Chinese Tour of Quebec

Saturday - Toronto to Ottawa and Montreal
Man there's something inhuman about arising at 0430. I think that from now on I will try to only organise afternoon/evening travel plans. Correct.

It's hard to convey how annoying it is to sit on a bus, full of Asians, listening to Cantonese and Mandarin, with snippets of English thrown in (e.g.. "University of Blah") over and over again.

Maybe annoying isn't the right word, but nevertheless, it's not that much fun. Nor was it that much fun to be with the parents. Sad, but true.

So what did we do? One of the highlights of the day was a cruise around the Thousand Islands region of South-eastern Ontario. I could see myself living here, although I get the feeling I might be a couple of million dollars short....

You may have heard of Thousand Island Dressing - allegedly it is named after this region - although like many foods or dishes, this isn't 100% confirmed.

Another interesting (but short) item was a visit to the Canadian Museum of Civilisation.

What was not interesting was random drive-by "sightseeing" of various other bits and pieces, and a weekend tour of the Royal Canadian Mint, which was of course closed, cause I imagine they don't mint coins on the weekend. Did I mention all narrative was in Cantonese/Mandarin? Hm.

We arrived late to Montreal. As nobody had asked me I had no plans for dinner, and neither did the tour, so we had one of the worst meals I've ever had in the hotel restaurant, and some of the worst (if not THE worst) service as well. By this time the parentals were starting to get to me, so I quickly snuck in a few drinks at the bar....

Sunday - Monreal to Quebec
Sunday morning was some church action. I love church, as you know. First up St. Joseph's Oratory. Yeehar. Nice building, but the fact that some guy's heart is stored in a little box is kind of weird. Next stop, Notre Dame. I didn't go inside, but wandered the streets instead - there were some very cool shops and such around. Pity we didn't get to see anything of "real" Montreal.

Lunch was at the Mandarin Buffet. This was more or less what you would imagine that an all-you-can-eat-white-man-Chinese Buffet would be like. Yuk.

I think after that we arrived in Quebec City. We were told we couldn't check into the hotel until 6pm which was really irritating. My parents were irritating. I had to leave them and sit in the hotel bar for a couple of hours. When I left, I was pretty sloshed.

Dinner that night was awful as well. Frozen vegetables from a packet, pasta and gravy from a packet, and a piece of steak that ... yes, well let's just say it was nasty.

After dinner I sat in another bar chatting to some people (whose names now elude me - SORRY!), and finally in a drunken haze wandered around the town before returning to the hotel (which was VERY nice).

Monday - Quebec to Toronto
I woke up with a RIPPING hangover. I was looking forward to lunch SO much until we pulled into another shopping centre parking lot and to my horror approached the Mandarin Buffet AGAIN!!

Oh dear.

It was even worse than the first one. I'd quickly scouted around for some other food, but didn't see the Subway just next door. So now filled with greasy food, and an even more unsettled stomach, we continued to Upper Canada Village - which despite me thinking it would be super-cheesy, it was ok. It was quite cool to walk around the village which is next to the St. Lawrence river, and see they actually still bake bread and make cheese and such in the old way.

We journeyed on towards Toronto, through a ripping storm, and some Big Apple place. LMAO. Some of the comments on that link are hillarious. Tour buses. Who'd go on one of them? Err...

Finally we made it back to Toronto, where we ACTUALLY HAD NICE FOOD for the first time in 3 days. I nearly fainted. It was great to be back, where there was some buffer between me and the crazy-show that is my parents. Oh well, lesson learnt.

Tuesday - Lunch & Waterdown
Dunno what was with the old man this morning, was already in a super-bad mood. Whatever, I ignored him as I wasn't joining their tour to Niagara Falls. I got a ride out to Wilma's place in Waterdown and we headed downtown to hook up with Cherie.

We had a ripping 3 course prix fixe on the patio at Urban. Very nice, and deceptively large. By the time lunch was over my rippling one-pack was straining at at the fabric of my t-shirt - how alluring!

Wilma and I headed back to her place, where we had a few more beers, some dinner, talked some shit with Kang and Kira. Finally it was time for my Toronto adventure to be over, and kindly I got a lift back to John's house.

Had some strange confrontation with John about taking a cab to the airport (despite him having some major tooth operation business the next morning) but oh well.

Wednesday - Toronto to Oakland
At 0540 I awoke, threw on some clothes, said goodbye to Mum, and jumped in a cab. Man was I tired. An uneventful flight to Denver, some tasty Egg McMuffins for breakfast, and another uneventful flight to Oakland. A short cab ride (in which the DIRTY BUNDI cab driver tried to rip me off) later I was back at my Aunty's house. Ro was at home so she let me in, and I headed down to the Turd to get it out of storage.

For some reason the Turd's brake warning light was on when I started it up, so I spent the next few hours looking at that (no brake fluid?!?!) and cleaning the water tank and such.

I headed back to Alameda for a lovely dinner, some innernet, and some freaking out about the laptop's power supply which was on the blink. Argh.

Thursday - Worst Buy
Today the thrills continue with a trip to Best Buy for a new power supply, and here I am waiting to go to the airport to start the German Invasion. Oh, and it's my birthday.

Tonight I believe there may be some partying, and then tomorrow we're going to the Outside Lands Festival. I don't even recognise most of the people who are playing. I think my friend Mr. Beer may accompany me though, so it doesn't matter.

I feel really disorganised at the moment. Not sure why. I guess there's a fair bit to do over the next few weeks to get back to AU. I'm also worried about Kat, who has turned to the bottle :-)

Oh wait, nothing wrong with the bottle....

Anyway, not sure whether I'll be online too much over the next few days, but will try to make a pre-Burning Man update before we leave.

xox