Ottawa, Capital of Canada

i wasn't at all keen on ottawa given that

1. i was fully prepared to mug once semester begins and pick my fights in terms of travel

2. ottawa is boring according to my star player who had been to every conceivable travel destination in canada BEFORE he stepped foot into waterloo proper

3. i wanted to make sure i have money to spare for new york now that i decided i have a travel window before my one and only sit-in exam on the very absolutely last day of examinations on the Queen's academic calander for Fall 2006, and visiting Jerk in NY after visiting Micnie in Toronto sounds like a good idea. Broadway beckons too, hence the financial consideraton.

but since my good travel mates decided that after a tough week of commerce mid terms and deadlines they should reward themselves with a relaxing trip to the capital, and i can afford the time, i decided i should tag along too. after all, the capital is the capital, i'll only be here once, and its gonna be a budget trip. supposedly. so after much deliberation and self-rationalization to micnie over msn, i packed my bags for ottawa. much to the derision of auntie candy whom i convinced a month ago that ottawa is most dispensable as a travel destination.

lodging is a nice cosy little house called Ottawa Backpackers Inn. the owner is a malaysian-born canadian whose english sounds uniquely like simon's (a singaporean-born canadian masters student who stays at harkness), instantly familiar. maybe he is used to speaking to foreign travellers from asia, since lots of such travellers put up at his place. nevertheless, his warm voice and brand of english sounded immediately close to home.

even closer to home are 2 malaysian girls who are on cultural exchange to the US and travelling canada for the month as part of their vacation. bishan and jiawei. even their names sounds so close to home. the 2nd maybe a little imported, but singaporean nonetheless.

Ottawa Backpackers Inn!

the halloween mood lingers apparently. incidentally, this pic was taken on the morning i left for kingston, when we woke up to a snowy morning. we didn't actually stayed here; we were given an apartment in a red brick house right next to the inn. here it is:

our abode for the night

ottawa is noted for its pristine government buildings. as we walked down Confederation Boulevard we were greeted by grand buildings of stately stature whether or not their current purposes fall under the purview of the state functions.

Confederation Boulavard

bustling with vehicles and pedestrians, complete with banners on lampposts all along the street that created sort of a fanfare atmosphere amidst the stately environment. the weather was, however, too gloomy to inspire any substantial liveliness from these sleepy travellers who woke to catch the 7am greyhound bus to ottawa. still, the boulevard remains a sight to behold, in its own stately grandeur.

on our way to Parliament Hill, we passed this point along the Rideau Canal, which was supposedly (according to a touristy-looking signboard) the site where Byward Village, the first settlement of Ottawa, first sprung up. the site, in exact 30-digit MGR, is the little grey building with 3 red panels to the left of the canal outlet in the picture below.

Rideau Canal and Byward Village

Parliament Hill, a hill of unnoticeable gradient, houses the Parliament of Canada along with the East and West Blocks which used to be centres of important state departments.

the Canadian Parliament Building

wow.

anything is grand i suppose, compared to the ridiculous UFO we have in our heritage district. but i wouldn't discount any of the grandeur of this building here.

The East Block, till recently (okay not so recent but i forgot which year) housed the Prime Minister's Office. on its own the East Block is pretty breathtaking.

the East Block

West Block is under renovation so no pictures of its ugly state of reconstruction. its all walled up anyway.

all these are in the same complex atop Parliament Hill. inclusive of these, plus the huge plaza and lawn in front of Parliament Building, is this interesting fire that burns in the middle of a fountain at the entrance to the plaza. around this fountain are important years that marked milestones for Canada in its formation and development as a state.

so, history majors, what happened around the world in 1871?

the interior of Parliament is, to make a severe understatement, magnificently breathtaking. now i really understand why micnie faced a lack of expressive vocabulary in her blogs on her travelling exploits because every thing we see in this building is simply awesome. the architecture, the wall carvings, the bas reliefs, the ceiling decorations. all with outstanding artistry, solemn and brooding with political and historical significance in the stories they tell.

the House of Commons

the Left, the Right, and the Speaker of the House in the middle.

in the House, seats and flooring are green in colour to signify the autonomy of the House from monarchical interference. royalty are barred from the House in preservation of its political independence; the two bars right at the entrance to the House are physical barriers meant to prevent intrusion of the royal crown into House sessions.

one of two bars

the Senate, however, is where the monarch and his/her partner would partake in parliamentary sessions. in Canada, because the Queen is so far away in England watching the English Premier League, a Governor-General would sit in as the queen's representative in the Senate, performing on her behalf the ceremonial role of nodding his/her head as approval for the legitimacy of the PROCESS of Bills passed, not the Bill itself. constitutional monarchy indeed. the dignity of the crown is, however, preserved in equally ceremonial ways: the seats and flooring in the Senate are red in deference to the monarchical presence and sanction of the parliamentary process, and there is nothing to bar the monarch from entering the hall. not that i think the bar in the House of Common served any pragmatic purpose; no queen is so fat that she can't squeeze through the wide gap that Ministers of Parliaments file through to enter the House.

the Senate

also with the Left, the Right, and the centre for the Crown or its representative.

the pinnacle of magnificence in this entire building has to come at the most sacred location of all: the Library of the Parliament, where MPs and Senators spend hours browsing through tons of publications in preparation for the passage of Bills through Parliament. housing 50000 volumes (i hope i remembered correctly; the pamphlet says 17 linear km of meterials in its collection to date), the library has a regal and sacred air to it as a haven of academic excellence. the security guard on duty within affirmed that he had read all the volumes in the library. twice. i might just take his word for it. he was reading under a tablelamp when we arrived.

the iron doors to the library, which preserved the entire collection of government books and national archives during the great fire of 1916 which razed the rest of Parliament. the architectural design of the library, consequently, is markedly different from the rest of the building rebuilt in the aftermath of the First World War; the interior of the library, in Gothic Revival Style, is bright and welcoming compared to the grim stately solemness of the building that reflected the wartime mood of the Great War.

The Library of the Parliament

Queen Victoria

queen mother of the empire with the coat of arms of Ontario on the column in the background.

Parliament burning

the fire of 1916.

view from the Peace Tower

view from the top of the clocktower. right across the bridge is secessionist Quebec. if it really happens every single of such bridges would become a customs checkpoint. there are a handful of them visible from where we were at the top of the tower.

i couldn't resist this doubly oxymoronic picture.

Parliament Hill took up a good part of the day. a fruitless search for a recommended Italian restaurant wasted a bit more of it before we settled for morrocan fare at Byward Market. since we are in the capital, museums are in order. ottawa has quite a number of recommended ones. we looked at the time, and went for one we could fit considering their opening hours.

the National Gallery of Canada. protected by a gigantic spider at its entrance.

Herr Friedrich Nietzsche

the root of all historians' philosophical miseries

a year on, i am still in confusion over "On the Uses and Abuses of History for Life", although "Beyond good and Evil" was a more comprehensible exposition of utter contradiction.

for the empire, whichever one it is

Inuit Art on japanese paper

looks very Nippon-fied.

an Inuit sculpture i really liked

and finally we managed to hunt down the Italian restaurant that the innkeeper recommended us for our dinner. Mamma Grazi's Kitchen corresponded to the Singaporean food index: queue means good, long queue means really good. we waited for half an hour before a table for 5 was finally pinched out of thin air by cheerfully overworked staff.

the Daily Special of shrimp and salmon penne in cheese sauce and olive oil.

due to the short tenure of my stay in ottawa, i could only catch Parliament Hill and the National Gallery of Canada in the one day tour, and Byward Market the next morning. i would have stayed for the Just For Laughs show on sunday night if i didn't have lessons early monday morning, and i would have taken pics of Byward Market, if not for the heavy snow on Sunday morning itself.

that's it for ottawa, back to my essays! again!