensive than the other hotels, and the location seemed to be OK.  We got upgraded to a suite, so that was fun.  As usual, for a W hotel room, the design was fairly edgy, we had our Bliss products, and were happy campers.

We needed to find some lunch, so we went to Schwartz's, a Jewish deli with supposedly the best smoked meat.  I think it was beef, since it is Jewish after all.  There was a fairly long line around 2pm or so, maybe 12 people or so in front of me, which moved quickly, about 15 mins till we got to the front of the line, following which a short line/no line at all, so I think at this hour the wait is sporadic and depends on your luck.  The inside of the place looked pretty much like a dump, reminded me of Ben's Chili in DC that Obama goes to, yet has a loyal following/attracts silly tourists like ourselves.  We shared one sandwich, which was tiny and $10 or so.  The meat was good but really for $10 the quantity could have been like... twice the size?!  The bread was pretty crap though.  Also, they took cash only, which posed a huge problem for us, and we had to visit the local ATM.  Fun times.  We went to take out next door, and bought a few more slices of meat, and enjoyed that in the back of the house.  I especially liked the fatty parts, so flavourful.  Would go back again, during off hours, and maybe just have the meat, honestly.

Parking was plentiful, BTW, and is metered until fairly late, just like in Quebec City.  The machines take credit card, which is great for us, since we had no cash.  You enter your license plate number and do not have to display the ticket on the dash.

After our small sandwich, we decided we would get more Jewish things - i.e. bagels!  Our friend told us we had to go to St-Viateur and have whatever came out hot from the oven.  Shucks after we left the place I thought we should have taken a photo of the operation that was going on inside the shop.  The dudes place the bagels on this long wooden plank and stick it into an oven glowing with embers, I think.  Lingon got the cinammon raisin, his favourite, which was cold.  I got the sesame, since it was the one that had just come out hot from the oven.  It was good, but I didn't see what so special about either, but I enjoyed a nice warm bagel on a wet miserable day.

We were trying to find our way to Mont Royal, which should have been quite easy to ascent by car, if not for the Grand Prix Cycliste de Montréal, a bicycle race, that was occurring that day.  Quelle malchance (not sure if this saying exists).  We had troubles accessing the road at the foot of the mountain, but finally asked a police dude and he told us where to go.  When we got to the foot of the mountain, we were then further blocked by either road works or the race.  I would have walked, except it was raining, and pretty yucky.  So it was mission: failed.

The one good thing that came out of this was that while fumbling around the roads, we found Kem Coba, an ice cream shop.  I saw this extraordinarily long line for what I was used to in the little we saw of Montréal, and I told Lingon we had to go there.  What was funny was that I read an article about it the day before, and showed it to Lingon, and forgot about it, but Lingon remembered!  So I went in to get a cup, and was greeted with a brightly coloured board with tons of flavours on it.  I ended up getting peanut and honey and salted butter, and tried a couple of other flavours, but almost instantly regretted not getting soursop or durian, since they were more unique.  Other more unique flavours included Vietnamese coffee, honey and orange blossom and passionfruit.  I read up a little on the folks who started this, and it was a couple, and I think the lady was from Asia.  No wonder such unique flavours.

We walked around a little bit in the rain, found the Chinatown gate, went to the old town which was less pretty than Quebec City's, and then called it quits since the dampness and misery was getting to us.

We tried to visit the Notre Dame Basilica, but they were unfortunately closed, so we had to go the next day.  This place is very special and I really wanted Lingon to see it.

Dinner was at La Chronique, a small fancy French restaurant.  Their menu was in French only.  I knew what I wanted - the foie gras, so I got that as my appetizer, and then a seafood risotto.  Lingon got a salmon tartare and sweetbreads (ris de veau, which he pretended to understand in French haha), and the food was all pretty good!  The restaurant has a 5 and 7 course prix-fixe menu, but we opted for a la carte, being on a diet and all (trying, anyway).  What annoyed me was when an older couple came in, the server explained the 5 and 7 course to them, but we were only told of the 5 course.  Did we look poor, or maybe he wanted us out of his restaurant in record time?  Who knows.  Anyhow, a friend recommended this to me, and a good recommendation at that!

We walked back to our car and found this restaurant, which I distinctly remember seeing and wanting to eat there (forgot if we did) because of its cool name, on my first trip to Montréal!  I just had to take a picture of it!

Well, the evening was over.  The next morning we went to visit the Basilica.  A picture paints a thousand words.  I assembled a jigsaw puzzle of this when I was little, I think it was like 5000 pieces or something substantial, and it was the most beautiful church I had ever seen.  When I came to Montréal for the first time, I was just so happy that I found it.  I wonder if the lighting makes it look amazing, and if I would be just as amazed without the lighting.  $5/person, cash only.

A la prochaine!

Québec City, Canada

I got down to thinking today about how initially I wanted to write my blog partly to chronicle my adventures, and partly to provide useful information on travels, like how I remember one of my early France posts about buying train tickets.  I don't recall the content of that specific blog, but I know that if I go to France and take the train again, I will consult it.  It seems that now I mainly just write about the things I do, which 90% of the time I think are rather unexciting anyway, which makes me sad.  I'll try to refocus too, but maybe the problem too is that few of my experiences would necessarily be "helpful".

Anyhow, we spent a beautiful day in Québec City.  The weather was great, the skies were blue.  When we arrived, it was lunch time, and we found ourselves at La Boîte à Pain, a bakery in what seemed a fairly run down neighbourhood (something light and well reviewed on Yelp).  We street parked, paid for the meter (meters there ran late, until 9pm!!), and went to the bakery.  Turns out there was a festival occurring on the street that the bakery was on, which was very happening.  Unfortunately we had no CAD$, so we passed on eating along the way (on the one short block).  The bakery sold mainly bread, but had some pastries, sandwiches, salads, etc.  I got myself a quiche and a small artichoke salad.  Absolutely loved the crust of the quiche, and the filling was good too - not too rich, not too dense or fluffy, and just the right amount o salt.  The artichoke salad was alright, mainly because I did not love peppers.  Lingon got a ham and cheese panini, and I must say, the quality of the bread was really great.  Note: the restaurant does not take credit cards.  It takes debit cards, but somehow both ours (USA debit cards) did not work.  We ended up giving them USD, which was sad, but thankfully it was not an extravagant meal.

We walked around the historical/old town.  I had been here years before for spring break with some friends in March, and how different it was.  The parks were luscious, I was not layered up in winter gear.  Simply splendid.  I described the town as being like Disneyland to Lingon, and he said Canadians would not like that since Disney had a US connotation to it, but I still maintain it does look like Disneyland.  And that's a great thing - it's the happiest place on earth!  A lot of European influence, with murals on the face of buildings, narrow cobbled stone streets, little squares/parks/plazas with musicians and street hawkers, old buildings with beautiful architecture, and a funicular (thinking Montmartre in Paris).  So lovely.

After that, we checked in at our hotel, the Four Points by Sheraton Québec Resort, which was a little bit outside of town, since neither of the two Starwood properties were in the vicinity of the town.  We had an upgrade to a suite of some kind, which included a ginormous bathroom that could probably have been made into its own room.  The room itself was not spectacular, but the beds were super comfortable.  ZZZzzz.  We used the gym, which was small and had one bike, one elliptical, one treadmill, and some weights stuff, for a little while, and then off to dinner.

Since we were in a French area, we decided we wanted to eat something French, and picked Le Billig, a crêpe restaurant that had good reviews on Yelp.  We have been eating pretty much non-stop, so we tried to be healthy-ish and shared a bacon salad (not so healthy!) and crêpe.  The crepe had this amazing onion marmalade, perfectly caramelized and super sweet.  Yum yum.  We learned that a billig was the name of the flat crêpe pans in old French.

The next morning, we went for our continental breakfast.  I must say, in the realm of free Starwood breakfasts, this must have been one of the worst.  They had a tiny little jar of yoghurt with granola on top, some rather mediocre fruit, and one of the worst croissants I have ever tasted - I'm not that fussy about pastry, but these tasted really weird, like perhaps full of preservatives or some other weird flavour.  Dislike.

Then, off to our next journey.  Bye bye Québec, so glad I had another chance to see you!

Road Trip to Niagara Falls - Including Scranton, PA

My sister Mushu was born in Boston, and I feel like I often hear my parents' story about how they went to Niagara Falls and how beautiful it was.  They went again as a family when we were older, but I did not go on that trip.  I had wanted to go for a long time now, and finally decided to do it on this weekend when Lingon and I were in between NYC and Boston.  I did some research, and decided to book us a hotel on the Canada sight, where people unanimously agreed was much more beautiful.

On the way there, being a big fan of Pam and Jim and The Office, I decided that we had to take a stop in Scranton, PA, where Dunder Mifflin was set.  Using the Google, I found out that the place the office was located did not really exist, but the Pennsylvania Paper & Supply Company that was in the little clip before the show was real, at 215 Vine Street.  As we exited the freeway and headed towards there, I noted that Scranton seemed rather unexciting, but probably was a nice quiet place to raise kids!  Like Pam and Jim!  We got to our destination, I took a picture, then off we went.  On the way back to the Freeway, I saw Mifflin Ave.

We continued our trip and took a detour to Ithaca.  I had wanted to go to hotel school at Cornell for about a year, but ultimately got rejected by the college anyway, and that made me sad.  I heard the campus was really pretty, and wanted to check it out for myself.  The campus seemed pretty dead, given that it was a Saturday around finals period.

Then off to Niagara Falls itself.  We stayed at Sheraton on the Falls, and I had requested for an upgrade from our basic room to the corner room with a view of the falls.  Of all the upgrade requests, this must have been one I wanted the most, and I was granted my wish!  Yippee!!  I cared not so much for the room, but more for the view of the falls, and boy was that a great view.  The town itself, in Ontario, Canada, seemed like an amusement park.  It even had a ferris wheel, which we rode later that night!

After parking the car, we had decided to go to this town called Niagara-on-the-Lake.  A friend had recommended the restaurant at Peller Estates Winery, and I actually had a reservation there, but at the decided to cancel it for something more spontaneous and casual.  In fact, we may have eaten at the touristy downtown instead had Lingon not decided we should check out this town.  On our way to Niagara-on-the-Lake, I decided we should check out the winery anyway, since there was a food cart festival, but lo and behold one needed tickets for this and tickets were sold out.  So we decided to go to the town instead.  The town was really really pretty, kind of reminded me of the town of Banff, just one main street, with really pretty buildings, trees, etc. all around.  We walked along the lake (where there were a lot of gross bugs), headed back to town, parked the car and took a walk up and down, looking for a place to eat.

I was insistent on eating at somewhere that would give me OpenTable points, and we tried to go to the top rated restaurant but were turned away as it was full.  We settled on Zee's Grill, which was also very highly rated and had availability.  Turned out to be a very fabulous meal.  We had a salmon salad amuse bouche, the bacon wrapped prawns for appetizer, and beef and lamb for our mains.  Yum.  I even did not mind the lamb - which is a good thing!  The mashed potatos were so good.  Yum.

The next day, because Lingon is a Starwood Platinum member, we got a free buffet breakfast which included an omelette bar.  I miss those from college, and had a giant omelette made for myself.  Normally, they would let you use the Sheraton Club Lounge, but probably since it was a holiday (Victoria Day), the hotel was at 98.9% occupancy (the staff told me), and the lounge was full, they had us eat at Fallsview Restaurant.  Had we not such an amazing view, I would have loved the view from there, right across from the falls.

Then, we took the Hornblower cruise tour, which took us close to the falls.  The falls are located both in the USA and Canada, and are made up of the American and Bridal Veil falls on the USA side, and the Horseshoe falls which is mostly on the Canada side.  The boat took us close by, and especially by the Horseshoe falls we got splashed on, and would have been drenched if not for the free ponchos provided to us by the cruise company.  According to Wikipedia, "the combined falls form the highest flow rate of any waterfall in the world, with a vertical drop of more than 165 feet (50 m). Horseshoe Falls is the most powerful waterfall in North America, as measured by vertical height and also by flow rate."  I decided we had to take a selfie, to prove we were there, just like Pam and Jim.  Yup, having my major I-love-The-Office moment.  Lol.

We travel so much outside the country, without realizing there are so many beautiful things right here where we live.  Hip hip hurrah for more USA travel and exploring this wonderful country.