Fobulicious

Yummy

Posts Tagged beach

Mini-vacay in Thailand

Mar 12

Posted by Louise in Hong Kong | 2 Comments

I spent the first part of reading week in Thailand, to escape the foggy gloom in Hong Kong. My travels did not get off to a great start, as my digital camera decided to crap out on me the night before we were supposed to leave. I couldn’t quite accept the fact that I was going to be camera-less in Thailand for five days, so at the airport, I spontaneously bought a new camera (it wasn’t that spontaneous; I had done some quick market research on Canon point-and-shoots beforehand). I love my new camera! It’s loads better than my old one. Don’t ever buy Kodak cameras. Ever. But I digress.

We met up with one of our tour guides at the airport, and set off for Bangkok International Airport. The flight was very enjoyable, and I highly recommend China Airlines. For a two-hour flight, we were provided with all the food and amenities you would expect on an overseas trip.

Bliss

Once we landed, we met up with our other tour guide, who is actually Thai and speaks fluent Chinese. Our tour guides were very nice and always translated everything in Mandarin for us, since most of us couldn’t understand Cantonese. We then shuffled onto our coach bus and were whisked to Pattaya, a beach town about an hour drive from Bangkok.

It was hot as all hell, but thankfully we had some mild air conditioning on our bus. We were a group of 12, and probably annoyed the other people on our tour by being loud, obnoxious, and late many times.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: , , , ,

Goodbye, summer

Sep 12

Posted by Louise in Life, Work | 1 Comment

Labour Day is over, marking the unofficial end of summer. I’ve been working for the past two weeks, and it went as well as any first couple weeks could have. The people are very nice, and I haven’t been bombarded with tasks as in previous co-op terms. Things will pick up this upcoming week though, so I need to review my STAT372 material and become an expert in writing Excel macros.

Last Wednesday I joined quite a few Waterloo’ers for an end/beginning-of-term dinner. Half of us came from work while the other half had gone rock climbing earlier in the day, so there was this palpable disparity between our states of dress formality. There were people I haven’t seen in a while, and people I won’t get to see for a while, and I enjoyed catching up with everyone.

On Friday I skipped out on work a bit earlier to give myself a head start on the weekend (also there was really nothing for me to do). I bummed around at Fairview Mall until some friends who were returning from the CNE came to pick me up for dinner. It’s amazing how many new friendships are formed with high school acquaintances once you go to the same university… In any case, we had dinner at Lemongrass, and dessert in the same plaza. Then they decided to drag me to Mix2 to shoot some pool. I didn’t really feel like playing, so I just became the photographer.

Sunday, I was up bright and early to hit the beach one last time before we Canucks hide out in our igloos for the winter with our stash of bear and walrus meat. It was essentially with the same people I went camping with, and we decided to visit Sibbald Point. I’ve already gotten a threat from Herbert to give this trip a glowing review. Otherwise he will eat my babies or something. Initially, we were supposed to leave at 8am. But then I guess someone realized it’s a vacation, not military boot camp, so departure time was pushed to 9. We had a very uneventful drive.

Getting this shot was probably the most exciting part of the drive

Getting this shot was probably the most exciting part of the drive

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: , , ,

Further proof that Canada is lame

Aug 26

Posted by Louise in Life, Random | 2 Comments

Universal Studios USA

Universal Studios USA

Universal Studios Canada

Universal Studios Canada

Despite being Canadian, I feel like Canada has always been a bit of a lame country. Our greatest export is Celine Dion, we have some sort of inflated pride on being a large, barren (though polite) land mass, and don’t even get me started on the weather.

Last week I had a job interview for Enbridge Gas, and across the street was the headquarters for Universal Studios Canada. I hardly noticed it, and only with a bit of squinting did I fully understand what I was looking at. This excited me for about one millisecond before I realized that it’s about the dullest office building I’ve ever seen, and Universal Music (the shorter building beside it) was equally arid, with some uninspiring banners of recording artists draped on its outside walls. No flashy signs, no palm trees, no interesting architecture, and definitely no theme park. Seriously, Canada…?

In other news, I recently just got back from camping at Sauble Beach with what was essentially the “Fellowship of ACCI“. The trip was overall a success, and I only got 2 mosquito bites while other people got none, which has to be some sort of record for camping! On Friday we arrived pretty late and had to pitch our tents in the dark. The campsites were much smaller and closer together than I expected. It wasn’t as lonely, but the whole “quiet hours” policy was a slight minus. We watched Sunny struggle with the campfire for a few hours, roasting marshmallows in the short spurts of flame he could manage.

The next morning I awoke to people walking around and kids screaming at freaking 7am!! We watched Sunny struggle with campfire #2, had a nice breakfast, and set off for the beach. Sauble water is amazingly clean (especially compared to the vat of crap that is Lake Ontario). The waves provided endless juvenile amusement, and we had a nice big section of beach to ourselves. We then explored the town a bit on foot, in search of a place to have lunch. After some grocery shopping and supply replenishment, we watched Sunny struggle with campfire #3 and had a true camp BBQ. At night, we decided to do some exploring. This was after we beered Matt enough times to make things very interesting.

On Sunday morning, we watched Sunny struggle with campfire #4, and had some huge 4-hour-long brunch thing where the guys would just grill/heat food and eat nonstop. Lily and I eventually became bored to the point that we went off exploring by ourselves. When we got back, it was time to pack up and check out. We then went canoeing down the Sauble River (sadly, T-Pain was not on our boat). It turned out to be quite enjoyable and I wish we booked the canoes for a bit longer. After that we were all pretty much pooped, so we headed home.

I’m rather impressed with the string of decent weather these past few days, so I’m trying to avoid sitting at home all day. Yesterday I went biking with Jo, and today I took a rather spontaneous trip downtown to watch District 9 and meet up with some Loo friends. District 9 wasn’t bad, but probably a bit too gory for my tastes. Tomorrow it’s rainy in the morning but hopefully I can find something to do in the afternoon when it’s supposed to be nicer.

Tags: , , , , , , ,

It feels like summer

Aug 16

Posted by Louise in Life | 1 Comment

Summer activities

I finished my last exam on Tuesday. After a couple days of post-exam de-stressing (aka bumming around) in Waterloo, I moved out on Thursday evening. As I still haven’t found a job yet, I don’t even know when my summer might end. If things go according to plan, I should have around 2-3 weeks. And I am determined to not waste this lovely pocket of time, as they do not come often.

Yesterday I went to the beach. We arrived close to 3pm and it was blazing hot. In fact it was impossible for me to stand barefoot on the sand without jumping around. We lay around soaking up the sun, and played a bit of football and volleyball (except all the courts were taken so we could only play keep-up). By then it was still really hot, so we thought we’d take a dip in the water. Lake Ontario is super gross. We saw band-aids and feathers and other indistinguishable debris floating around on the surface. But the water was just so damn refreshingly cool. We played some more football/vball in the lake. Of course, passing the ball soon turned into ‘aim the ball into the water directly beside someone so they get splashed by the disgusting water’. Which then later became ‘strand Matt in the middle of the lake because he’s a certified lifeguard’. The last bit wasn’t very successful, though there was a fair amount of chasing and contact lense crises involved.

After we decided we had been contaminated enough by the water, we held an impromptu BBQ in Matt’s backyard. We played some Xbox and chilled a bit more. By the time I got back I was exhausted and easily fell asleep. I love days like that. I’m looking forward to camping on Friday. We’re going up to Sauble Beach for 3 days, so that should be really interesting. Hopefully we can find a camcorder of some sort so we can document our adventures.

I’m mighty jealous of my friends who are able to jet off to Asia or Europe or even just the States/Vancouver. Hopefully this Christmas break I will be able to take a real vacation. For now, all I can do is enjoy what I have here. Back in December, I was able to engage in many “wintry” activities, so I want to make the most of my summer “break” too :)

It feels slightly weird to not have anything on my plate. For some reason I’m not too worried about my job hunt, and CFA is still a long ways off. After two study terms in a row, I miss the hectic life of being in school (perverse thinking, I know). There’s always something to do, something to aim for in the short term. Most of the time it’s just to survive the week. I guess I just need to be kept busy. There’s no better feeling than the sense of accomplishment.

Tags: , ,