Cooking in residence is a chore; we only have a shared public kitchen on the 1st floor and we stay on the 4th. So it's a hassle when we had to bring our pasta with boiling water (it'll cook very slowly otherwise), pasta sauce, mushrooms, veggies, soya sauce, chopped garlic and butter etc. down.
It was dinner rush hour and we bumped into the exchange students from Germany and the Netherlands in the kitchen. Had a great deal of fun talking to one another, poking at others' food and sharing cooking tips! Anyway I'm so happy that the Canadian Superstore has BOK CHOY and some other Chinese veggies (cos there are many Chinese immigrants and full-time students here I guess). So I stir-fried bok choy with mushrooms today, and the rest looked in awe and wondered what the little things were that I threw in (chopped garlic). Yes, chopped garlic is expensive but I guess we can't live without it.. it's 7 CAD for a jar!
Anyway, I helped the Dutch guy to fry his rice too, sharing my ermhermz, vast experience in cooking. The others kept saying it's nice to have a free cooking lesson, haha. So all in all, a hearty dinner that felt good! Hoping to at least interact more with fellow exchange students again. At least going for exchange student activities makes us feel more at ease; residence nights and other campus stuff don't apply as much to us compared to their full-time locals, which makes us difficult to fit in most of the time.
Had my first lesson today, Art of the Film, a Year 1 foundation course for Film Studies majors. At the end I should have a better understanding of the basics of film history, its techniques and terminology; one of the course objectives is also to introduce films outside the normal range of student interest, and to hence encourage students' creative and reflective, rather than judgmental responses.
Classes here are split into 2 half-seminars at slightly less than 1.5 hours each, so weekly class time is lesser than that in SMU (though it hence occupies slots on 2 different days). Art of the Film though, consists of nearly 5 hours of class time weekly, but it's cos we are supposed to watch a different film/movie on Thursday every week, then discuss it the following session.
Lessons are held in a mini-theatre that is AIR-CONDITIONED so it was damn cold (and Js had his Geography lesson in a chapel today, which was quite funny haha). It's a pity there are no projects in this course, so interaction is limited. But I do have 3 quizzes, a short paper and a final exam for this. Yucks. It's hard getting into the "I'm an exchange student and I don't need to study that hard" mood yet leh.
We watched Charlie Chaplin's City Lights today; supposed to reflect on what is being portrayed and possibly Chaplin's techniques of injecting comedy. His movies were said to have been stuck in the transitory phase in the late 1920s, when sound and dialogue were first being introduced into films. Because his revolved around silent comedies, people gradually lost interest in Chaplin. Anyway, City Lights was interesting cos it seemed to portray many themes including love and romance, compassion, and the tensions/differences between the upper and lower classes during the period of the Great Depression.
On a random sidenote, the Winnipeg Transit (bus) system is really inefficient and we nearly got lost today while heading to the bank. Had to walk 1plus hour to get back to where we needed to go.. legs are horribly aching now and it was so so cold :(
Today I breathed out mist, for the first time in my life! The winds are getting chillier and sometimes the cold's rather unbearable. Did I mention that I wore my long john top last night (when it's not even winter yet)!? Anyway, I think I should do more winter training in these 2-3 weeks. Brr.
Today's not bad cos we finally settled our admin stuff for school. Some things at U of M are really inefficient cos students keep getting directed from one office to another and things get messy. Most students also pay their fees in person, so almost everyone has to queue up at a puny office just to pay! It doesn't really make sense for us I guess, but we had to do the same anyway. Fortunately the queue thereafter for making our student ID card was quite empty by then, so it was done pretty fast.
Anyway, I mentioned it's orientation for freshies so school's getting rowdy and noisy as they cheer, shout and march around school. It's very different from what we have in SMU, we don't see them playing games or having camps, but yea.. it's quite interesting watching what they do, especially when U of M has a rather huge mix of students from all over the world (many Chinese nationals here too). Student groups also set up recruitment booths and we visited some of them (cos some had free food and coupons and we were abit lost anyway, so we went to say hi), haha.
SMU vs U of M?
Some things we saw at U of M, which are rather cool:
1) The Manitoban - is The University of Manitoba Students' Newspaper. It covers issues both big and small, articles are very much varied and pertain not only to the school, but to students in general, young adults and Canadians. It is really different from and more informational than BLURT and others.
2) The U of M Bookstore - is very big. selling all kinds of fiction, non-fiction, stationery and textbooks. They have a cool service here, where students enter their student ID number and the system looks up your enrolled courses and generates your booklist straightaway (books are fixed for every course regardless of Prof). So you don't wait till 1st lesson to know what book you require! But anyway, textbooks are super ex here, like CAD 120 per book. I'll photocopy.
3) The Student ID Card - is so much nicer than what we have, prolly cos it's more colourful. It even has my signature imprinted on it!
Wah! I only took 1 time and it turns out much nicer than the 2 SMU cards that I've ever made! ROAR.
Today was not as productive as we'd hoped it would be. Classes start this Thursday (4th Sep) and we only have 2 days to settle down, confirm courses, do up all the admin stuff, purchase our supplies and groceries etc. We did manage to meet Tara Cleve, the exchange coordinator, and confirmed our courses. But because today is also their Year 1 students’ orientation, everywhere was so crowded and the Student ID Card Centre was too packed for us to get in line, and we had to get this done first before paying our fees and all, so we ended up not settling anything else. We've decided to come back in tomorrow, office opens at 9 but we’ll be here by 8.45! Haha.. typically Singaporean!
Anyway, I’m doing 3 modules over here, yes kinda slack but I have no choice! It’s already a 4-day week because classes are split into 2 half-lectures.. I’ll be doing Personal Financial Planning, Small Business Management and Art of the Film, hence clearing Finance, T&E and GE. This leaves me with my final 3 courses in final semester then.. bleah.
Laura then picked us up at 1pm to drive us to SuperStore and get what we need, so we do not have to lug them back in the cold. We each bought this 50% polyester, 50% cotton comforter, which probably will not be thick enough for winter, but we have no other choice cos the duvets are all very expensive. Nevertheless, we also got a whole lot of other items and some food, and will be coming back this Thursday again, since we have to revisit the CIBC Bank (turns out that we had to make an appointment with the coordinator before heading down). ROAR. Oh, and I remembered I wanted to buy a plant, but even the smallest plant was CAD 15.. so I decided to do without. And I have no cushion nor bolster too.. :(
But well, with the extra hangers and my red-orange comforter, my room looks more colourful and bright now.
winter training! 7:00 PM1st Sep is Canada’s Labour Day, and all shops are closed. Because Js and I were so busy unpacking, we kinda forgot the time and missed dinner (okay, we were also busy calling home cos it was about 8-9am in Singapore, which was 7-8pm in Winnipeg). Anyway, we totally forgot about dinner until 9pm, and the only dinner place available was the dining hall at the other residence which was already closed by then. It was super duper cold and windy but we decided to venture out and find someplace out there that will take us in and give us some food.. haha.
So, well, we walked aimlessly, joking about how this could be winter training for us. Like today we should walk half hour, tomorrow an hour and things like that.. haha. And oh my, the university is so big that we only walked out of campus after 20 min of walking! But we braved on and finally, we saw light and the existence of life, and there popped Dairy Queen’s in front of us! After dinner we also saw a Shopper’s Drugmart where I managed to get some medicine for my cough and cold.
I guess we were very very happy after that because our hard work paid off, haha. And we also had a good chat during the long walk there and back, so it wasn’t all that bad having no food at first..
Anyway, this is what I am wearing to sleep tonight: tee + hoodie + shorts + long pants + long thick woolen socks. I look very cock but well, I have no blanket yet!
arthur v mauro residence 6:53 PMChecking in today! Feeling good that we can finally unpack and settle down, and it turns out that the AVM room facilities are really not bad. Anyway we’re in Room 436, and my allocated bedroom is 436B (I’ve updated my mail address hence, *hint*) Haha..
I have a room to myself, and in it there’s a queen-sized bed (though I think it looks slightly smaller than queen), a desk, a 21-inch TV, shelves, drawers and a wardrobe. Between Js and I we also share a small kitchenette (with a microwave and refrigerator but without stovetops) and a bathroom. Unpacking took quite a while for me cos I was still sick and therefore tired, and wanted some time to myself to slowly settle down.
The outside of AVM Residence
The residence staff decorated each door with the students' names..
I had to take a picture of all our "treasures", including my instant nutritious soya milk! haha.
BEFORE
AFTER.. tada! My wardrobe seems to be rather empty cos I have yet to get more hangers, so most clothes are just piled on top of the suitcases now.
My very neat shelves of clothes, winter wear, toiletries etc. I feel proud of myself, haha :) Now let's zoom in to my desk...
My essentials! Laptop, Vicki's letter, Chris and Tian's cards, some basic stationery + file + hp, and my zhong guo webcam pouch! yay.. maybe I'll get a plant tomorrow or something as well.. hmm.
destination winnipeg 6:11 PMI just thought it might have been confusing that all my entries were overdue and loyal readers like you may be a little lost as to where I was the past few days. So just to recap, before I close that first chapter of my exchange life:
25 Aug – Touched down in Vancouver, stayed for the night
26 Aug – Drove and took the BC Ferry to Victoria
27 Aug – Drove northwards to Nanaimo
28 Aug – Drove shortly to Coombs, Qualicum Beach and Parksville (but still bunking in Nanaimo)
29 Aug – Returned to Vancouver
30 to 31 Aug – Vancouver, and departed for Winnipeg
Winnipeg is the capital and largest city in the Canadian province of Manitoba. It is located within the prairies of Western Canada, and is filled with lots of flat land and farmlands. John told us that Winnipeg alone has a land area similar to that of Singapore, just that there are only 650,000 people living here as compared to 4 million back home. So Winnipeg is a rather quiet and sparsely populated place, with lots of space and land. Nowhere here is ever high-rise like in Singapore’s, so as I was telling Laura, that it would be so different for her when she arrives.
Anyway, I still can’t imagine somehow that I’m already in Winnipeg. Maybe it’s because back then in Sec 3 Geog lessons, we always looked at climates of different cities in the world, and there was always a “Winnipeg” which I thought sounded interesting cos of its name and its erratic weather, haha. Its climograph looks like this:
And you can see how cold it can really get end of the year. Brrrr. It’s also partly because the winds are really strong, and wind-chill really does worsen it all. Yet despite the cold, Winnipeg is still a place filled with lots of sunshine! So here’s Wini in Winnipeg, finally!
the fox family 5:56 PMMy buddy, Laura Fox, was really nice to agree to pick us up from the airport. Because we could not check into residence till 1st Sep, Laura had offered her guest room for us to put up for the night (this was agreed upon even before I left Singapore). So anyhow, her dad John was there as well, and he helped with our suitcases and drove us back home, while telling us about Winnipeg, its buildings, farmlands, housing, things like that.
Their house is really nice and cosy! First thing though, we were quite amazed and excited to pull into the garage, cos well, we don’t see garages in Singapore do we. Haha.. anyway, their house is really warm and nicely decorated, all done up by Laura’s mum herself! She’s a bubbly lady (kinda like my mum, cos abit plump haha) and she was soooo nice! Apparently she guessed we did not have dinner (they didn’t serve proper food on the plane) and had made us muffins! And all the time, she was going, “Would you like one more muffin, or some yoghurt, or even some cereal? Milk, juice or coffee and tea? We have apple juice, cranberry juice, orange juice…”
Haha.. it was really an experience in the house, cos it had a nice fireplace (although it’s not so cold yet to light it up) but the whole ambience was really warm and nice. It’s like we’re 2 hungry and cold souls and here we are, warmly welcomed by the Fox family.
And Laura’s mum also asked me about my family, so we chatted a little about my parents and what they do, my brother, and things in Singapore in general. They’ve been reading and hearing a lot about Singapore cos Laura’s going to SMU in January for exchange; in fact there are 5 U of M students going to SMU. I guess I’ll be meeting them sometime these months and be there as their information provider (like how to bid for courses, cos they have to bid too, just in case some of you don’t know.. but they are given 500 e-dollars to ensure they do get their spots).
We also talked about Halloween, and I asked a silly question like if people really go trick-or-treating. And they do! Well, children do, at least. Haha.. and Laura said I could dress up and go as well, but hmm.. we’ll see about that. Anyhow, the Fox family celebrates Halloween every year, and they carve a lot of pumpkins! And I asked if I could have a go at that and they said they’ll definitely invite me over! YAY!
Anyway the guest room that I stayed in was really beautiful, it’s all nicely done up and it just feels very heartwarming.
There is just so much effort put into decorating the guestroom!
Even the bathroom displays nice pictures, candles and soap-dispensers.. yep.
Breakfast was homemade French toast and Aunt Jemima’s syrup + real authentic Canadian maple syrup. Haha.. and it’s so wow that in the middle of the dining table, they do have a 3-tiered plate holder that held so many fruits! They are also so sweet and polite to one another and they really go, “Honey, would you like some coffee?” and “Sweetheart, would you pass me the butter please?” and food really gets passed around the table like what we see in movies! Okay, I sound very swakoo now but it was just quite exhilarating, heh.
Today (30th August) marks my final day in Vancouver before heading to Winnipeg tomorrow evening (yes, to my friends out there who think I’ve already comfortably settled down in Winnipeg, I actually haven’t!) I must say it has been really tiring to be travelling for the past week, and I’m thankful that in 2 days’ time I’ll be able to unpack my suitcases fully, have my own personal space and settle down to create a home away from home. Not to forget a stable internet connection in hostel too, where I no longer have to do up these posts offline and copy all of them at a go!
(Okay, I’m now at the Vancouver Airport on 31st while publishing these few posts cos there’s free wireless in the airport! Whee! So my apologies for the lack of updates for the past few days!)
So here are final pictures from Gastown before we headed towards the airport this afternoon:
The famous steam clock at Gastown, it emits steam every quarter of an hour, as well as hourly. Makes a sound too!
The Vancouver Trolley
Final pictures before we part ways for now.
the vancouver aquarium, stanley park 6:51 PMThis is quite random but I realized today (Saturday) why the air here is so fresh. Apart from being environmental-friendly, even the public transport system adheres to the campaign for anti-pollution. In fact, public buses here run on electricity, similar to the cable cars in San Francisco, where they are pulled along by a vast network of overhead cables instead of running on petrol. Another interesting thing about public buses is that passengers have to push the door themselves when they wish to alight – I believe I’ve seen this in the US the other time as well. Buses are also wheelchair-friendly; passengers are not allowed to board until a wheelchair-bound passenger alights via an automatic ramp that emerges at the push of a button by the driver. I guess such behaviour is a mixture of being law-abiding and gracious, and it was certainly an experience taking the public transport again today (we returned the car this morning).
We visited the Vancouver Aquarium today, a must-see public aquarium located in Stanley Park. In addition to being a major tourist attraction for Vancouver, the aquarium is a centre for marine research, conservation and marine animal rehabilitation. We saw a whole lot of fishes, creatures and mammals, including seals, sea lions, sea otters and huge belugas whales! The beluga was the most significant attraction as the Aquarium recently had a new addition following the birth of a baby beluga, and it was taking utmost care to facilitate the bonding between mother and child – hence a lot of hoo-ha and documentary talks/shows on the entire process. It was really interesting though; the facilitators were interesting and engaging, sharing a lot on what they know and other interesting facts about belugas (for example, the father beluga has to be separated from baby since birth till even after the latter matures, just as to prevent father from going after and mating with its daughter, and many more!). We were also told that there might be a public bidding held for the naming of the baby beluga, an act that really signifies how much the aquarium (and hence animals) mean, to such an environment-cherishing city.
There was also a Tropics Area in the Aquarium, which provided a slight overlap with the exhibits we usually see at the Underwater World. Yet the Amazon Rainforest section here gave us a creepy and eye-opening experience where piranhas and alligators swam around threateningly, amongst others. I think I kept going “yikes” and “eeyer” all the time when I saw weird anemones, starfish and meat-eating predators which looked scary and alien-ish! Haha.
WINNIE'S BENCH!
One of my favourite shots for today, haha.
A "false" killer whale at the bottom of the food chain.. interesting. Killer whale's at the top.
The touch pool is super duper cold.. but there are only little fishies that can be touched.
Seal and Belugas, and a whole lot of other things:
Jellyfish, big ugly starfish and small cute ones
Strawberry anemone and vegetarian mosquitoes (!!!)
A cute suave stingray and many more...
Gifts at the souvenir shop, and this picture of 2 otters is kinda sweet.
"Awww.. c'mon!"
Anyway we headed over to a Japanese eatery for dinner, and this place is said to be a local favourite amongst the foreign Asian students in Vancouver. And it was indeed, because we found out that this place is along Robson Street, apparently where many Asian grocery stores and restaurants can be found! We saw many Hong Kongers, Japanese, Koreans etc., and also managed to grab a few Japanese biscuits and snacks for ourselves for tonight. :)
Walking home after dinner, Robson Street felt just like Orchard Road, with HMV, Aldo, Zara and other stores we use to see back home. Window-shopping in the cool weather was a not-bad experience, especially along a street that felt so very familiar with its Asian faces..
Did you know?
1) You might have already known that Canada’s flag features the motif of a maple leaf. But did you know that it is famous for its maple syrup too? All around, we see maple syrup candies, maple syrup in bottles shaped like maple leaves.. yada yada.. see picture below!
2) I mentioned that the shops along Robson Street were similar to those in Orchard Road. I am totally right about that except for one thing – Hui Lin and I noticed that shop mannequins here have bigger boobs than those in Singapore! Haha.
the local media 6:49 PMWhile driving these days, we have been tuning into this Vancouver Crave 95.0 local radio station that plays really good music. It offers a good variety of songs of different genres, something like a mixture between Class 95.0 and 98.7 FM. Sometimes, though, it is quite irritating and plays bimbotic songs that leave us amused and singing all the way through our journeys, haha.
The TV stations we have channel-surfed in the YWCA Vancouver Hostel are also interesting as well. Yes, a good mixture too of everything, from cartoons for all ages and comedies, to local TV shows and soap operas, and even porn! Erm, we accidentally chanced upon it really, but it was quite an eye-opener (to know that these channels are watched openly, and not what we watch on TV please)!!
Haha.. anyway, the advertisements are what I really want to talk about. In fact, the commercials on both radio and TV have been rather disappointing and lame, albeit amusing as a result. Typical ad lines and spiels do not even link to one another at all, making it sound very incoherent and somewhat no-substance!
A final something to note is that their TV ads are fully subtitled! Even a line like “Hi there, what are you doing?” needs to be subtitled, and when no one speaks in the ad and there is music playing, the subtitles display some music notes to indicate that. Perhaps this is a lawful gesture or initiative by a statute such as the American with Disabilities Act (ADA) or something, where things are made user, sight-and-sound-friendly to cater to those hard of hearing..?
Well I really don’t know. But anyhow, it has been interesting exploring the local media here in Vancouver. We will miss Crave 95.0 when we return the car tomorrow and lose the luxury of driving!
Friday was a rather weird and “chapalang” day for us, filled with all kinds of emotions.
Newcastle Island
After a hearty Portobello sandwich and authentic French toast breakfast at the Mon Petit Choux Café, we proceeded to Newcastle Island, a 10-min ferry ride away from Nanaimo. Newcastle Island is legendarily renowned for the many camping, bicycling, kayaking and trekking activities that people carry out there, in a totally fresh-aired and pollution-free environment.
Yet the place did not turn out well for us tourists. We had hoped and assumed that bike or canoe rentals would be available on the island, but that was not the case. Also, because it was not the peak summer period, Newcastle Island was actually rather empty and deserted, with no sign of life at all! We ended up trekking (or rather, walking) a trail for about 2 hours instead. It all felt just like Pulau Ubin or some camping excursion, cos along the way we felt bored and entertained ourselves with jokes, mystery games and even singing competitions! Oh my.. it was tad disappointing but we were thankful to be able to exercise and walk around a little at least.
The Portobello sandwich and really good French toast. Apparently authentic French toast is supposed to have a cake-y texture, and not just, bread dipped in egg and seared in the pan!
We were still very excited when we first reached Newcastle Island, although there was no sign of life.
A pretty dandelion (I blew it but the wind was in the wrong direction so it all went onto my face.. tsk), clouds and a trail of maple leaves..
Newcastle Island.. akin to Pulau Ubin.
The Sun in Canada
Back to Mainland, Horseshoe Bay Vancouver
We then proceeded on our journey back to Vancouver, via the BC Ferries. Perhaps because it was a Friday afternoon, there were just so many vehicles around and we had to wait almost 2 hours for our ferry ride! We ended up playing bridge in the car, which was quite a funny way to pass time (when most other locals abandoned their cars to grab coffees or food, while some couples just settled for a little making out on their vehicles..). Anyway, bridge has become our favourite pastime it seems, we also played on the 90-minute ferry ride back.
See we're so happy playing bridge!
Stanley Park
So it was all a mundane and slow-moving day, that was, till we arrived in Vancouver. The route back to our hostel downtown was along the way to Stanley Park, and we decided to stop by. Stanley Park is a 404.9 hectare (1000 acre) urban park bordering downtown Vancouver. It is the largest city-owned park in Canada and the 3rd largest in North America. There are approximately 200 km of trails and roads in the park, and is rankted the 16th best park in the world and 6th best in North America.
Anyway, we got a little lost but managed to reach it eventually, and caught one of the most breathtaking sunsets we’ve ever seen in our lives!
Stanley Park is beautiful indeed, and it was a pity that it was starting to get dark and we were not able to explore its other park sites. Nevertheless, we did feel ecstatic to have come here at the very least. I’d also wanted to collect some maple leaves from here to press, but was not able to find any nice ones easily… most of them were still green too, so I guess I’ll wait till Fall to do so.
Chinatown and Gastown
Our plan today was to visit Chinatown and have some Asian food for a change, instead of the everyday potatoes and burgers. I navigated the walking route towards Chinatown, and well, Keefer Street here did offer a night-market sort of feel like what you see in KL’s, albeit a very much smaller version. We managed to grab some really expensive dim sum, bao and fried noodles here! There was also bubble tea, but it was a horrible CAD 3 for a small cup, so we restrained ourselves from splurging, haha.
Roti prata = Malaysian pancake?!?!
Walking back to our hostel after satisfying our stomachs was a rather scary experience though. Apparently, we were so excited that we overshot a street by 2 blocks, and we arrived at a different part of downtown Vancouver where there were many weird-looking and suspicious-behaving characters. No, I am not just referring to gangsters or yuppies or ghettos, but really weird people (some mentally unsound) that I can’t even describe. To think that we were just 2 blocks away and suddenly it is a totally different experience! Anyhow, we saw someone sprawled on the floor (don’t know what happened to him), surrounded by a group of burly guys and an ambulance could be heard in the distance. Hui Lin claimed that she also saw a guy flick a knife onto the ground, although she was not too sure. We were so terrified, horrified and stupefied that we walked on and on and settled for a huge detour towards our hostel instead. And because of the way we walked around the fire hydrants and lamp posts and street signs, it felt like walking an obstacle course, haha :(
Anyhow, it might still be considered a blessing in disguise, cos we stumbled upon Gastown along the way, which was really very “hip” and happening. This place was where Vancouver was first founded, by a guy named “Gassy Jack” and his friends. Gastown seemed to be the hype of the city, filled with pubs and nightclubs, and people our age were seen all around heading to these places and preparing to party the Friday night away. Anyway, it was really cold and freezing tonight, but many girls were still dressed in skimpy tops and mini skirts.. aiyo..
Gassy Jack and a random shot of Gastown
xx
Of course, we did head back to the hostel in the end, all safe and sound. It was a bizarre day I would say, filled with many chance encounters and all kinds of miscellaneous things.