Canadian Thanksgiving is the second Monday in October. Love NOT having to explain that to everybody I see.. or clarifying that is “Canadian” Thanksgiving, as opposed to what most of the world knows as Thanksgiving – the American one. Just happy to spend the holiday with family.. loads of turkey-western style or with some Chinese adjustments.
My favourite part of this Thanksgiving so far:
1. Stove-top stuffing, which my cousin insisted I take home – although I’m not so sure how I will go about eating it.. should I just cook some chicken breast and have it on the side?
2. Leafs winning TWO games in a row, right out of the gate! Would be AMAZING if we could keep that up?
3. Another steam crab night!
4. Seeing all the kiddies with all their achievements! – lost teeth, piano exams, all grown up
5. Beautiful blue sky weather
Hope everbody is enjoying their weekend as much as I am
For those not in Toronto, Nuit Blanche is an overnight art festival, that takes over parts of the city for 12 hours on the first Saturday in October. I was in town last year, but missed the event. This year was my first year. On the one hand, the event was nice – a chance to walk the city at night, meet up with friends. I was a tiny bit disappointed with the art though.. I think I didn’t really realize that Beijing actually had a lot to offer between all the art festivals and art shows there, and the permanent galleries at 798 District. I guess I’ve been spoiled, I didn’t really realize it.
I didn’t bring my camera.. but here’s just a couple of pics that me and my friend Cindy took on our iphones.
This was Cindy’s favourite piece… I was a little freaked out – reminded me of the Joker causing havoc in Gotham City.
An automobile lamp – the picture doesn’t do it justice!
Crab season! Blue crabs are in season.. here’s our first stab at them.. a little bit on the skinny side.. but for less than $4.00, still a decent meal! They should be a even cheaper as they get fatter next couple of weeks!
Many times in my life, I’ve wonder if there really is a ‘powers that be’ that watches over us that sometimes may try to give us some signs to help us with decisions that we may be making. Today, I feel I really got one.
I’ve been back in TO for just over a year now. I celebrated the one year anniversary 10 days ago actually. And most may know, my return wasn’t under the best of circumstances. In any case, over the year, I’ve tried to re-invent myself here. While I was born and bred here, I spent most of my adult years overseas. To say that there aren’t challenges of moving back would be a lie. In fact, I think part of the challenge is the mindset, of myself, and others, that there is no challenge. Sometimes I will throw up my hands and say “I should just move back to Beijing”. Today especially, after spending hours on the phone with both Bell and Rogers – China Mobile seemed like such a better alternative.
But, in a random random act of pulling out my Anne of Green Gables boxset to dust off, – I pulled out Book 3 (out of the 8 book set), to check the publication date, because I was thinking of selling it on Amazon. (Again, very random, I only set up my account yesterday, to sell a used marketing textbook.) In the book, I find a small gold plated bookmark that has the following quote engraved into it: NEVER NEVER QUIT – WINSTON CHURCHILL.
If that’s not a sign from someone force bigger than me, than I don’t know what is.
Ah… as the fall slammed into us rather quickly, winter is just around the corner. One of my favourite pieces other than the sweatshirt, has got to be the mitten. Buy the time the Olympics came around, in February, it was already too warm to wear the Olympic Mittens. I was looking forward to breaking mine in this year. But guess what? They’ve actually updated them – SO.. it looks like I’ll have to get another pair! I think it’s great that the proceeds go toward the Canadian Olympic Committee. Our athletes really do need the funds. Hopefully we can get some better results for Summer Olympics, in London 2012, than we have traditionally done in the past.
Here are the original mitts:
And here’s the FULL STORY - check out the NEW mitts!
Is a creative little blog my friend Alex has started: http://www.igotyourpostcard.com/. We’ve come so far with emails/texts and all sorts of other new ways to communicate, but actually, interesting thing is that we probably spend LESS time actually communicating with people. WHY don’t people just pick up the phone and CALL anymore??
I used to have all sorts of penpals when I was kid.. and it was SO exciting to get something in my mailbox. Nowadays..only bills come by post, and my email box is full of SPAM.
Reading his blog inspired me to pick up a few postcards and send them myself. Also, definitely itching to dust off my passport and start heading off somewhere again.. Where to??
Sorry for the lack of posts…I’ve been busy lately with some exams.. classes, charities.. and just trying to squeeze all I can get out of the summer I guess. Recently started class on Competitve Intelligence this week.. which I hope will be as interesting as some of my other marketing classes. I learned this week that Civic Holiday (which I KNOW) is the first Monday of August, is actually Simcoe Day in Toronto.. Ya. WTF? How come nobody knows this?? According to Wikipedia, it’s Mountie Day in North York (not sure about this one), Colonel Day in Ottawa, George Hamilton Day in Hamilton, and goes on to list a whole slew of the different holidays celebrated that first weekend in August. I don’t feel so bad. Apparently the statistic is that only 16% of Torontonians know of Simcoe Day, so I guess I don’t feel so bad.
This was from Disney that I forgot to post up. I LOVE my camera! If only I can really learn how to use it. I was just snapping away, and was lucky enough to get this beautiful shot.
