Friday, August 31, 2007

Mont Royal

Had an afternoon of hiking at mont royal... YES, hiking. We walked for practically an an hour plus? the weather was great for hiking! they have Big and wide bicycle trails.... and steps and steep self-made routes. Nothing like fort canning.. hehe.... juz that i wasnt really in appropriate attire. it was really a last min decision. Anyway... i'll juz upload pics.


Hui Qin and i at start of 'mont royal parc'
View of montreal from top of mont royal parc
Pretty trees deeper into the forest. IT reminds me of the national parks on Great Ocean road, Aus...
Alex & i
OK, this is the exciting part! I found my cupcake shop! After exploring Mount Royal parc, we walked along the whole stretch of 'Avenue du MOnt Royal'. They have MANY sidewalk restaurants and al fresco cafes, really smartly furnished. And unique shops, unlike those commercialized ones we see in SAint Catherine's. HAHaha.. i saw it in Hui qin's magazine... and took down the address, but didn think that i'd find it! HAha i was soooo excited! ANyway, we each ordered one:D Its this small little cosy shop with cupcakes displayed.... nothing fancy but whatever... they are cupcakes! Btw, the icing tastes great with fluffy and moist cake:D:D:D you can guess the smile on my face then huh.


From left bottom: Orange, blueberry and vanilla (pink one. that mine!)
Just to show ya what the shop looks like. Thats where all the cupcakes are displayed with QIn and her V sign... hehee.. .


The sign board. The shop name is PETITS GATEAUX which means 'little cakes'
Cupcake display in the shop.

We were so tired from walking the WHOLE afternoon, we decided to take the train from MON ROYAL back home to CHAMP DE MARS. IT was EX! $3+ CAD for a one way train ride... now i'm appreciating sing's SMRT.. hehe.... the train station's kinda what you see on tv. ANd the train's are loud and deafening!

Next cake stop: "cho'cola" @ monkland village. It was featured in the magazine as well... i'm going to go broke trying out cakes;)

Wednesday, August 29, 2007

Vieux Montreal aka Old Montreal


It was a tiring day of walking, walking and MORE walking... i think i'd most probably wear out my brown havaianas by the end of this exchange. We had to walk from our home to the DISCOVER MCGILL orientation building, which is some gym place... its far! then, we had orientation (yes, i was treated like a freshie all over again, didn even feel this dumb in nus) where we were introduced to the different buildings and faculties all over montreal. Well, at least i got to know where my classes are gonna be, or else i'd be sooo lost. The orientation leader was cute, she reminds me of cindy.. heheh....


seriously, mcgill's just filled with people from all over the world: korea (no offense, but they are simply at every part of the world as validated by sona), france, australia, japan, china.... so yeah... it was something different. AT least we had free pizza for lunch;) we even went to the 'street fest' following the orientation to grab some free food. Apparently, it didn work out well and we found nothing to eat... hehhee.. yes, stingy us. Beer met up with us and we had vietnamese noodles. Kinda yucky, the beef had some smell. I think the one at melbourne city is probably still the best;)


I was soo exhausted by that time, we juz had to go home for me to slack around.... before we headed to old montreal in the evening. it was around 2 blocks away from our place, so its kinda near. Yes... walking again. I'd probably lose weight rather than gain weight at the end of all these...


Oh before, i forget, some pics of my house and the neighbourhood:D



street just outside of my house






night life scene at old montreal with street artistes, buskers n LOTSA restaurants...

sorry... i have LOTSA photos and videos but this is taking forever to upload! yucky blogspot. I'll try again the next time, my eyes are totally closing.

Tuesday, August 28, 2007

jet lagged morning at 330AM (CAD TIME)



Yes, thats me on a jetlagged morning... i woke up at 330am and couldn return to sleep! took a shower, blow dryed my hair and still i'm wide awake... so thats bored out von at 0500am CAD time. Naturally, my house mates are fast asleep... i'd most probably be zonked out 12 hours from now with a splitting headache... how nice.. to think that i was sleeping queen in AJ where i could sleep anywhere and anytime.. no kidding... AJ peeps would know...

anyway, i cant believe that i'm saying this, but i think i'm homesick...

i miss blowdyring my hair in front of the tv.

i miss channel surfing on my cable tv (did i mention that the house doesn have a tv? well, no biggie for me, atm).

i miss daddy's fried rice.

i miss mummy's nags at me for saying that i'd eat dinner when i end up missing it at the end of the day.. so she'll have to eat more, and that makes her fat.. thats what she claims at least;)

i miss the edge, when the quirky boys aka youths would juz make me laugh at their goffiness and lame sense of humor, i miss the big band music at the edge, i miss my little carpenter workshop kids (especially jaden!).. currently still trying to locate an apt church to attend... could hillsong church juz come here, that'll really be great. (cindy, could you arrange that?)

i miss my sweet frens...

well, i guess its some initial stage thingy. I think i'll get over it yeah?! hehe.... gonna go for Discover mcgill orientation session in a while... followed by shopping! then a tour of 'vieux montreal' neighbourhood.... i think i'm blogging a LITLE too much... hahaha... ttyl:D

mcgill uni!

I stepped foot into mcgill uni for the first time today... it looks great! with big victorian style buildings and BIG green fields. Best of all... free grilled food. HAha.. well, it's orientation week, so they kinda provided a buffet of food for the people.... how nice... we grabbed some food and went to the field to eat... reminds me of bondi beach (sydney) minus the beach...

it was really a day for errands.. visited the bank, applied our prepaid cards (cell phone isage is REALLY expensive...: 20cents per outgoing/incoming minute. how nice...), attended the exchange students info session which was kinda crappy and useless. so yeah.. i was suffering from jet lag. The fact that we kinda lost our way (yes audrey, i admit i'm bad at directions) added to my headache... we found our way back at the end of the day, after walking for like half an hour... great way to lose some weight!

then we had POUTINE for dinner... thats pronounced as PU-TINE. Its basically french fries with melted cheese and gravy.. totally sinful... hahaa.. it was all right for me. apparently, its supposed to be one of MTL's good food... hehe. walked to the international film festival.. again... to check out french films with no subtitles today. So i totally couldn make out what it was about, except for a couple of words here and there like 'parfait', 'magnifique', 'si' etc... too stressful for my brain... Anyway, sorry no pics. I'm too lazy to upload... hehe.. i'll TRY to upload the next time:D

Monday, August 27, 2007

I'm in montreal!

I'm finally in montreal! It didn really hit me till I landed in montreal-trudeau airport. The plane ride was just an arduous and torturous ride with 2 plane changes at Narita (tokyo) & Detroit, and 4 custom clearances. Nevertheless, I'm here in montreal! Ok.. where shall i start. Probably i should make a list:

1. nice pretty victorian house
2. French everywhere!
3. mini singaporean community
4. idenity crisis!

It was nice coming to see a nice and furnished house! you must check out my place... it rocks. All thanks to Kent. I'll post pics soon. i think.. if i get to do it:D Hui Qin & i kinda 'bullied' gab. and took teh bigger rooms for ourselves.. well, i offered to cook for him meals. so yeah... hehehe.. he has to eat whatever i cook though. So yeah... now cindy is totally envious of my place... so yeah... this will be my room for the next 4 months or so...

And... though montreal is really a BILINGUAL (french and ENglish) city (so they say... ) people basically speak french everywhere. They do speak english, but probably minimal english. It's interesting for me though, cos i'll get to recollect my forgotten french from a year ago.

We came to find a WHOLE bunch of singaporeans from NUS: up to 8 of them i guess! well, it felt like we were having a small little singaporean NUS community in montreal. IT was nice to see friendly faces around though, and even more since they've been around for quite some time. So we get their help in adapting to the place. They brough us (hui qin & i) walking around montreal's "Orchard Road" or rather... hmm...i cant remember the name. ANyway.... i'll remember it soon. We saw strip clubs (no, i'm not going into that), ate this famous hot dog in Old Montreal (so called 'le meilleur hot dog' in old montreal), stopped over at the 'International Film Festival' where they were screening international films (open air). People were just sitting around, at provided white chairs or even any available bench or steps to watch teh Big screen. We left after ATTEMPTING to watch it for 10 seconds cos they only had french subs. Well, i attempted to read the french subs, it was all right i guess.

Last but not least, i totally dun feel like an exchange student... more like a touriste, atm. HAHa.. probably i'll get more used to it once school starts (Crossed fingers for my 2 days study week). school only starts in sep4, so i'll still have a couple more weeks to act like a tourist. Till then, i'll just take it easy. Dun worry mummy, ( i know she wont see this anyway) i'll CONTROL my shopping... First thing on my shopping list though: boots!