Montreal ! !

any tenure in canada cannot be complete without a trip to the cosmopolitan french-speaking city of Montreal. in our first foray out of kingston (we were pretty much dying to get out of there; it seemed so boring then. i discovered later that there were still sights to be seen, as evident from the previous post). in any case, the chronology of my escapades in canada no longer follows any chronology. this came much earlier, sometime in the 2nd week of september.

after a 3 hour bus ride out of ontario and into quebec, we arrived at the bustling city in bright sunlight and cool weather. perfect start, and to top it off we had a meal at this french-looking restaurant. the French waitress couldnt really speak english. a cosy little eatery, with nice ambience and nice staff... and food that was not bad at all... in fact, we got to eat the authentic canadian cuisine we heard so much of prior to our trip:

the Poutine

a highly fatty, hi cholesterol couch potato fast junk food served on restaurant plate. fries with chicken, sauce and cheese... salty, tasty, undoubtedly fatty. calorie burning on the cards for the next 2 days.

and my first proper food in montreal was this tasty dish of shrimp alfredo fettucine, with some tangy dip which didnt seem to go with the pasta. pasta's not bad though, reminded me why i like cheesy pasta... and fresh succulent shrimp... -licks lips-

montreal is famous for its night scene, in more ways than one. our adventure after the sun set brought us into the realm of one of these. here in the pic below we see the restored Marguerite-Bourgeoy Museum at the end of this street, which led us from downtown Montreal into...

the cobblestoned streets of Old Montreal. absolutely mesmerizing.

for us sedate, unpartying, boring academics and history freaks (okay there was only one history freak. the rest were equally sedate though), the night scene of Old Montreal was a sight to behold. freakin cold, but absolutely pretty with the night lights and busking at the plaza beside the city hall.

here, the buskers have gone home to sleep, the crowd dissipated (and purses decimated by the buskers), but the plaza remains ever so enticing in its nighttime beauty.

further down the street, we have...

the Marche Bousecours.
an old majestic presence converted into a shopping place within.

rue de la commune east

going down to the Old Port of Montreal, through which the city first made its fortunes and built its commercial presence, we enjoyed the breeze (read: biting cold wind) by the waters before making our getaway into warmer pastures. today, the port has been restored but instead of commercial shipping, it is now berth to private yachts, boats and such. what the old wealthy abandoned, the modern aristocrats devoured. and of course poor touristing students like us too, suckers for this touristified package of a historical district, took in these mesmerizing sights.

in the daytime, however, downtown Montreal presented a totally different proposition. somewhat seedy, with streets that were always bustling and streets that were always calm in a dodgy way... and we fumbled our way to...

Chinatown!

where we had our lunch at this cantonese restaurant that purported to sell Singapore Styled Fried Noodles. i never knew such a thing existed. i was right. it looked like nothing we have in singapore. thank the culinary gods. no pictures here on that fiendish dish.

Little Italy likewise was a hub of migrant lifestyle that preserved itself somewhat in its own enclave even as the cosmopolitan nature of the city infused the district with modernism. below is the Marche Jean Salon, the signature marketplace in Little Italy.

huge brocollis in little italy,

and little berries in little italy.

the cultural accomplishment of montreal in terms of architecture no doubt paid worthy homage to its european style, especially of the renaissance architecture we see dotting the montreal city landscape.

here below is one such scenographic juxtaposition. the Cathedral of the Queen Mary, a miniature replica of the St Peter's Basilica in Rome, in gleaming sunshine, and a commercial skyscraper emerging from behind the basilica, providing holy protection for the preservation of this cultural heritage.

and here we have St Bourget, the patron saint of the Cathedral Marie-Reine-du-Monde...

and finally the last featured cathedral... or rather a basilica. the majestic and awe-inspiring St Joseph's Oratory (not the Notre Dame Basilica which Celine Dion got married in; sorry folks they had a wedding on the day we went so we were barred from entering... and whatever nice pics i have of it but didnt put up was because somehow i could not upload them onto photobucket).

if you can see there are 2 men kneeling on the steps right down the middle of the pic... they are 2 devotees who climbed the steps on their knees, reciting the Rosary at each and every step. the interior was amazing but again the pictures i could not upload.

in case you were wondering who i was travelling with, these ladies are three quarters of the singaporeans in the entourage. from left, candy, woonteng, yiyun... yes there were more... a handful of hongkongers and us singaporeans. again, this pic is the only one of my travelling mates here because the other pics i could not upload i dunno why. luckily this one could though; i really liked the composition with St Joseph and the Oratory in the bkground. haha...

and in case you were also wondering,

i never appear in ANY of the pictures i have taken. simple reasons.

1) human presence to me taints the picture

2) i am the one taking the pictures

this list of featured attractions were by no means exhaustive, either of the sights to be seen or experienced in montreal, or of the places we explored in our short few days there; this selection was heavily dependent on the pictures that i managed to upload, and i have such a nice pic of the interior of the basilica but i can't get it up! so the pics here were not as marvelous a portrayal of montreal as i would have liked it to be... still, it was a wonderful place to be, montreal... and it marked the beginnings of our exploration of the land of maple syrup!

up next (when i am done with three 12 page essays): Niagara Falls!

stay tuned, whoever are still reading.

Sights in Kingston I

discovered in kingston upon intelligence from laobeng.

MINOTAUR - puzzle and games shop

lots of other cool stuff bearing witty wit... like this zen writing slab.

and yang lao shi this is cool i just had to take a pic of this to let you see... a marie antoinette "ejecting head" action figure! a choppable head basically. she comes with removable dress and wigs btw, so she is convertible to a sans-cullotte.

and laobeng, the curry village right beside it is really delicious! thanks for your recommendation haha!

Happy Halloween!

its halloween in canada on 31st october, and pple are dressed up to go to school. as spiderman, factory workers, fairies, witches, miss china universe, a pack of cards, a carved pumpkin, whatever. and in Harkness, we have...

Pumpkin Carving Competition!

this, is the pumpkin carved by one of the dudes on my level.

looks like a cat... and below is one that really caught my eye.

happy halloween everyone!

spoils to share

Hi Everyone!

You who hold faithful to this cobwebbed blog, are thus now rewarded!

this is looong overdue. sorry folks for the lack of update, but as what i have told some concerned souls, i was keeping in spirit with the title of this blog. i was mugging in kingston.

so indeed, kingston is a cosy place. apparent below, ain't it so? my bed looks so personalised. it looks boring.

fret not for my sanity, there are a lot more things in my room now. this photo is dated beyond historical records, it should belong in some neanderthal archives. well it should, since its dweller remains a neanderthal. most especially cluttering my room now are foodstuff (really. not dirty laundry, nor touristy presents like bags of keychains and niagara falls tshirts) that i have amazingly managed to unearthed in reputedly the most british of ontario's cities. and as i told jessie, previously i didnt, but yes i am now missing singaporean food! but only when i started to prepare them myself. how ironic.

and so from the picture of city hall you see what characterized kingston architecture. yup even my campus looks like a multiple replica of the city hall. limestone were apparently the most abundant construction materiel; cathedrals and churches here have been known to be erected on limestone quarried directly from the ground on which those buildings are now situated, some 150 yrs ago.

so question of the day: what do they stand on, now that the limestone are above ground and making up the very buildings themselves? hmmmmm.....

St James Church, a small church on Queen's Main Campus. pretty little thing, elegant and dignified in a little corner of the campus. yet none of the buildings here are ever dwarfed by other more majestic cousins situated right next to them. more pictures of Queen's buildings akan datang. fact of the day: a by-law of the city once stated that no building in kingston could be taller than the first clocktower erected on Queen's campus, now still standing as part of Grant Hall. it was a mere 5 storeys tall. even today it is hard pressed to find more than 2 tall buildings downtown; for a city, it is amazing how i can always see the sky from whereever i am standing.

and my first trip around town on the first day i arrived! a 40 min ferry ride to Wolfe Island! this small island on Lake Ontario that lies between Kingston and New York. in fact there is a customs checkpoint on the island that allows Kingstonians to drive over to NY viz this ferry and the island, taking another ferry on the other side to cross the border. cool huh. farrell was right. if i swim long enough, i should be able to climb ashore Gotham City.

anyway as you can see the ferry operates every hour on the dot. means we had exactly one hour to explore the humongous small island. didnt catch much (didnt know what to catch either on our first day in kingston) but managed to snap a pic of this quaint little church built in early 19th century (i think it was 1821..?) and the sunset behind it... and the trees are still green; its still summer. a freezing one.

so that was the first day in kingston. thankfully, our days did not turn out as prophetically apocalyptic as our initial fears postulated at Subway after the outing: we needn't resort to eating Subway Daily Specials everyday every meal just to save money. we subsequently decided to 1) not save that money, 2) cook cheaper meals, 3) go for dining hall meal plans which turned out rather nice and most importantly, nutritious. more on food in later posts.

our second outing was more of sightseeing. weirong's landlord's son from his first marriage who isnt staying with weirong's landlord anymore but somehow still got to know weirong and agreed to bring us around kingston decided that the time and date was ripe for the mission, and so off we went across the Great Cataraqui River to Fort Frontenac and Fort Henry. to gain access to Fort Henry we embarked on clandestine covert operations.

first we rendezvous outside Royal Military College of Canada. for the un-NSed this is not some passionate gathering of the sexual nature. it simply means we get off the bus and start reading the map. we looked up from our map and saw this:

okay it wasnt so dramatic. we got off the bus and saw this; there was no map. we had a guide remember? so we took pictures. to think farrell once entered this gate. think again, he never did so as a cadet; he was a company sergeant major in the canadian army, not an officer. this place is responsible for the latter. still, specialists and NCOs rocks. nothing against officers. really.

looks like chinese high? grand looking place, with the RMC flag flying. in fact the canadian national flag is derived from the RMC flag in design; they held a competition to encourage submissions of designs for the canadian flag, and the winner replaced the insignia in the middle of the RMC flag with a maple leaf. minor changes were made still, but the flags remain extremely similiar.

and NS has value after all. Fort Henry required admission fee. we decided to blast our way in and maybe they might pay us the admission fee instead. so we hijacked a tank from the RMC. see the tiny singaporeans in the below pic?

operation success! tank successfully occupied, we mounted triumphantly atop the weapon of mass destruction. eh wait. the tank cannot move. is it because we have a taiwanese in our midst? no must be an enemy sabotage. so we do what singaporeans do best in a situation of impasse and crucial decision making. we take pictures.

pictures taken, time wasted, we climbed down from our conquered yet immobilized beast of war. singaporeans being singaporeans, some of us had to step on the "for exhibition only: do not climb or mount" signboard pitched in front of the tank to get our feet back on the ground.

after the nonsense we were in fort henry. the fort, built in 1812 and upgraded in 1836 to defend the Rideau Canal against Yankee invasion, was the reason such an invasion never took place, much like singapore's south-pointing guns during world war two. in doing so, the fort preserved ontario from american conquest. its capability was never put to the test, however, also much like our south-pointing guns, for their original purpose. it never saw action, except as prison for rebels captured during the 1837-38 rebellions.

the plaza or parade square, where cannons now lie in exibition; below, ammo and guns... the shells are empties now, but still weigh some bit...

and this is the view from the cannon above. martello tower covering the cannon's arc of fire in forward position. these martellos would dot the coastline of lake ontario as first line of coastal defence, from the land, against hostile vessels, which we did see on the ferry ride to wolfe island earlier.

home sweet home! till next time, that's all for now! essays coming up!