First Week in Toronto (What an Uninspiring Title!)

(What's better than writing about your life when you're supposed to be studying for an important exam? Writing on my laptop in my own flat makes me feel very Carrie Bradshaw-y... though I admit I think I'm prettier than SJP, but it's hard not to feel that way.)

You should know I'm currently an exchange student in Toronto, because good friends should know and why do you care about my meaningless ramblings if you aren't a good friend? It's been nine days since my arrival in Canada. The most-asked question for my first 1.285714th week is: How's Canada?

This place is dry. Right now the relative humidity is 67%. I remember it being 5x% this morning, but it certainly felt a lot drier than that. So, to that question I could only answer: Canada is dry.

Sometimes, to spice things up, I add: Drier than my love life.

Konny, also known as Mrs S, or the girl who stayed up till 2 to Skype with me answered: That's really dry!

Wait, isn't my love life non-existent?

I certainly hope starting a post with a glimpse into my love life has captured your attention. One thing I have taken away from English in high school is to capture your audience's attention (the default answer to questions such as "Why did the writer begin the first paragraph with a question?"/"Why are rhetorical questions used?")... Anyway, another adjective to describe Canada is expensive. This is coming from a girl who's lived in Central London. Canada is also interesting and I'm beginning to think I won't want to leave Toronto when my exchange semester is over :(

On the day of my arrival, I wasn't very happy with Toronto. WHY DO I HAVE TO PAY $2 FOR THE LUGGAGE CART? WHY ARE PEOPLE SO RUDE AND CORRECT ME WHEN I SAY UNDERGROUND INSTEAD OF SUBWAY? AND RUBBISH INSTEAD OF GARBAGE? But my sadness went away when I saw my flat! I knew even if I wasn't very happy with things, my beautiful flat would make things alright... Corny? Yes but I'm a home person! All I need is the Internet! My building also happens to be right next to a mall with a massive supermarket and a high-end grocery store and a bookstore!!

I live alone and I'm enjoying the solitude and freedom. Being crazy at home won't get me into trouble with mum. Singing in the shower won't bring in teasing remarks from various family members... Though it seems that my neighbour isn't very impressed with my singing. I was singing Faye out loud a minute ago with the balcony door opened and I heard my neighbour sliding his balony door shut five seconds later. Guess you can't make everyone happy at the same time.

The following is a corner of my timetable, the only accurate bit. I'm having lots of problems with credit transfer and course enrolment.... semi-given up on both really. I have decided to take only two difficult courses for credit transfer. I'm hoping to be enroled successfully in Beginners' French even though I have a background in French (most people in that course do, trust me)... but my excuse is that I have to prep for DELF!

The first few days in Toronto were spent settling things - getting a phone and Internet plan, going to IKEA twice for home stuff and etc. We have also managed to do some touristy things: walking around the U of T St George campus, shopping in the Toronto Eaton Centre, apparently the largest mall in downtown Toronto, eating in St Lawrence Market and getting lost in the Financial District and the Entertainment District. Wish I had done a bit of planning so my mum, who very nicely took a week off to come with me, could enjoy Toronto more before she left... :(

I started doing fun things after settling down. On Friday I went to an Exchange Students' Networking event and met a number of people from around the world! A girl from Geneva and me have made plans to mange ensemble! There I also bumped into a girl who went to my boarding school in the year above. Small world. And how could I not mention this dog I met - Jenny! She's from Brazil and has come to Toronto with her owner!

Went crazy when I saw this baby! Now in the exchange student community I'm probably known as the "crazy girl from Hong Kong who loves dogs", but I don't care~

After the event I explored Toronto a bit and went to this secondhand bookstore called BMV Books. Literally a literary heaven! It's like any normal bookstore but books are much cheaper. I love Chapters / Indigo too but regular priced books here are too expensive for a poor student like yours truly... My dear friend, Laetitia, has commented on the speed / amount I've read since coming here... I'd like to take this opportunity to tell her that there's nothing much to do on the subway other than to read...!

On Saturday, I ran a race, my first race abroad - the Toronto 5K. I hadn't run in almost two months because I was ill and lazy. It was 6 degrees that morning and I was regretting... WHY DID I SIGN UP FOR THE RACE? WHY DID I COME? I walked on the grass for a while before the race and my socks were soaked... the first 1K was great because I was high (runner's high, not drugs) and I was listening to K-Pop. Then the 2nd kilometre sucked because I was freezing... freezing fingers... and my soaked socks made my freezing toes freezed more. Then the rest was history.

Before and after, running for even 30 minutes does crazy things to your face and mentality... which explains why I posed with a banana.

On Sunday (today actually, still 11:58 pm here), Tracy, the girl I mentioned a few posts before, took me to yum cha and showed me around Yorkville! Then we had Chinese food together for dinner. Happy day!

Dim sum was very good here in Toronto. Better than most shops in HK. Another piece of evidence for my "yum cha is better abroad" theory.

Woman at the back, you shocked at my tourist-ness?

More Chinese food for dinner! North American portions of mapo tofu and sweet and sour pork.

Week 1 in Toronto was great! For the coming week, I have made plans to hang out with my new friends. Class timetable would be also confirmed~ I could make more travelling plans then - going to New York City with Victoria and even visiting my primary school best friend in Vancouver? Can't say I'm not excited! Bring it on, Canada!

Farewell Summer

I've been really ill. I had a fever, blocked nose and sore throat. I spent the last two weeks sleeping my life away. Today is my third last day in Hong Kong and I'm not ready to leave yet. Funny because I used to always leave home for a few months.

Sometimes, I think about the food in Korea:

O'sulloc I love you

Really good noodles in Jeju

I still think about this

Ewha isn't food but I want to squeeze this photo in

O'sulloc froyo *_*

Then I think about the real-world responsibilities ahead of me:
School work
Exams, exams and exams
A job
......
...
:(

I apologise if this post seems depressing and I sound like the exact opposite of what an outgoing exchange student should be... Apparently I should be "happy" and "excited to see the world"? Well, truth to be told, I'm excited about living in a new city and exploring what it has to offer. But the preparation is a lot of work, plus I don't think I'll have energy to go around. I was excited about tiff and my 5k race. But the tickets to screenings I wanted to go sold out within the first hour! And I haven't run in a month... I better stop here before this post gets even sadder. I'll update when I've arrived in Toronto. Ttyl!

"Where Has My Summer Gone?"

For the past week, the question I have been asking my friends --- “where has my summer gone?”

A: DOWN THE DRAIN!

Still remember in May after my exams, I was slightly worried about the length of my summer holiday. 3.5 months! Will it be boring? What activities/productive things can I do? But I should have known better... This summer is just like any other summers, I did nothing apart from wasting my life away.

PHOTO SPAM TIME (warning: image heavy!)
click to enlarge

27 May 2013 The first official day of my long hot summer vacay. We went sing karaoke, duh. High school kids were still in school then, so the place was pretty empty. We were given a massive party room. By massive I mean MASSIVE. There was even a Xbox Kinect in our room. (We continued with Kinect in the waiting area... who knew you would get extremely sore arms and legs from Kinect?)

29 May 2013 I visited the giant Rubber Duck (which wasn't very big). This is so out of my character, I know I know... but I'm from Hong Kong, what do you expect? (To be quite honest with you I didn't want to go...) For lunch/tea we had Butao Ramen, it was Yoyo's first time and my n-th time. I could only say the quality was deteriorating.

31 May 2013 The Great Gatsby movie date avec ma belle amie Theodora. We were let down by the movie but not by the food we ate afterwards. We had Shun Hing 順興車仔麵茶餐廳 in Tai Hang and our all-time favourite Kasho Chaya (which we chose over Lab Made because "if I want to eat custard buns, why don't I eat an actual custard bun?". But I was a hypocrite as I had Lab Made for the second time in July... and I really did have custard bun ice-cream).

(This is getting a bit long... from now on I'm only going to list really interesting things)

8 June 2013 Tracy, an exchange student from Toronto who is super awesome, took me to the Peak with her friends! I hadn't been there for almost 10 years. It was my first time hiking up to the Peak. The view from Lugard Road was mesmerising!

12 - 17 June 2013 KOREA TRIP. Annyeong haseyo! Before the trip I was disappointed we weren't going to England this summer (my "busy" mother had to work)... but it turned out Korea was GREAT! It was a 6-day trip so I had spent quite a bit of time planning -- looking at maps, organising various things... A tricky thing was that maps in Korea are in Korean (as opposed to HK maps which can be searched in both English and Chinese), but we had GPS in Jeju and I made use of Konest when in Seoul. I'm still happy that my family loved the places and the food that I had included in the trip :) (more and better photos were taken with my DSLR, but I still haven't imported them to my computer...)

Our car in Jeju

Ugly me but I want to show you readers that Koreans love to wrap their meat in sesame leaves

"Is this the boarding pass?"

I love this graphic but it's outside a smoking room... Thought that was weird

very cute logo of Jeju Air

My sister and me have dirty minds... when we were younger we heard there was correlation between the size of one's nose and the size of one's _____, so when we saw the logo that was the first thing that came to mind

First thing that greeted me in Seoul, reminded me of Mei Tu Xiu Xiu 美圖秀秀

From some building in Myeongdong

Gyeongbokgung Palace

Mukshidonna, one of the best meals in Korea

Also one of the best meals in Korea - Sinseon Seolnongtang, it's a chain restaurant but it's so good

Definitely visiting Seoul again soon!


29 June 2013 Went to the Peak again, this time with high school buddies!

July was spent having fun with my buddies, seeing old friends and building friendships... and ahem, working.


4 July 2013 Music Rocks the Valley! Had lots of beer and fun. Got lots of freebies. Awesome night.

6 July 2013 Eason's Life concert. I like Eason Chan's songs but is never a big fan of him... after the concert I understand why he's the King of Pop. Man, he's SO good live.

9 July 2013 First day of work! Visited the Poho area finally... even the air there was artsy~ (mainly because it was quiet I guess, or "tranquil" as pretentious people would say)

14 July 2013 This summer I've gotten into hiking... Thank god I have friends who are already into hiking or enjoy being healthy in general. Laetitia, Simmy, Yoyo and me went to Dragon's Back. Gloomy weather, but still a good hike nonetheless!

27 July 2013 Mahjong with my buddies. Hadn't played actual mahjong in almost two years? That day was a perfect example of how good people in life could always lift your mood and spirits.

28 July 2013 Went hiking again. Hong Kong Trail Part 5... the endless flights of stairs and the heights! It wasn't so positive that the weather would be good that day, but that morning I woke up -- I knew that God wanted me to be healthy and hike! Haha :P

6 August 2013 Dragon's Back on a good day! It was even more beautiful than the photoshopped photos on the Hong Kong Tourism Board website.

Photo courtesy of Elsie

9 August 2013 Went to the Peak again with two fun/cool/inspiring people. I know I always go to the Peak, but I would never get bored of the views!

Hiking is a great activity because it's a fun exercise, unlike going to the cinema it allows for quality chatting times and the views are always great (well, the air is always fresher)! Once I've gone to enough new places I'll write a separate post on hiking,

Seems that this summer isn't so bad after all. Less than three weeks left!

[低質post]一日一件事

悠長暑假很頹，現錄下每天memorable的事，迫自己productive些少。


六月一日
在Deli and Wine排隊買下午茶發生了一個很Celeste & Jesse Forever的事情。 那時大約有六七個人在排隊。當我排到隊頭時，有一位剛剛買完茶餐的女士拿着錢包，問我「可以比我加單買點東西嗎？」，其實可以說是打尖。不過這麼突然的問我，我當然說沒有問題。之後我就想起：

之後收銀員叫那位女士重新排隊，她卻很生氣離開。 哈哈，難道收銀員也看過Celeste & Jesse Forever？ 雖然只是很trivial的事然而，但我覺得很memorable。

六月二日
自從我家附近的租碟店結業後，便沒有機會看新推出的電影DVD（窮學生沒錢），所以一直很想找一間離家不太遠的alternative。之前在黃頁（！！還有人用這東西的！？）發現了一間在家方圓十里內的租碟店， 今天終於有機會到訪! 現今的租碟店都很勁，竟有自己的面書專頁！依據面書專頁提供的地址，在google map找到店的確實位置後，我便出門了！整件事很有以前獨自在倫敦探險的感覺！

六月三日
上了人生第一堂的Les Mills RPM！感覺有少少像跑完Standard Chartered 10k的I DID IT！其實想上RPM很久，但經常覺得自己很unfit，跟一些很fit的陌生人一同踏健身單車會很awkward。而且gym的spinning bikes有限，上RPM/spinning要首先sign up，一直很put off by這點，我是個很spontaneous的人嗎！ 我是班中的其中一個newbie，還有另一位，不過我不知她/他是誰… 其他的RPM-ers是已經成群結隊很pro的regulars。初時我亦有點尷尬，我不懂該如何set up 那單車（對不起現在也不懂），warm up踏單車亦踏得很慢（不明白為甚麼那些pro regulars可以把resistance調得很高但仍可以摩打腳）。之後我開始投入，我想差少少便可以跟regulars們比下去呢！我是個高水平的newbie :)
Edited: Would I do it again? Probably. I am surprised that RPM hasn't killed my legs. Of course soreness is inevitable, but I can still speed-walk and climb up flights of stairs the next day… I've expected it to hurt a lot more, as I remember that during the class, I thought I was gonna die of dehydration!

六月四日
一壽司料理是個伏。只有froyo可取。

六月五日
很想quote The Great Gatsby： “So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.” ― F. Scott Fitzgerald

六月六日
七點睡，十點半起床，去gym跑步。真是水皮了很多，跑了兩公里就要停… 之後cool down十年體溫才回復正常。真的真的要多練跑噢！ Toronto 5k here I come!