I can’t legitimately cross off a lot of things from the aforementioned list, but the summer has been quite awesome thus far anyways. Work has been going quite well. By “well”, I mean it’s never boring, and I can’t ask for a better environment. I think I’m one of the few people my age who thoroughly enjoy being at work. Either there’s something fundamentally wrong with me, or I’ve really struck gold here.

As much as I bask in the feeling of selling my soul to corporate, an office job with a 3-hour commute is hardly the way I would prefer to be spending my first summer in five years where I don’t have to worry about academics. I decided to use this free time to catch up with my travels. Given the amount of crazy I’d been through during the first half of the year, I had initially decided on some relaxing, resort-type, lounging-around vacation.

NOPE. Spent two months running around.

Buffalo, NY. A much-needed shopping trip while the Loonie was flying high (it’s actually flying even higher now). After a day of outlet craze, we swung by Niagara Falls on the way back across the border and were lucky enough to catch some fireworks.

Fireworks at Niagara. Photo shamelessly stolen from Eric.

Mont Tremblant, QC. As a last-minute decision, six of us signed up for one of those Chinese bus tours that took us to Mont Tremblant over the Canada Day long weekend. WHAT, you say, WHY would you crazy people lumber up to a ski resort mid-summer? WELL, I reply, it was actually quite gorgeous with surprisingly a wide range of activities. We made a few mandatory useless stops (namely Upper Canada Village) on the way there and back, so we really ended up having only one full day to spend at the resort. It was decided that we needed to make the day count as much as possible. What followed was our execution of CHALLENGE ACCEPTED:

• Breakfast at French café! When I start the day with chocolate milk on a patio, I know it’s going to be an awesome day.
• Boat cruise around Lac Tremblant! Watch a ginormous helicopter land at a baller vacation home.
• Lounging / swimming at hotel pool! Reject idea of poolside eating because we can’t afford a $7 hot dog at the Fairmont.
• Lunch at Spanish restaurant! The day only gets more awesome with chimichangas on a patio.
• Cable car up to mountain top! It was extremely windy at the summit, and the view figuratively and literally blew us away.
• Luge down mountain! Apparently it’s a Québécois thing, and was one of the best random calls of the day.
• Kayak in the lake! By the time we got a hang of things, it was time for our appointment at…
• Scandinave Spa! Lily and I went for Swedish massages and Scandinavian Baths to rejuvenate while the others had their own little misadventures.
• Dinner in the resort village! With live music and yes, on a patio.
• Le Casino de Mont Tremblant! Matt gained a 1000% return playing a slots machine called Chien Académie (sounds legit).

View from the top of Mont Tremblant! Thanks Matt for giving me implicit permission to post this photo.

After we got back to our rooms I pretty much passed out instantly and don’t recall anything else. On the way home the tour stopped by Kingston where Char gave us a quick tour of downtown and the Queens University campus. Now Waterloo seems even uglier by comparison.

California. I can’t even fully recall what I did here, but simply thinking back makes me miss it so much!

My impression of Los Angeles was what I expected after speaking to numerous people who have been there before – sprawling, overhyped and kind of ghetto. Certain areas were only nice in the sense that you could marvel up close at the multi-million dollar mansions of local residents in the Hills. We ended up spending much more time in San Diego, where the beaches were nicer, the traffic was better, and the burritos were holy. Some Kodak Moments included:

• MXN, a chain of Mexican fast food restaurants. We could’ve eaten this on any occasion. Proper meal, midnight snack, drunk food, post-roadtrip arrival food, beach-side munching… you name it.
• Surfing at Pacific Beach. Or our attempt at doing so. We rented some boards and were merrily floating in the water when I started noticing that the waves kept pushing me out to sea and made it nearly impossible for me to get closer to the beach. Before I made it all the way back, a lifeguard actually turned up with a megaphone and instructed us to get out of the water ASAP. Once we were all safely on land, he explained that we were in a riptide, and lectured us about getting actual surfing lessons. First time for everything!
• Jetskiing in Mission Bay. I get why people can do this in circles for hours by themselves. It’s just so liberating. 30MPH doesn’t sound like much but it gets intense when you’re on pretty much what is a motorized bike on open water.
• La Jolla. An upscale beachside neighbourhood in northern San Diego, I regretted not being able to spend more time exploring the area.
• Meeting up with Gavin & co. for a bar night and dinner the next day at San Diego’s best lamb shank joint, according to Yelp.
• Gifting Dan a microwave. “What did you guys buy? It’s so big… You guys got me a microwave?”
• San Diego Zoo. Having worked in a zoo, I was impressed with the way everything was laid out, the tour buses were conducted, and the variety of flora and fauna found there. I didn’t quite feel all the hype with the Panda exhibit though. There was actually a line-up for the exhibit itself, and as adorable as it was, only one cub was on display.
• Driving through Gaslamp. We were so tired at this point that we settled for a comfy car tour of the district. It’s so much cleaner and more upscale than any entertainment district I’ve seen so far anywhere. Somehow it has this warm, friendly, yet sophisticated vibe. Maybe I’ve just been hanging out in all the wrong areas.

Can I just live here...

Mark my words, San Diego… I will be back for actual Gaslamp shindigs, SeaWorld and of course the ever epic LegoLand. And maybe to retire.

A morning drive up the I-5 later, we found ourselves back in the Los Angeles area to meet up with Connie and Herman. First up was ferrying our burrito-filled butts (1lb burrito for breakfast, say WHATTT) to Catalina. It was a gorgeous island, albeit touristy. After exploring the boardwalk, we did the only thing there was to do – golf cart around the island bluffs! This was much more fun than I expected. I don’t think anyone in history was as elated as I was driving a golf cart. Caddy, anyone?

Golf carting to new heights. That's how we roll.

The highlight of Catalina was having the chance to scuba dive for the first time in an actual reef. Normally for recreational dives they’d first train you in a pool or something. I have no idea how deep we went (40-50 feet maybe?) but the experience was interesting to say the least. Not the most comfortable hobby but I suspect you’d get used to it. It might be a while before I dive again, but it’s rather surreal to be swimming among schools of fish and holding a live sea urchin in your hand.

We spent the night out in downtown LA, then caught some Zs before flying back to the Land of Thunderstorms and Haze, aka Toronto.

On a couple of random notes:

• I completely understand the California song, about driving down the freeway. It is really such an awesome feeling, with the ocean on one side (though you can’t really see it) and mountains on the other. The only thing that could’ve made it better was if we rented a convertible. While I’m at it with the random points, doesn’t that blond guitarist from Wave look like Neil Patrick Harris? A little bit??
• I am impressed at how well flippers work in practice. For some reason I never expected them to be a necessity but they do quite a good job in propulsion.

I miss this.

I’m going to cap this post right here and continue MY SUMMER: PART DEUX in another entry, before anyone starts suing me for eye strain. You’re welcome!

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.

Our first destination was a Zoo (?). It didn’t have many animals, and I thought the exhibitions were rather gimmicky. The one thing we learned off the bat was that if you wanted to take photos, you need to pay up. The highlight of the day was definitely the tranny show. It was quite the feast for your eyes. However, the elaborate costumes and sets didn’t make up for the lack of showmanship by the performers. Most of the scenes consisted of people coming on stage to poorly lip-synch, wave their arms around, give a few twirls, and then exit.

Some of them were really pretty. Others were just manly.

Little did we know, that night as we ate our first dinner in Thailand, it would probably be our best meal over the next few days. We did a little street shopping before retiring to our hotel for the night. Shopping in Thailand is relatively a lot cheaper than even Hong Kong, and some people even swear the quality is better. I ended up not buying much, but that was mostly due to my guilt from dropping nearly HK$2000 on the camera.

Day 2 was what I was looking forward to the most – hitting the beach! We rode a speedboat to this sketchy-looking platform thingy floating in the middle of the ocean. It was the place where you could go parasailing. The concept’s a bit scary but it’s actually really cool and you feel safe. This was definitely my favourite part of the trip.

Parachute + cord + speedboat = parasailing

We then continued on the speedboat to an island that had a beach with beautiful waters, and participated in some water activities. We rode a banana boat (inflatable pillar that’s dragged by a jetski), shopped at the markets, and just chilled in the water/on the sand.

This is what a beach should look like. Woodbine will never be the same.

In the afternoon we went for a 1-hour Thai massage. For a “western” massage, you get kneaded and pressed. A Thai massage is almost like visiting your chiropractor. They stretch, crack, and flex you. I didn’t feel much different afterwards, but the people who paid for the full 2-hour massage claim it was positively orgasmic.

On Day 3, we were on the road back to Bangkok. Along the way we visited a lot of shops – honey, snacks, leather, jewelry. We felt they were a huge waste of time, and nobody really bought anything. We stopped by a place to see a monkey show (it was rather sad to see how they treated the monkeys), ride a horse-drawn carriage, and ride an elephant.

He's named after Andy Lau. Must be the striking resemblance.

First-person view. All you have to do is imagine the eau de horse shit.

Not irrelephant

For dinner, we were each issued a 200 baht voucher (1 Canadian dollar equals approximately 30 Thai baht), and released into the food court at CentralWorld mall. I used exactly 200 baht to get a pad thai, gyoza, beef ball skewers, Thai iced tea, dessert, and a fruit shake. Unfortunately we were rushed, and I probably only finished about 80% of my food.

Any Asian mall >>>>> Eaton Centre

If you ever get a chance, MAKE SURE you try a Mister Donut donut. Or two.

We visited the Suan Lum night bazaar where I bought a few trinkets, and then checked into our hotel. Our tour didn’t include the Grand Palace or any temples in Bangkok, which was ridiculous, so the next day, we broke off from our tour group and explored Bangkok ourselves. Transportation was rather tricky, but thanks to good planning, nothing ill befell us. First, we hopped on a ferry to get to the Grand Palace. Many people were commuting to work on the boat, so it was jammed full by the time it reached us. We somehow managed to cram all 12 of us in, and I hypothetically questioned how something like this would fly in Canada.

The guy in the blue shirt walks along the edge of the boat (while it's in motion) and collects your fare

We made our way to the Grand Palace by asking random locals for directions, and made it just in time before the ticket booth closed.

The large statues are demons

The Mansion

The weather finally fatigued us, so we went to the city centre, where there were malls with air conditioning. After grabbing food at a local market, we took the ferry and BTS (Thailand’s subway system) to MBK mall. The mall wasn’t that impressive… it was catered to young people, so it was squished like P-Mall and didn’t have all the lavish shops. The highlight was probably getting free Thai iced tea from the food court, for being a foreigner.

Bangkok traffic, with MBK Centre to the right. The taxis are very colourful.

We reunited with our tour group at the Siam Paragon (a very nice mall; shame we didn’t have time to wander around). That night, we went out for dinner at this mall called… The Mall. Seriously. For dessert, we decided to try some roti. We gathered to watch the guy make them at the counter, and he did all these crazy spinning/throwing/catching tricks with the dough. He did mess up a few times. Mine was naihua + banana + egg + chocolate. OH EMM GEEEEE it was so good.

*Salivating*

The next day was mostly spent packing up and saying goodbye to Thailand. We were at the airport by noon, had very expensive lunches, and arrived back in Hong Kong around 6pm (Thailand is one hour behind HK). My point of stupidness was when I forgot to pack my aerosol sunscreen in my check-in luggage, and so they confiscated it at security. RIP, pricey sunscreen :(

The trip was a lot of fun, but at times I did feel myself missing the comforts of Hong Kong (ie. English, MTR…). I’m looking forward to more adventures in South-East Asia in April/May when a handful of Waterloo people are coming to visit!

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

The lifejacket looks like the Kool-Aid dude!!

That little kid eventually got himself a bleeding foot and my first aid kit helped him :)

When we got there, it was already pretty packed. We couldn’t even find a picnic table. Except there was one that was kind of partially in the water, and we would have to drag it out. After much debate, a group of buff dudes who arrived after us went to drag it out for themselves. We solemnly watched and didn’t dare stop them.

The infamous picnic table

We were extremely jealous of their various-sized beach balls and floaty accessories

Testing the water

Check out those cancer dogs

Just some peepz. Chillinnnnn'

At one point we were all in the water. Lily and I were super sneaky and used our shark-like stealth to splash/drown/throw mud at the boys.

The day is almost over :(

Some more Sibbald Point scenery

New Olympic sport: synchronized shell-picking

Overall it was a very fun and successful ending to a great (albeit short) summer. Now I can’t wait till Christmas…

Universal Studios USA

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.

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.