Aimee and Chris in Canada

We're Married!

2010-02-23T19:23:00.002-05:00

Yes, we got married on January 9th, 2010 in Manila Philippines.
Search for photos of us on Facebook - we don't get the official photos for a few months yet.

Out East

2008-10-10T09:19:00.004-04:00

So we've decided to sample the air out in the East coast of Canada.

A couple of days ago we picked up our Kiwi friends Annie and Chris from Toronto airport and gave them the whirlwind tour of Toronto - including a whirlwind ride around the roller coasters at Canada's Wonderland.

From Wonderland with Kiwis

Then after a brief glimpse of the CN Tower, they disappeard off on the train out to Ottawa.
A couple of days later we all met up again in Halifax, Nova Scotia.
We picked up a rental car and headed north west toward Truro, Moncton and our destination of Fredericton, but not without taking the scenic route and stopping off to see the flowerpot rocks at Hopewell cape.

So far we've been very kindly looked after by the parents of my Toronto workmate, who have showed us that New Brunswick hospitality.
Fredericton isn't a big town, we compare it in size to Taupo, maybe a little larger.
It's built straddling a wide river and is very picturesque.

Huh?

2008-09-03T07:56:00.002-04:00

Where did the time go?
It's September already...

Road Trippin

2008-08-02T14:42:00.002-04:00

So it's been a busy time with Ma and Pa taking us places we hadn't thought of.

A couple of weeks ago we rented a car and took Friday and Monday off work.

The 2008, V6 Buick Allure may not have been the best choice in times of high petrol prices, but it certainly helped when you had to accelerate to overtake a truck or two. Despite being an American car, it was ok to drive; it didn't like to take corners too well but softer suspension than a Japanese car helped a lot on the bumpy Canadian roads.

The weather had been really hot lately, and the lack of wind had caused pollution to rise and cause Toronto's first smog alerts of the year. Buses displayed messages alongside their route numbers "Smog advisory, take transit".
The smog really was bad, it was like a rainy haze on the horizon. The further we got from Toronto the more we expected it to clear, but it never did...

Our first stop on the trip was Kingston, a nice little town about the size of Taupo with a lot of limestone buildings about 200km East of Toronto.

We did a tour of the Town Hall and Mum sat in the Mayor's seat, then had some lunch at a local steakhouse and moved on.

Ottawa was only another 200km northeast now, the destination for our first overnight stop.
The weather really hit us on this leg of the journey, it went from hot and smoggy to a wicked storm with forked lightning and rain so strong I could barely see the road in front of me!
After 10 minutes the rain eased off a bit, and shortly after we pulled into Ottawa.
It didn't take us long to really like Ottawa. One walk across the canal, through the art gallery and past the amazing town hall was all it took.

We stayed two nights in Ottawa which gave us time to take a ride on the canal and see the light show where they used the town hall as a canvass for a huge light and sound show.

Just like NZ's capital, Ottawa is a place where you can see yourself staying. We really loved it, and would relish an opportunity to go back again.

On Sunday we moved on down the road into Montreal. Now Aimee and I have been to Montreal before, so kinda knew what to expect, and after the experience of Ottawa, there was no real excitement.
It didn't help that we were pretty tired but we still had a nice night out and got to see some of the area.

The drive home was pretty uneventful, total tally for the trip:
KM's driven - 1200
Night's in hotels - 3
Stops at Tim Hortons - 8
Iced Capp's purchased - 20ish
Stops at dairy Queen - 3

The dark night

2008-07-30T08:04:00.003-04:00

So I'm now starting to play catchup with the blog here. I have photos that date back earlier in the month so the story is a little old.
Never mind dear reader, you don't mind being 15 days behind do you?

So, Mum and Dad have been here with me for 3 weeks now, we've been having a great time getting out and seeing things in Toronto we haven't seen before, and showing them the things we have enjoyed.
We have had at least 3 thunderstorms which have brought some exciting light shows.

Firstly, Batman.
HUGE movie, we haven't seen it yet because we're trying to see it on the massive downtown IMAX screen but tickets are selling out before we can get them. Soon my pretties, soon...

So, moving along.
Stay tuned for the story of our road trip out to Ottawa and Montreal,

coming soon

NZ on TV again

2008-07-04T20:37:00.002-04:00

I saw this on comedy central the other night, just had to link to it.

Edit - So youtube took the video down because it breached somebody's copyright of intellectual property.
It was a funny dig at NZ because we are betterer that America.

We're coming home

2008-06-24T08:50:00.004-04:00

...Continued from below.

After a nice rest in the sun we decided it was time to press on.
No bus was coming to pick us up, no helicopter ride back was organised, it was pedal power all the way.

As we descended down the riverside and approached the falls we again came under the direction of marshalls, who laughed when we told them we had just come from and were riding back to Toronto. It took some convincing to let them pass us straight through.

We went through some very nice little towns as the clouds cleared and my speedo indicated that I had reached the longest ride of my life. Only 130 more km to go...

We were joined by a couple of other hairshirt participants and for a while our group numbered seven. Shortly after we struck a steepish hill, and in a fit of power Jake managed to burst a spoke out of his back wheel. Given that his bike only has 16 spokes in each wheel this effectively ended his ride and the car was called in.

Our group split up, and I rode on with Greg and Adam as we approached 'death valley' or Fly road - a 30km stretch of relatively flat, straight blacktop which radiates the sun's heat back up at you. It's a long boring piece, and the mind wanders as you have little visual stimulation.
After over an hour of slogging along Fly road we began looking for our turn on Eleventh line. We had passed 14th, 12th, and then 34th. Certain we had missed it, a quick phone call revealed the others to be waiting for us just around the bend and we gladly stopped and re-filled water bottles.

Jake and Adam swapped places so that Jake who had been training for this ride was able to finish on Adam's bike.

We continued on further and the closer we got, the more comfortable I became that I was going to finish. With only 50km to go, we started passing through towns and the scenery and town names became more familiar to me.

We crossed the bridge at Burlington which was rather interesting. The main highway goes over a high bridge not unlike the Auckland harbour bridge.
We went over a much lower bridge, with a surface of sharp metal laid out like chicken wire and I felt very uneasy riding on it. I could have slipped or punctured at any second.
We were fortunate that there were no boats trying to get through either, as the whole bridge lifts up twenty metres or so and could have delayed us half an hour at worst. But the bridge was down so we rode on over into Burlington - Oakville and finally into Mississauga.
With the towers fast approaching Rob and I took off with whatever energy we had left, just to be done with this ride. The final 10km disappeared and suddenly there was our welcoming party waiting with big smiles of congratulations.

We had done it. 330km from Toronto to Niagara and back in only 14 hours total time.
Max speed 70kph, Average 27kph.

Where am I?

2008-06-23T17:27:00.008-04:00

So it's been a while since the last post. The snow is long gone, as are any memories of winter. The summer has brought Toronto out of hibernation.

There are festivals, barbecue smells everywhere you go and lots of cyclists on the road.
That's where I fit in.
Yesterday was Sunday the 22nd of June; the day of the TNT Hairshirt.

The Hairshirt, a personal cycling challenge whose name comes from a medieval form of monasterial punishment and penance, in which monks wore shirts woven of very coarse horse hair, causing them to experience extreme discomfort. Founded in 1978 the Hairshirt pits the lonely rider and his/her bicycle against the road and the elements, and for this reason the organizers provide no support other than a map and encouragement.

We began at 6am from Square One Mall in Mississauga (Mississauga is to Toronto as the Hutt Valley is to Wellington).
If truth be told, we began by driving the 30km to the start line, so the day really started with breakfast at 4:30am to allow digestion time for preventing cramps.

Anyway, at about 18 degrees and cloudy, today wasn't going to be too hot so was shaping up to be a good ride. Aimee had jumped into a car, so she and Suzy (Wife, Mum and Aunt to my fellow riders to Rob, Jake, Greg and Adam) provided support by way of food, water and most importantly directions.

We headed off in search of some smooth roads, and were rewarded with some relatively quiet and smooth roads for the first 60km or so. It was overcast, so cooler temperatures meant hydration wasn't too much of a problem.
As I was the only rookie in our group, the boys replayed memories "remember that's where I punctured in '06"; "this is where I hit the wall last year" etc.
Since my preparation hadn't been exactly full of endurance efforts, I spent the first half of the race wondering if I was going to make it.
The longest ride I've done before coming to Canada was 160km around Taupo.
The longest distance I've ever covered was last weekend with a 180km effort out into the countryside and I arrived home in pretty bad shape, so setting out today in search of 320km would be really pushing it.

As we moved further west we also inched south. Due to the idea of the ride being a 'double century' or 200 miles, we weren't taking a direct route to Niagara. The wind was kind, and the pavement just seemed to melt away behind us.
The first missed turn happened as we pulled into a nice village, and we'd fished in our pockets for sustenance. I had to make a U-turn with a banana in my hand, while Greg did it holding his delicious strawberry granola bars, of their taste he reminded us of throughout the ride.

At one point after telling me all about how he had avoided the thin tyres this year and going for the cheaper thicker ones, Rob had a puncture.

Still we continued and passed through a 'tunnel' which the guys kept talking about and were excited by the descent into it. It turned out to be merely an underpass under a river, with 300m of a nice steady slope, not much to write home about since I come from Wellington! We know tunnels and hills.

Shortly after we were joining up with the cancer riders.
This same weekend as the hairshirt was the Princess Margaret ride to conquer cancer;
A 2 day ride from Toronto to Niagara with an overnight stop half way.
Still no mean feat and well done to the 2000 or so people who completed it, and each raised the minimum $2000 for charity.
The marshalls for that ride got rather concerned when we ignored their signals and shouted after us "NO, LEFT TURN - LEFT TURN!!!".
Before actually arriving at the falls, we stopped in a grassy area for a break and some lunch.
A few seconds later the car with Aimee and Suzy showed up with sandwiches, more water and even a picnic blanket.

We had an enjoyable rest in the sun while we mentally prepared for the ride home.

Toronto?

2008-05-10T15:28:00.004-04:00

Toronto has changed.
Its gone all green; when we left there were snow piles and bare trees, yet now all the snow has gone and the trees have started to grow leaves again =)
It looks pretty good and can only get better.

I did hear that while we were away, all the snow that was piled up in the area melted and actually raised the level of the lake significantly enough to cause flooding in boatsheds and put some piers underwater.

For those of you worried about me now giving a weather forecast, don't worry. I'm not going to talk about how the temperatures here have been warmer than NZ, or about how when we arrived it suddenly got cold, just like it did when we when we got to Wellington.

My workmates were also kind enough to sell one of my monitors while I was away.
I arrived back to only one 19" LCD and a 19" square of cardboard with an error message written on it, and "Made in NZ" on the back...
Haha, funny guys

Today is May 24th which is Mayday. According to one of my neighbors, after the 24th you can safely plant flowers outside without fear of frosts. Now that's something I didn't know. In any case, flowers are suddenly on sale everywhere, and the shops have gone form advertising snow blowers to gardening supplies and outdoor hammocks.
All the tour operators are running full steam again too, downtown traffic now has large red or yellow tour buses, and of course the hippo. An amphibious tour bus that not only gives you a tour of the city, but also takes you on a tour of lake Ontario.
The beach community sprung up 70 volleyball nets and Toronto is coming alive with festivals.
No wonder people are so depressed in winter, there's so much that happens in summer it's hard to think about anything else.

Right, I'm off to do another lap of the city on my bike, will add to my first sunburn of the year that I got yesterday

Aimee and Chris back in Canada

2008-05-01T15:28:00.002-04:00

So we're back.
We've actually been back a couple of weeks now, things are moving along like we'd never left.

Getting back to NZ was great, thank you to all the people with whom we were able to share dinners, lunches and even a brunch (although our tardiness made it lunch).

As most of you will know, flying around the world is very tiring. On the way back to NZ we had managed to score seats close to the front on all 4 legs of the trip, however coming back to Canada was a different story. Only four rows from the back of the plane meant we felt every flick and waggle of the 777's tail as we bumped our way across a turbulent pacific.
At one air pocket, people even screamed as the whole plane dropped a couple of feet. You could hear the pilots powering up the engines to pull the plane through and it was rather disconcerting.

As usual, American customs agents welcomed us with open arms, fingerprints, iris scans, metal detectors and having to re-check our bags even though we were transiting.
I think part of the problem there is LAX isn't designed for transit passengers. You have to clear customs because there's no link back to the outgoing planes. To get to departures you have to go outside and up a level; perhaps some internal stairs like at Sydney would help?

Whatever the design problems, transiting thru LAX was pretty painless, except for the lack of signage.

After finally arriving back in toronto, we were treated to a most excellent midnight feast and then safely transported back to our beds.

Aimee and Chris in NZ

2008-04-12T04:29:00.003-04:00

So we're back!
NZ is just the same as we left it, but with a few changes.
Lambton Quay looks to have been under constant improvement, especially with the images of dead bodies on the street to encourage people to look BOTH WAYS before crossing the road.

I have had this fear for a while that i'm going to get run over here. After forcing myself to look left - right - left while in Canada, going back to right - left - right has been harder then I thought.
Still, switching back to driving correctly has been easy.

At the request of Precious, Kristen and Jaena, no more posts about the weather.
So now i'm going to do book reviews:

The current book i'm reading is called 'The Ruins', which is also a movie about to come out on the big screen soon. It gets off to a slow start, but it's actually getting pretty good now that people are starting to die.
The premise is of some kids who are in Cancun Mexico - instead of spending the whole time relaxing on the beach they one day decide to visit some ruins.
They then get stuck in the ruins and face their deaths in new and exciting ways.
Scared yet?

Me neither. But it's still a good read, and I've got 3 more books from the geniuses that host the BBC motoring show Top Gear to read before I go back to Toronto.

Two more weeks in this lovely country we call home and I need your help faithful reader.
Aimee has been rather slack in posting to this blog. She did a couple of posts when we were in San Francisco nine months ago, but hasn't written anymore.
I need lots of people to comment, asking, pleading, begging for her to write some more.
If you don't, i'm going to talk about the weather some more... now where did I put that book on tidal currents?

Airports

2008-04-05T19:08:00.002-04:00

Toronto airport is actually quite nice.
We had only seen the arrival side, so sitting in the departure lounge i'm plugged into the free wireless internet and free power plugs so i'm happy.

There's an hour until we board our flight, it's going to be technically 48 hours until we get to see Wellington shores.
See, we leave Toronto at 8pm, Saturday, and arrive in Wellington 9pm Monday.
Then coming back, we arrive at the same time we left. No fair. We lose two days going home but only gain one on the way back.
Who can I sue for this lost day?

Aimee and I were talking before, and we have decided that along with the inflight entertainment package that you get from your seat, there should be an inflight exercise program.
I'm thinking some pedals or a treadmill under the seats that you can use while you watch the inflight movie.
They could even go so far as to use the energy you're creating in your workout to put power back into the plane in much the same way as some Gyms do with their exercise equipment.
I'm thinking of a readout above you of your original ticket price, and as you exercise the price goes down so you get a nice little bonus as you step off the plane.

We're just worried that the airlines will actually come to rely on the passengers to supply energy that they will make it mandatory to do a few km's or we start losing altitude!

Something to ponder as we sit for the next few hours trying to block out the noise of the engines.

Something

2008-03-18T08:14:00.003-04:00

It's been a long time since my last post, so I need to say something.
SOMETHING!

Just watched the Toronto Maple Leafs play their final game of the season. Thanks guys, you really made it worthwile. 8-2 loss to Ottawa, good thing the tickets were already paid for.

Anyway, Aimee and I are going home on Saturday. We're both looking forward to it, three weeks at home enjoying seeing family again, breathing the fresh air and sipping a few Welly chino's.

I've been doing a bit of cycling in Toronto now that the weather is above freezing, here's a few things I learned:

1. it doesn't look that cold out there. But looks can be deceiving.
2. The air looks clean out there. See above.
3. Traffic looks pretty bad. Actually it's not that bad. Drivers are more than willing to give you more space on the road, probably due to the fact their insurance will go up if you hit them.
4. Repeat number 1.

We're in NZ for three weeks of April, so track us down and meet up with us. Those of you who are important will know who to talk to to find us, so do it!
We leave to come back to Canada on April 26th, the clock starts now...

And the winner is...

2008-03-12T08:02:00.004-04:00

Adrienne!

She kinda had it in the bag anyway, as I owe her some RJ's licorice I gave her the head's up as soon as I posted.
Prize delivery may take some time, click here for status updates.

So here's the website where I got this map from:
http://users.pandora.be/worldstandards/driving on the left.htm

Some interesting history for you:

Back in the old country (Britain), swordsmen preferred to keep their horses left in order to have their right sword arm nearer to an opponent.

Then in the 1700's as the American's began hauling loads with two horses wide, they sat on the left horse to allow their stronger right arm free to whip the horses. Therefore they drove the horses on the right to give them a better vision of oncoming traffic.

Before the French revolution in 1789 the aristocrats travelled on the left, forcing peasants over to the right. After the revolution, they preferred to keep a low profile and joined the rest of the French on the right side of the road.

Hitler ordered the Germans and Austrians to switch sides in 1938, and the mass export of American vehicles around this time caused much of the rest of the world to follow their lead.
Others simply wanted to alienate themselves from Mother England as much as possible so switched.
Unfortunately Japan was a bit too slow to get it's vehicle exports increased or we might have seen more countries still driving on the left.

Some countries who did want to change, but decided against it were:
Britain - the motion was defeated due to the immense cost and pride in their heritage.
Pakistan - They couldn't get the camels to understand the new system.

So anyway, well done Adrienne, and anybody else who had similar ideas but didn't voice them.
If you disagree with anything here, remember the old saying "I read it on the internet, it must be true".

What is this?

2008-03-08T21:42:00.004-05:00

Some RJ's licorice goes to the first person who can explain what the orange countries do differently from the green ones.

I'll post the answer and the supporting website later in the week.

New photos posted

2008-03-02T15:26:00.003-05:00

Not much has happened this week. Carmel left yesterday, but I'm sure she will be back. When we had another 10cm of snow on Friday we were worried about delays with the flights, but it stopped that evening and the airport was back on schedule Saturday morning.

The weather is supposed to be warming up, but we're not seeing it.
The amount of snow we have is still burying bikes, cars and as you can see a park bench!
The city has a $65 Million dollar budget to clear snow, and this year it's not been enough.
Every day trucks are moving snow out of the downtown core and out where there's a MASSIVE snow pile further north. I imagine it will take a few weeks of hot weather for that to all melt.

My trainer for my bike has arrived and so far I've put about 65km on it. My aim is to partake in the double century ride to Niagara called 'The Hairshirt' - info here:

The Hairshirt, a personal cycling challenge whose name comes from a medieval form of monasterial punishment and penance, in which monks wore shirts woven of very coarse horse hair, causing them to experience extreme discomfort. Founded in 1978 the Hairshirt pits the lonely rider and his/her bicycle against the road and the elements, and for this reason the organizers provide no support other than a map and encouragement.

So yeah, that's what i'm working towards. I have until June 22 to go from being a winter couch potato to a lean mean cycling machine.
Recently I picked up

Lance Armstrong's War: One Man's Battle Against Fate, Fame, Love, Death, Scandal, and a Few Other Rivals on the Road to the Tour de France
by Daniel Coyle

It was in the bargain bin at a local book store, so hopefully can provide me some motivation in my preparation.
Preparation that will be challenged somewhat by a month off in April.
For those of you who aren't aware, Aimee and I are returning to NZ on the 7th of April.

We'll be home for about 3 weeks, enough time to hug the family, smell the fresh air, see some friends and remember what home feels like. Save some of your summer for us eh?!

Anyway, as the head of this post reads, we've posted some of our recent photos in the usual place to show you it's not all work work work...
http://picasaweb.google.com/aimee.carbonell

Chris OUT!

Just when you thought winter was over...

2008-02-25T21:54:00.004-05:00

Bleh...

The problems with firefighting in Winter

2008-02-21T08:16:00.003-05:00

Big news this week is a 6 alarm fire that happened just 3 blocks North West of my office.
Here's a little lesson:

How Big Is A 6-Alarm Fire?

They're thankfully very rare but they do happen and they force crews to throw everything at them. Here's a look at the varying degrees of a fire.

1st Alarm

2 pumpers, 1 aerial truck, and 1 district chief

If it's downtown or involves a highrise building, a highrise truck is used. If it's a working fire an air supply truck, which provides breathing cylinders, and a heavy rescue squad are called.

2nd Alarm

5 pumpers, 2 aerials, 1 squad, 1 hazardous materials truck, 2 district chiefs, 1 platoon chief, 1 air supply vehicle, and 1 incident command vehicle.

3rd Alarm

8 pumpers, 3 aerials, 1 squad, 3 district chiefs, 1 platoon, 1 air lights, 1 hazard, 1 command vehicle, 1 division commander,

4th Alarm

11 pumpers, 4 aerials, 1 squad, 4 district chiefs, 1 platoon, 1 air supply vehicle, 1 hazardous materials truck, 1 command vehicle, 1 division commander

5th Alarm

14 pumpers, 5 aerials, 2 squads, 5 district chiefs, 1 platoon, 1 division commander, 1 command vehicles, 2 air supply trucks, 1 hazardous materials vehicles, other support staff if needed.

6th Alarm

17 pumpers, 6 aerials, 2 squads, 6 district chiefs, 1 platoon, 1 division commander, 1command vehicle, 2 air supply truck, 1 hazardous materials truck.

7th Alarm

20 pumpers, 7 aerials, 2 squads, 7 district chiefs, 1 platoon, 1 division commander, 1 command vehicle, 2 air supply trucks, 1 hazardous materials.

So now you know that it was a big deal, here's the problem. Water + Cold = Ice.
150 firefighters sprayed water onto the blaze, and in the cold temperatures, some of it came down as snow and the rest of it froze on power lines and the firefighters it landed on.
Once the fire was out, work began to pump out the water before it froze and turned the street into a skating rink.
Interestingly I heard on the radio this morning that one of the people saved from the flames hadn't been paying attention during fire drill. He was waving from a window as he could not get out the emergency exits. So when rescuers put the ladder up to his balcony, he handed them a laptop and then ran inside for his stereo!
He was dragged out and carried down the ladder.

I pity the fool!

Toronto

2008-02-20T08:05:00.003-05:00

I've been meaning to write something for a while now, but I keep thinking that not much has happened that's worth writing about.
Well, looking back it's been a pretty good start to the year.
Toronto for example has had quite a few things happen to it:
- The price of gas (petrol) has risen to $1.05 per litre and everybody is complaining!
- There's been 8 shooting related deaths in Toronto this year. Mostly in other neighbourhoods but there was one just one subway stop up from us!
- There's been 2 train derailments. One in the subway system out east which shut the line down for about 36 hours. Affected about a million people trying to get into work and home again.
- There's been a lot of snow, not record levels but February has been a cold snowy month. Just when we thought the winter was over and all the snow had melted, we had lots and lots come back down. Temps this week are back in the -6 region.

As for us, the last 9 days were pretty exciting. We purchased a city pass, which is a discount ticket book which gives entry into 7 of Toronto's attractions.

So last weekend we went to the Royal Ontario Museum and saw the dinosaurs.
After that we tried to go up the CN Tower but it was snowing and cloudy so not really worth it.

The next day we woke up early and the skies were blue. After a nice warm brunch at a local cafe, we headed into town, but the clouds had come back. So to pass the time we used the next ticket in our book and went to the Hockey Hall of Fame. A very cool place with memorabilia from Canada's rich hockey history. I even got to stand next to the coveted Stanley Cup. It has more history than the America's cup, and has been through more iterations too, the shape of the cup has changed about 4 times since it was first created.

After learning about hockey, we looked outside and the clouds had cleared. We fought our way through the freezing cold to the base of the CN Tower, only to be informed that it was too windy and the top section was closed! Hah, as Wellingtonians we laugh in the face of high winds, but were unable to do anything about today's problem.

The rest of the week passed in the way any other working week does, but we had the resolve to get back up the CN Tower.

So when saturday rolled around, the weather was beautiful and we headed into town.
After getting lost driving around the mall parking lot looking for a park (that's a whole other story) we caught the subway into town to take one last stab at getting up the CN Tower.
After a short wait in the lines, we were scanned for bombs and allowed up in the glass elevator.
It travelled vertically at 55kmh for 58 seconds to ascend to the first viewing level of the tower.
We had a quick look around the main level, jumped on the glass floor as you do, then went up to the sky pod.
This is what we came for; another hundred metres up and with a full and unobstructed view of Toronto. On a clear day you can see all the way to Niagara Falls.

Snow snow snow

2008-02-07T19:42:00.000-05:00

Now I know what you're going to say,
"Come on Chris, not another blog post about the weather".

But this is great. We had a really warm few weeks at the end of January - warm being relative; temps from 2 - 8 degrees some days. So that melted all the snow and took us just back to a cold green Toronto.
But since the weekend things have totally changed.
We had that big snowstorm while we were up snowboarding which dropped 30cm on the city, then last night the snow began again and it's put another 20cm on the city, making it the largest 24 hour snowfall in 30 years according to the TV.

That all comes on the back of people back home telling me that NZ's having their warmest Summer in 10 years. Hah, vote in the poll on the right of our blog and judge for yourself what is better - warm or cold.

I have to say, while the snow is very nice, when it melts it does cause a bit of a problem.
To help you summer ones understand what we're going through, imagine you're baking a really big cake. You need a lot of flour. You spill enough to leave a 30cm high pile on the floor.
You invite the rest of the neighbourhood to walk around in it for a while, then add in some water, salt and dirt.
Then have a few cars splash it around on your cupboard doors and all up your pants.
Then before it gets all sticky push it all up in a pile in front of your fridge so you have to step over it every time you want something.

That's nothing like what we're going through, but was fun to write =)

And the best bit, it's costing the city MILLIONS to clean it up. This snowfall from today is costing the city of Toronto $4 Million to clean up.
There's more predicted for the rest of the week, and still people continue to ride their bikes to work =)

Skiing - in January

2008-02-04T23:38:00.000-05:00

The winter does have something good, snow!
We travelled north of Toronto for an hour and a half to the Horseshoe Valley to stay at a very nice lodge with a very well stocked fridge.

With the temperatures dropping we ventured into town for some additional clothing, and hit the slopes ready to party!

The ski hill at Horseshoe valley was only a hill, and the lodge was nearly at the top. You actually had to drive down a hill to get the the base of the 'mountain'.
It was still a great day, and we have the bruises to prove it.

The next day we headed out to Mount St. Louis which was much more of a ski area, but the snow was coming down in buckets at a time. Driving was the most difficult I've ever had to, and after only 6 hours in the parking lot we had to dig the car out.

The storm then came in later on friday and pushed back our return trip home, but at least there was time for one more game of scrabble...

Monster Trucks

2008-01-20T11:28:00.000-05:00

It was a cold day, so we decided to go into town, where the action was hot, and the engines LOUD!

We had to sit waaay up in the 'nosebleeds', but it was still noisy

There was some big air

and some big damage

Filler

2008-01-18T07:52:00.000-05:00

Saw this the other day while surfing friends profiles in Facebook.
Hi Todd!

I'm sure a few people out there can relate...

NYC: Day 4 - Bye bye

2008-01-05T08:53:00.000-05:00

The final day.
And some might say the best day.

We woke up early with the intention of doing everything we haven't had a chance to do yet.
Hah! Ok, we'll try and cover a few more things anyway. As my parents say, it's nice to have a few things left undone so that you have an excuse to come back. =)

We checked out of the hotel, and went to continue our 48 hour tour.
As they had been closed yesterday, we went up to one of the sellers, who went and got the boss, and we were told that our tickets were still valid, and if anybody asks "just tell 'em Bobby sent ya!"

So today's tour was uptown. The tour would take us up the West side, around central park, through Harlem and back down the east side.
It was the best part of the tour because it was the real New York. Realistic living environments, and a very interesting part of town.
Interestingly dog walkers make $25 per dog per walk on the west side, compared to $15 per dog on the more affluent east side.

Anyway, as Aimee and I shivered away in the near freezing temperatures on top of the double decker, we had a great time laughing at the guide's jokes, and ducking as traffic lights passed very close overhead.

Harlem was nowhere near as scary as people make it sound. It looked very nice, and according to our guide, all the people who back in the 80's were making a living mugging are now in the lucrative market downtown of selling fake Prada and Gucci to tourists.

As the tour continued around central park, Aimee and I got off at the MET. The Metropolitan Museum of art.
Very cool museum with lots of fancy sculptures and paintings, we even met Napoleon Bonepart.

After 2 hours in here carrying all our luggage, I was ready to leave and we made the very lovely walk across central park to the the Museum of Natural History - as seen in the movie 'Night at the Museum'.

I was very impressed with all the pieces on display, but disappointed not to recognize any scenes from the movie. None at all!
It looks like hollywood struck again, a fake museum was created then torn down once shooting was finished.
We did see the dinosaur skeleton which was in the entrance in the movie, now up in the dino wing on the 3rd floor.

Great museum; well worth the visit.
Now it was time to go home, so we flagged down a yellow cab from outside, and after a comfortable trip to the airport we were waiting with the other passengers for our flight back to Canada.

The weather in canada had laid out a lot of snow on new years day, so the flight in front of us was still waiting for their plane.
Fortunately ours was on it's way, and with only a 30 minute delay, we were back home in Toronto and in bed ready for a full day's work tomorrow.

NYC: Day 3 - new years day

2008-01-05T08:51:00.001-05:00

Happy New YEAR!

We had a bit of a sleep-in, as today was going to be a slightly relaxing day. Not a lot of things will be open, so we need to find our own entertainment.

The first stop was the subway, and a ride downtown.
Our impressions of the New York subways have improved now, although still markedly different to the Canadian trains.
As we passed through ground zero, the outside became light as the subterranean tunnel was momentarily in the open air; then back into the dimness.

When we got off, we walked back to the world trade centre site, and stood in quiet respect as we tried to imagine what it must have been like with those massive towering buildings standing there.

The area was mostly tourists, so we carried on southwards to the bottom of Manhattan. As we passed tunnels and bridges, we realised that the Americans seem to always want to build a city on an island or on a river, just so that they can come up with ways to get over or under it. There are so many bridges and tunnels going onto Manhattan.

We soon came across Battery park, and the long line of tourists wanting to get onto Liberty Island.
We looked at the line, and spoke to a guide who said it was about 30 minutes to get tickets, and another hour to get onto the boat.

As the day was quickly moving on, we took a photo in front of an artwork that was in one of the collapsed towers and moved on.

The next stop was the port where the ferry leaves to Statten Island.
Again with time limited, and wanting to have a good look around if we did go there, we watched one of the ferries unload it's mass of people, and continued walking up the eastern edge of Manhattan.

We found Wall st, and the NYSE before heading back to the South Street Seaport.
Kind of like Auckland's waterfront bar area, there were some 100 shops in here and a large foodcourt. We found a restaurant to have dinner at and for the first time in a long time, Aimee was asked for ID when ordering a drink with her meal!

After a photo of Aimee and the famous Brooklyn bridge, we were on our way back to Wall st, and the Wall St subway stop.
While studying the map as I regularly do, we actually met a real New Yorker! He kindly asked if we were ok, as he had also been lost in other cities of the world.
We got talking to him, and sadly he didn't actually work on Wall st but back up in Times Square.
We caught an express train back to times square, and decided to walk around a bit more.

We went to the Rockerfeller centre a few blocks east, and saw the big christmas tree and the ice skating rink.

Again the lines were over an hour long and skates $18 to hire, plus paying for ice time so photos were enough.

After a quick walk back, and a nosy in through the M&M gift shop, we were soundly asleep.

NYC: Day 2 - New Years eve

2008-01-05T08:49:00.000-05:00

Monday dawned to the sounds of traffic outside our window, and the maid doing the rounds of the rooms on our floor.

We headed out for breakfast, and went to buy some tickets for a tour of the city.
Most of the tours don't actually have an office where you line up, they just have a bunch of people in red jackets roaming the street with mobile eftpos terminals.
They push the hard sell on everybody walking past, so fortunately I had done some investigation from brochures picked up, and already decided on the tour we wanted. However the ticket seller reccomended an upgrade, and after some quick calculations we picked up a 2 day pass to New York, including double decker bus tours downtown, uptown, harbour tour and tickets to the Empire State Building.

The first stop on the tour was the empire state building. While our tour ticket included a pre-paid voucher, we still had to line up to collect our tickets. It was a 30 minute wait on the street to get inside, then another lineup for 20 minutes to go through security, then another 5 minute line to get the tickets and then 30 minutes wait to get into the elevator! Once on the 80th floor, we skipped the 10 minute line for the final elevator, and took the stairs with some breathless tourists up to the 86th floor viewing deck.

New York looks much nicer from upon high, we took some photos and enjoyed the views before heading down back to street level.

Once on the street, we had some time for a bit of holiday bargain hunting in Banana Republic, then jumped back on the double decker tour bus.
As we moved downtown, we saw Greenwich village and the first sign that Manhattan supports the growing of real trees. Also Christopher st - for those who don't want the straight route.
SOHO was a heavy bustle of people on the sidewalks and lots of shopping and honking of horns.
We got off the bus in Chinatown, and were surrounded by people selling DVD's, prada and rolex for cheap cheap cheap!

We found some dinner in a local Chinese restaurant, and went to get back on the bus. We waited for 30 minutes where it dropped us off, but no buses appeared. Because it is new years eve, the buses stopped early, fortunately Aimee and I are subway savvy, so we grabbed a coffee and headed back to our hotel.

When we got off at the 42nd st stop, Times square had been shut down. Police had closed the subway stops and all streets going into Times Square. This allows them to control the number of people in the area, however keeps out unknowing tourists like us.
Aimee and I could not believe that we had come all this way only to be stuck on a side street... so close but so far away.
On advice from the police we began to walk uptown to the streets where they were still letting people in... From 46th, we tried 49th, 55th, 57th and finally headed in with an ever increasing crowd at 59th st.
[Sarcastic] Yay, the only view we had was a big screen 6 blocks away replaying the action.

Feeling pretty let down, we decided that even if we couldn't see it, we could at least hear the celebrations by waiting at 46th street by our hotel.
After telling our sob story to a few officers and getting shoo'd away, one kind rookie must have seen the tears welling in Aimee's eyes, and escorted us into the celebrations!

So here's a tip for those travelling to times square for a new years party; get to times square by 6pm before they close the streets, and stay there.
That way you can avoid the disappointment of possibly missing out, and won't have to beg and plead to get let in.

So the party in times square was amazing, 1 million people partying, lights and music everywhere, and of course the continually increasing number of people, without actually being squashed in.

Our view was fantastic, we were right in the middle of the X shaped square, being on 45th st and the ball dropping from on top of a building on 42nd st.
The music stages we're right behind us on 47th st, and MTV had a stage only meters from where we stood.

At the top of every hour, we had a 'practice' countdown which turned out to be the stroke of midnight in another timezone. When the ball dropped for the new York midnight, the crowd went wild, the fireworks exploded and masses of confetti rained from the sky.

After midnight, most people went away soon after 12, and by 20 past the cleanup crews were in full swing; according to the news 1 metric tonne of confetti was cleaned off the street the next day.

After breathing in the last of the atmosphere, Aimee and I took the short walk back to our hotel, only to find that the lobby had become a VIP only party, and about 30 guests were crowding the doors trying to get up to their rooms.
Being held back while party goers entered unopposed made some guests rather angry, especially after hearing feeble excuses as management tried to delay our entry while they made preparations to ensure we didn't enter or damage the mood of the party...

So while people were yelling at the bouncer, they got progressively more angry, until eventually a few were let in. One older lady was separated from her group as the bouncer stopped too many people from going in, and her daughter pulled her through. Another British guy was left behind from his wife, and swore angrily at the big guy as only the brits know how, pushing his way past.
By this point the bouncer was pretty upset, declaring 'I've had enough of this!' And tore out his earpiece, going after the British guy. Fortunately the wife and the night manager stepped in, and balance was restored before and punches were swung, and the rest of the crowd was ushered in; much to our relief.

Once in our room, sleep soon took over.

NYC: Day 1

2008-01-05T08:26:00.000-05:00

The trip to new York got off to a good start. After finding that the Toronto subways don't start on Sundays until 8am, we caught a cab to the airport.
No traffic holdups later, we were one and a half hours early for our 9am flight.
The flight left 10 min early as it was only 2 thirds full, and a tailwind put us in La Guardia airport, almost 30 minutes ahead of schedule.

The yellow cab ride was no different from most others, but did seem a little faster, and closer to the car in front. Also the cab had a screen with advertising and a GPS map so we could see where we were.

As soon as we were on Manhattan island and going across town, things of course slowed up, but we soon arrived at Macys on 34th and Broadway.

Unfortunately for us, they had just packed up their Christmas display, but we had a good look around the 'worlds biggest store' for an hour or so.

After Macy's it was time for lunch, so skipped across the road to a pizzaria for a new York slice.

Feeling better after a bite, we wandered down to the end of the block to go up the Empire State building, but after seeing the queue stretching down the road and around the corner, we decided to come back later.

So now we needed to get from 34th st to our hotel on 46th st, and what better way than to use the subway.
Well, what a trip. It was only 1 stop to our destination of times square, but after using the subways in Vancouver and Toronto we were just shocked. I'm never going to complain about the Toronto subway ever again.
While the station with its 3 levels and multiple train routes on one track does make things confusing, it just didn't feel right. Dirty, dark and downright weird.

So anyway, we came out at the 42nd st times square stop, and fought our way through the masses of people on 7th avenue. I have never seen anything like it, it was like coming out of a rugby game at athletic park, but the exit is 4 city blocks long and there are people on the side selling things.

We checked into the hotel at around 2:30pm, and found the room on the 9th floor. It was at the end of the corridor and in the right place for a nice view over times square, but instead walked into a broom closet with a double bed! Wondering where the rest of it was, Aimee and I found the equally sized bathroom, but that was all there was.
Hmmm, 3 nights in this? Hopefully we'll not be spending too much time here anyway, and it doesn't matter how big the room is when you're asleep.

After a revitalizing nap, we went out for some dinner at planet Hollywood in times square, and had a bit more of a look around before retiring for the night.

HAPPY NEW YEAR

2008-01-03T00:03:00.000-05:00

Welcome to 2008 everybody!

We're back from New York, and have happily returned to Toronto, only to find it buried under 15-20cm of snow.

I had a little downtime while we were away to jot down some notes about our travel, so watch this space for a 4 (or more) part series on our little new years getaway:

Merry Christmas and a Happy New York

2007-12-29T12:21:00.000-05:00

Merry Christmas Everybody!

This will be our last post for the year, as early tomorrow morning Aimee and I fly out of Toronto and won't be coming back until next year!
We are headed for New York, to spend our new years celebration with the millions of others that gather in New York's famous Times Square.

We will watch the ball drop, as it counts down the last 60 seconds of 2007. Here's a video of what we can expect this year:

Admittedly most of you will already at least 12 hours into 2008, but we will have fun all the same =)

We have 3 nights there, so keep an eye on our photo page, once we get back we'll put up photos of all the things we've seen.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

Green Christmas

2007-12-18T23:04:00.000-05:00

Well,

Who would have thunk it. This morning's paper revealed the grim news, no more snow for us. In fact, temperatures for this weekend are predicted to be 6 degrees on saturday, and 8 degrees on sunday!

That will certainly make a dent in the snow piles that have been pushed to the edge of the roads and it's likely that we'll have a lovely green christmas, just like all you kiwis out there. I might have to go and buy a BBQ.

So last weekend we had about 30cm of snow which buried roads, gardens and cars.
The next day when it stopped the city workers had the laborious job of clearing the streets, main streets first pushing the mass of snow off the road, and into huge 5 foot piles of the stuff on the side of the road.
4 lane streets became 2 lanes and 2 half lanes.
Nice wide footpaths became single track, and walking is like walking through wet flour.
Transitioning from the road to the footpath involves jumping over a pile of snow, or finding an area where it's clear.
Now things have melted a bit; wet feet are surely the outcome.

This weekend we go shopping for BOOTS!

The storm is coming

2007-12-15T12:35:00.001-05:00

The picture says it all really...

Cracking Nuts

2007-12-13T07:55:00.000-05:00

Well last night it was the nutcracker, and I have to say, what a great auditorium.

The acoustics were so amazing, I could hear the little triangle from all the way in the orchestra pit out to my seat, and could not see a single speaker or amp anywhere.
The orchestra was clear and played very well, sounded brilliant.
I recognized so many of the tunes they played from ads on TV.

I have to say thanks to my parents for telling me all about the story of the nutcracker when I was young, i really recognised the parts of the story... NOT!

Hehe, I had to do a fast and furious read of the synopsis during intermission, because I had no idea what was going on; who would have thought that a ballet would have all dancing and no dialogue!
I guess that's fine, cos all the speaking would have been in Russian anyway.

Anyway, the production was really well done, superb costumes and the sets were very cool and Aimee really enjoyed herself.

snow snow snow, rain... sun!

2007-12-12T13:06:00.000-05:00

Well, we've certainly had a mixed bag of the weather lately.
Two Sundays ago, Aimee and I were stomping through 1 foot of snow and throwing snowballs at each other; while forecasters advised drivers to avoid traveling as plows were struggling to clear snow from main roads.
As they pushed snow from the lanes of highways, they blocked on-ramps with their piles!

So that massive dump has now cleared, and we've been having snow on and off for the last 2 weeks. Yesterday the temperatures finally rose above freezing, allowing the rain to help with moving some of the dirty grey piles from the side of the road.

Todays weather highlight is I had to get out my sunglasses, as it's a sunny 1 degree!

So we've also been up to some other antics. Check out our photos from the link at the top, on Saturday we drove north and cut down our Christmas tree.

The tree farm was called Hockley Alley, it is a few acres of trees in different stages of growth, with tractors towing people to and from their cars, and Clydesdale's pulling people around in a sled. You can even sit by the bonfire and sip eggnog.

Later on Sunday we went ice skating downtown in an open free rink. We just had to hire skates.

Tonight we will be off to the ballet to watch the nutcracker, and then tomorrow is the eastbay Christmas party!

Fun stuff, so lots of relaxing this weekend I think.

Cold cold cold...

2007-12-01T09:00:00.000-05:00

It's cold.
People keep saying "But it's only November" and we're loving it. Things can only get colder from here.

Last week it snowed. It's only snowed twice since then, but nothing to really leave an impact. The strange thing is, there's still piles of snow in the city, like rubbish piles waiting to be taken away.
The temperatures haven't been warm enough to actually melt them.

Today is a nice day, and it's Aimee's birthday. We have rented a car just like we did for my birthday, and will take advantage of that by going shopping! No longer will we be restricted to buying only what we can carry on the subway, now we have a boot (trunk for you north americans) to fill up.

If you haven't been watching the latest season of the British motoring show Top Gear, watch it.
They cross the English channel in a car they converted into a boat. They raced through London and a bicycle won! They got stuck in an African desert, amazing stuff.

For our readers out there who keep complaining that we're not writing enough, "sorry".
Hehe, that word means a lot of things over here. Once on my way down to the laundry, I had it said to me 3 times within 2 minutes.
It seems to be a greeting - if 2 people touch on the subway "sorry".
It's also an excuse me - "sorry, can I get past?"
Or in last night's case - "sorry, I know you said Dacquari but i thought you'd like a Tanduay on the rocks instead"

Just cos she's from the philippines doesn't mean she automatically wants to drink Rhum.

So things here aren't interesting enough to blog every day, pretty soon we'll get bored talking about the snow, and how cold it is, and we'll have to revert to what those other bloggers out there do, ranting about their thoughts.
Nah...

So fun movie we watched last night, Mr Magorioum's Wonder Emporium.
Dustin Hoffman (meet the Fokkers) and Natalie Portman (V for Vendetta) are in charge of a magical toy store... bah, IMDB has a much better plot summary than I can give.
Just go watch it, it's good wholesome fun.

Also go play Call of Duty 4 - Modern warfare. Better yet, play it with surround sound on a 40" TV.

Winterland

2007-11-23T07:49:00.000-05:00

When we arrived in Toronto, it was hot. People were telling us that last year it didn't snow until January.

Well nuts to them! In the last 24 hours Toronto's weather went from Wellington on a rainy day to Mt Ruapehu in October!
We woke up to a transformed surroundings, everything had a dusting of white, and it wasn't stopping.
We had about 5cm of snow in the city, my balcony has a pile of snow on it and it kept growing all day.

Drivers weren't ready either, in all there were delays of two hours more than usual, and 300 reported traffic crashes including one man who died when his truck hit a car and rolled.

So winter is here, temperature right now is -8 degrees Celsius and on saturday the city is planning to open the outdoor ice skating rink in Nathan Phillips Square by the town hall.

what else?

2007-11-18T00:18:00.000-05:00

What else is left to talk about but the cold...

Snow fell on the ground yesterday morning, enough to turn the flower beds white and to give Aimee and I silly giggles as we walked through town.

Halloween is over, and the next set of decorating has begun for the local homeowners.
The garden displays for the scary season started going up a month before the actual day, and some were very elaborate. Pumpkins of course were getting sold by the barrow, and inflatable ghosts were jumping out of inflatable pumpkins...

Christmas is now just around the corner, and house lighting displays are beginning to take shape. The lights in the city are becoming festive, the only thing remaining now is for the Christmas sales and promotions to start.

Now, in any christmas I'm used to we'd be packing away the skis (unless Ruapehu had another great season and managed to do Christmas skiing), bring out the sunscreen and roll back the rain cover form the bbq.
However, things are a little different here; going outside is like falling into the harbour after capsizing during a bad gybe. You're just not ready for it.
I'm putting the hood on my jacket and looking at some more suitable footwear than my black work shoes. Apparently my jeans will be fine though.

Today is the Santa parade, so we're off to join the other 500,000 Torontonions who turn out every year to line the streets to get free candy. Dress in layers, lots of layers =)

ooooh, it's gettin' cold!

2007-11-09T07:41:00.000-05:00

I don't care what you say, snow does not fall during 'fall', Leaves are supposed to fall, not snow!

The last few week we have seen Toronto undergo a transformation. Water has been drained from outside structures like fountains and swimming pools, the people have switched from shorts to jeans, and sweaters to jackets, gloves and hats.

On Sunday night the news casters were discussing where the snow would be falling, and we got a couple of inches in the places north of Toronto. Then on Tuesday I was walking around with a grin on my face as the lightest of snow flakes began falling around me as I walked down the street, and Aimee's co-workers were wondering what she was doing as she stared out the windows smiling.

The fluffy hooded jackets are starting to prove their worth.
Photos to come soon, but keep checking our photo blog - link at the top

Anonymity

2007-10-31T23:10:00.000-04:00

I have to say, we're loving the comments people are leaving on our blog.
However, as brilliant as the internet is at hiding your identity, it would be nice to know who some of you are.

Feel free to leave a name
ie - Chris

at the bottom. Or at least say something that sounds distinctive enough for us to figure out who you are. Aimee and I are still scratching our heads over the most recent comment from S.C.
Intelligent thought, but any other clues as to who you are?

Oh, Top Gear is back on English TV. I'm watching the 3rd episode of the season now, those boys are just nuts! They tried to make amphibious cars again, and sail across the English Channel!

Apartment Living

2007-10-25T20:42:00.000-04:00

Well, living close to town is great.

I'm writing this from the couch, squinting at the text on my screen and wondering why the Ads on TV are so much louder than the program.
Aimee is probably upstairs in her room, watching her TV too.

Lots of things have happened since the last post. We've moved into our rooms, I'm one floor down and one to the east of Aimee's room. Just a quick dash up the stairs when I need to borrow a frying pan or tomato.
We're been spending lots of time and money decorating, two weekends ago we put up some curtains in Aimee's room, and I had to buy a power drill to put up the curtain track to complete the task. A perfect excuse for MORE POWER!

Cycling in Toronto isn't as bad as i thought it might have been. It's been a while now since I rode my bike, after riding it every day to LANsmart. Today was the first day that the weather wasn't cold and raining (it was cold) and I didn't have to visit a client's all day.
Traffic was pretty good, the nice bright yellow jacket I have meant people in cars were well aware I was there, and gave me plenty of space.

The weather is cooling down, so days are feeling more like there's a chilly southerly running through the city every day. Temperatures are between 13 and 16 degrees C, not yet like the ski fields but I am seeing a few people wearing gloves and earmuffs now.

Toronto is still a great place to be, though I don't recommend trying to buy a house over here. House prices are even higher than in NZ, and the Ontario government just approved the 'Land Tax" which is another tax when house ownership changes hands. The state seems to be running low on cash so are taking it out on the residents.
THe government assisted TTC (Toronto Transit Commission) who runs the buses and subway tains in the city have raised prices this month, a monthly pass to catch the subway is now $110 a month. Still justifiable when you consider that every time you enter the system it costs you $2.75.

Anyway, check out some photos of our decorating, My room is very functional and technological with lots of toys, Aimee's room is just looks good. She's been very creative with excellent use of space.

Anyway, that's all for now - I'm sure we're planning some more trips to Ikea for more interior decorating options.

GO LEAFS GO!!!

2007-09-29T08:58:00.000-04:00

So we made it to a hockey game!

Courtesy of an un-nameable source, we had excellent seats and watched the Toronto Maple Leafs kick the butts of the Detroit Red Wings 7-5 in a pre-season match at the Air Canada centre in Toronto's downtown.

The game is fast and exciting, with a lot of big hits up against the glass (perspex) walls, causing them to sway around and look like they may break at any second.

You can view the rest of our photos of the game here:

http://picasaweb.google.com/aimee.carbonell/Hockey

The game started out pretty badly for Toronto, with the wings scoring inside the first minute, but came back with in equalizer about 5 minutes later. The remaining 14 minutes of the first period went without any more goals, but lots of action, people getting sent off for 'sticking', 'slashing', 'hooking' and 'unsportsmanlike behavior'.

The second period was another 20 minutes of fast skating, 3 more goals for the wings and 4 for the leafs. At most times scores were levelled pretty quickly, with Toronto going into the break 1 up.

The third and final period had lots of action, as the clock counted down and teams got desperate to pull ahead. At one point with Toronto up 6-5, the detroit team decided to pull their goalie off and put a 6th attacker on, leaving their goal wide open. Toronto didn't take advantage of this but did put a nail in the coffin with 2 minutes to go, to make the scores 7-5.

A very enjoyable evening, and during the 20 minute breaks, a crew was using the crowd for filming scenes for a new Mike Myers movie, 'The Love Guru'. I'm not sure how hockey fits into that plot, but when it does come out keep an eye out in the scene "Game 5, Stanley Cup" and you might see me and Aimee standing in the front off to the left of the goal.

autos

2007-09-26T07:42:00.001-04:00

I'm so over corvettes. Back home I used to dream about driving one, but they're a dime a dozen here.
well, not quite, but they're still the poor man's sports car. Sure they handle well, and they actually go around corners, but revolutionary spine replacement surgery has been developed especially for corvette drivers. Their handling ability has been achieved by putting them really low on the ground and reducing suspension travel to 1mm.

Anyway, there are a lot of nice cars here. Subaru aren't so popular, Honda is the number one player along with ford.
American cars are cheap, but only cos many of them are assembled here.

I see a lot of exotics too, Ferrari, Porsche, Lamborghini, Maserati and of course, Hummer.

The roads are wide and flat to accomodate these vehicles out in the 'burbs, but the city is a nightmare to drive in.
Streetcars (trams) and padestrians rule the city, I don't know why anybody bothers to drive.

I have to say; while the bus may be a bit slow, it's better than driving and you get to catch up on reading, or blogging

;)

NZ 2, Canada 8

2007-09-15T08:04:00.000-04:00

No, it's not a rugby score, it's the rankings in the world as the most peaceful place to live.
http://www.visionofhumanity.com/rankings/
Good 'ol US is down at number 96 and Iraq is last at 121.

So, the rugby. The internet is our only source of news aboot that little competition. I see the All Blacks trounced Italy last weekend. As the community we're living in at the moment is very Italian, I can't imagine our neighbours are very happy =)

So how's life in Toronto you might ask?
Well we're really enjoying the place. It's a very happening city, with shows, exhibitions, concerts and lots of things to do.
We've been shopping at most of the malls here, went to the Canadian National Exhibition which was a giant fairground and I got to climb inside a tank and army helicopter!

The days are definitely getting shorter though. When we first arrived the sun was still high in the sky at 5pm. Now it's just dipping below the horizon at 7:30. We get to watch the most georgeous sunsets from the bus window as we travel home.

Speaking of which, as with all problems we have now found multiple solutions to our transit problem.
A few weeks ago we started catching the express bus. For an extra 50 cents the bus took us from the nearby mall, down the highway and straight to the subway station. It cut aboot 30 min off our morning commute and we could get up later! This was great until school went back. Now the students are in session and all people are back from their vacations, traffic in the mornings is worse than in Auckland and the trip down the highway takes longer than using the side roads and stopping on every corner. So we're back to plan A.

However the ride home is much better. We catch the Viva bus, which is the same price, but much nicer. It's one of those 'bendy' buses and it only has aboot 6 stops between the end of the subway line, and our connection bus. Much better, more reliable. We feel so much nicer when we arrive home.

Home, where is home? Yesterday we signed the leases to our apartments! I can move in on Saturday September 29th, Aimee still has people living in her place so will be stuck to October 1st.
It's in the affluent area Yonge and St Clair, has an outdoor swimming pool and a fountain, both of which i'm sure will freeze over in the winter.
Living here will ensure that we can be home by 6pm most days =)

So check out our photos - link is at the top - we'll post them of the apartment as they are taken, and as we do other exciting things.

One more thing:
I'm sure Eastbay could use some more NZ talent, so if you have experience with windows servers and a desire to migrate to Canada, check out the WHP (400 places left) and let me know.

Booyacasha!

Pittsburgh

2007-09-10T08:30:00.000-04:00

We have been to America. Again.

This time by ourselves, and in our rented car (2007 Ford Fusion. 2.3l inline 4, FWD).
I feel like I should be paying Google some money too, as their maps of this continent are brilliant, especially the directions bit. Simply stunning.

So anyway, Hello to Charles and Sally, Adrienne and Tony and the rest of the crew down in Pittsburgh.

Arriving in Pittsburgh remings me of coming down the Nauranga gorge and having the city open out in front of you. The same is true of here. I gasped as it suddenly appeared, which woke Aimee up and meant we had to go around and do it again. We really did, we took a wrong turn and instead of going to Charles' place, we were going out of the city!

I finally understand now why the football team is called the steelers. The guy was telling me as I dropped off the rental car that Pittsburgh is 'the underarm of the USA' due to it's huge steel industry. I have to say, they certainly know how to use steel too, there are bridges everywhere! there must be 6 bridges crossing the river which divides the city.
It's also very nice. Charles and Sally showed us around the university grounds which are amazing. Very green and well maintained, it must be a great place to study.

Job descriptions

2007-08-29T21:24:00.000-04:00

So what do we do during the day?

Well, my official title is Senior IT Consultant. That means I get to sit in the big chair in the office, have two 19inch LCD panels, and a blackberry.
Well, really I have to be responsible for managing the 4 projects we've got 'on-the-go' cos the rest of the team are running around like 'blue-assed flies' trying to keep up.
And by the rest of the team, I mean the other guy. Naveed, a great guy who moved to the US from Pakistan with his wife and child, came to Canada 3 years ago to finish off a training course and hasn't left.

So things are pretty busy in our office, the company not only deals with SMB's (small to medium businesses) but also has residential clients who need their modem reset from time to time.
Most customers are about the same size as LANsmart's clients, however they all have multiple servers due to having to be ISO certified and all that jazz. 1 domain controller, 1 for antivirus, 1 for mail, 1 for files etc. You get the picture.
This means a lot of management and a lot of time and work for the engineers like me for when the clients decide things are running a bit slow, we just throw another server into the mix.

It's certainly interesting stuff and will hopefully really develop my project management and customer management skills.

Aimee on the other hand has settled well into her application developer/DBA role. She's working closely with a couple of people in her team, solidifying the database and adding new functionality.

For those of you who aren't in the US or Canada, you won't be able to look at her company website.
The idea is Puretracks are a sub company of the large telco - Bell Canada. Bell decided they wanted to provide music downloads to their customers, so supported puretracks when it was only developing to do their in-house web solutions. Now for $0.99 you can buy a track of music just like the iTunes store. But only if you're in the US or Canada. Somehow this will stop piracy =)

So if you would like to buy some music and you're not in the US or Canada, just post your credit card details in the comment field and we'll be sure to buy something on your behalf.

JOKES!

Disclaimer: Aimee and Chris advise you to never put your credit card into a website you don't trust and that doesn't disply the little padlock symbol.

getting to work

2007-08-29T21:11:00.000-04:00

Work work work.
We're a part of the working world, and part of the morning rush to get into town.
Our morning starts at 6am with a shower, and then the bus at 6:55. The 1 hour bus ride leaves us at the railway station a bit before 8, and we wait for the next train to come along. These arrive every 5 minutes or so, and we are smoothly whisked into the city.

By 8:25 we're seeing the sun as we come out of the subway station onto King street. Aimee then takes the streetcar (small electric train/bus) east, while I get mine west.

10 minutes later we're both at our desks and ready for the day's work.

The evenings are the opposite, catch the streetcar to the subway station, get on a train as soon as possible and hope we get home before 8.

We have both found apartments to live in. We're in the same apartment building, on Jackes st, which is just off Yonge st, 5 minutes north of the city by train. You can tell we're looking forward to moving in there in October.

My room is on the 14th floor. It's a single bedroom apartment, which constitutes a kitchen, bathroom, living room and 1 bedroom.
Aimee's is on the 15th floor, almost directly above me. Her's is a bachelor, which means kitchen, bathroom and large living area which will also be the bedroom. Also her balcony is bigger than mine.
It also has a fitness area, so we can work off all the hotdogs we've been eating.

Working...

2007-08-21T15:15:00.000-04:00

Well, we're part of the working world. Well, Aimee is anyway.
I don't start until tomorrow (Wednesday).

She seems to be enjoying it. It's a nice office, very open plan (no cubicles!) with about 20 people.
It's a good team environment, so I'm sure in a few months she'll be a proper part of the family, involved in animated discussions about who dropped that table from the database or whatever it is those DBA's get up to.

She's already been assigned some work to do, so is busily tap-tapping away on her keyboard fixing some corruptions or something.

Currently I'm sitting in the Starbucks on King and Yonge (pronounced 'Young'). I'm not here for the coffee but for the wireless internet. I've been using these last 2 days of my holiday to search for a place for us to live, and let me tell you it's hard going.
Not knowing what Toronto's good and bad areas are; it's easy to see a cheap place and not know that it's in the middle of a really bad area or to see a really nice apartment that's in a good area, only to find out that it's $1800 a month for 1 room.

At this stage, we're still living in Woodbridge, which is 1.5 hours out of town. So we start each day at 5:30, catch the 6:55am bus and are in town just in time for an 8:30 start.
At the end of the day, we should get home about 7 or 8pm
So if anybody out there has a penthouse apartment in downtown Toronto going for less than $1000 a month, email me!

I saw NZ in the news again today. This time it was a newspaper article that back in 2005-6 NZ declined to receive some prisoners from Guantanamo bay.
Article here.
Not very exciting I know, but still, it made a column in the Metro, a free paper that everyone reads while on the subway.

Thanks and hello to all the people that have commented, Carmel, Andrey, my Sister, Abe, Aunty Penny, Paul, Gil, The Superfriends (you know who you are), Dad, the other dad (Nap), Anthony, Aiyaz, Kim and Rickard.
We know your time is valuable and thanks for holding, we'll be with you shortly...

You start monday!

2007-08-16T14:22:00.000-04:00

That's what Aimee and I have both heard this week.

Aimee will be working for Puretracks who are an online music store, supported by telecommunications giant Bell Canada.

I'll be working for Eastbay Consulting Corp as previously mentioned.

Interviews - Part deux

2007-08-12T14:53:00.000-04:00

Well, my interview went well last week with Eastbay, if things go well, I'll get an email from them next week to come in for a technical interview to make sure I can 'walk the walk'.

Aimee also has an interview monday and tuesday. The monday one sounds pretty full on, with an hour of technical testing!

We will keep all our readers up-to-date as things progress.
So please leave comments, it's very encouraging to know you're all out there (hi mum!) following what we're up to.
Special mentions go to:

Gil from LANsmart, 3 updates in 3 days, how's that?
Craig (soon not to be) from LANsmart - enjoy the new job
Andrey - Enjoy your new bike. Hopefully you'll still be alive to show us your Hyosung GT250R when we get back.

I heard my Lowrider song playing in the Sony store in a mall the other day. It's a sign...

Interviews

2007-08-09T11:39:00.000-04:00

Well, the job hunt is beginning to heat up. Both Aimee and I have been receiving some interest in our CV's. The recruitment company CNC Global submitted my CV to two companies 2 weeks ago tomorrow, but it's a slow time of year so they are taking their time. I'm still in the running I'm told, so hopefully interviews next week.

I also submitted my CV to a company very similar to LANsmart, servicing SMB's in the GTA (Small to medium sized businesses in the Greater Toronto Area) and they want to speak to me next week too so fingers crossed on that one. It also means I'll have to buy a car as there's travelling involved.

I'm also applying at the local electronics store, Futureshop. They give a good employee discount; Can you say 50 inch TV =)

If nothing else, I could join the Geeksquad. It must be where the geeks on wheels idea came from, but it's backed up by the electronics chain, BestBuy.

Anyway, the opportunities are plentiful, it's all just taking a long time as it's summer here and too many people are either on holiday, or just slowed down by the extreme heat.

Cars

2007-08-09T10:54:00.000-04:00

Well my birthday was fun, we got the car, it was a VW Golf city, 2.0.
It drove pretty well, but everything apart from the gearbox was manual. A brand new car with manual windows, manual side mirrors, no central locking and the back doors had to be opened from the inside.

The highways here are a bit confusing too. In general the even numbers run north south, and the odds are east west.
The 400 runs north-south and takes us home.
The 401 is east west, and north of the city.
The 403 splits south from the 401, then heads west to re-join the 401 in about 100km.
The 407 is the toll road, which is much faster to use to traverse the city cos it costs money.
The Gardener runs east west along the lakefront and turns into the 427

To get into town, we take the 400 south from Woodbridge. It's mostly 4 lanes each way, but can be 5 or 6 lanes at on-ramps.
Then the 400 ends after about 20km, and you have to choose whether to take the 401 east toward the city, or west to Mississauga. The 401 is kind of famous in Canada, as it's the biggest, longest highway going from Detriot, Michigan through Toronto and up to Montreal. It is 8 or 9 lanes wide each way in the city, the middle 5 lanes on each side are called the express. Then there's a concrete barrier and 3 more lanes called the collecter. That is the slower bit where you get on and off the highway.
So the idea is you get on at an on-ramp, you're in the collector. Then you jump across a few lanes, wait for a transition point, and move into the express section. If there's normal traffic you then put your foot down and level off at about 140. If there's traffic you'll be going very slowly.

So anyway, on Wednesday we left Aimee's job interview in Cambridge to the west of Toronto, and took the car on the 401 east, then I decided to take a shortcut by going south, heading in the direction of Niagara falls. Bad move, I turned right instead of left when we hit the 403 and we ended up going the wrong way and were about 100km off target. We ended up in Hamilton Airport, got some directions and got back on track. Took the 403 back east, through Hamilton, got on the QEW, through St Catherines and finally ended up in Niagara. pictures here: http://picasaweb.google.com/aimee.carbonell/Niagara
Map of our adventure:

Birthdays!

2007-07-31T13:18:00.000-04:00

Today is my birthday (Chris), and we're renting a car.
Aimee said to me, "what do you want to do?" and I replied "Drive".
Aimee has a job interview tomorrow too, so it's going to be convenient to be able to drive her there.

I've just realised something else I need for my birthday - towels.
I only brought 2 with me, but they were older and even with regular washing they smell a bit.
It was also highlited last week when we went swimming at Canada's wonderland and my towel went missing while we were in line for the waterslide. Fortunately it turned up exactly where we'd left it, an hour later. Somebody had simply 'borrowed' it.

Yesterday we celebrated 2 other birthdays. The 2 females in this house both have their birthdays on July 30th, and since yesterday was my birthday in NZ we had a triple celebration. Cookies and Cream cake, ice cream... mmmm, drool

Anyway, that brings me to my next order of business. Things I miss about NZ;

1. Familiarity. Knowing who you are, where you are, where to go and how to get there.
Edit: This includes family and friends of course! Hi sis!

2. My bike.

3. My car. It wasn't much, but it was mine and took me where I needed to go.

4. Steak and cheese pies. Being part of the commonwealth means there is a lot of british influence, so we can get Fish and Chips at quite a few locations and it is actually fish and chips, but there's still no pies.

5. Pizza. Now you may say "but Toronto is half Italian so how?" and I say,
"when you're limited to 2 toppings, and one of them has to be pepperoni, that's not pizza".

6. My computer and a decent internet connection. While people bitch and moan about Telecom's poor speed, I was pretty happy with my 5mbps download ADSL line thanks very much. Here most people are on cable, and out in the 'burbs we've got a stunning 256kbps line.
I also have to line up to use Aimee's laptop. When I get a job and move into my own place that's the first thing on my shopping list, desktop computer with a 22-30" widescreen.

7. Jaffas. We can get most things Cadbury and Nestle here, but haven't seen Jaffas anywhere.

8. A job. Looking forward to getting a job, getting to meet and work with real Canadians and finding out all the little differences in our culture.

9. Coffee. Although i'm not really a big coffee drinker, I miss all the cafe's of wellington. Here if you want anything other than straight black coffee, you're limited to Starbucks or Tim Hortons.
Timmy's was Canadian owned and is a combination of Starbucks, Dunkin donuts and Subway.

Movies I've seen lately; Harry Potter, Transformers, Fantastic Four. All of them I'd rate about 7/10.

DVDs you need to see soon;

Who killed the Electric Car. An excellent expose on electric cars and how the car and oil companies are working so hard to keep them from getting to mass market.
It's totally changed my views on it all. DON'T buy a hydrogen car unless you also intend to buy a kit to make hydrogen at home.
Go get a hybrid. We had a ride in a Prius in Vancouver. Brilliant cars and all the American car companies are saying "How can Toyota be making any money" to try and stop people from buying them.

Then once you're done with that DVD, watch An Inconvenient Truth. Al Gore makes a lot of very good points in his filmed lecture about the science behind global warming.

Right, I've got to go now and pick up our rental car. A gas guzzling V6.

Jobbing

2007-07-23T00:37:00.001-04:00

So we're still trying to find jobs. Things are slow going, and we've hit a few snags.
As you would expect, most employers don't want to spend money training up a new employee, only to have them leave in 9 months time, so we're left with 2 options.

1. Take on a contract role (if only someone will offer us one!)
2. Move here permanently.

They also seem to want "Canadian experience'. While it sounds silly, you're considered to have more potential if you've worked in Canada before. Strange, but true.

Hopefully with the number of applications we've sent out, things will start to materialise soon.

NZ on TV

2007-07-11T20:16:00.000-04:00

I just saw NZ on the TV news here!

As hard as it is to get news outside of the American continent, we just saw footage of flooding in "New Zeeland's north island".
It even showed footage of a woman commenting about how fast the floodwaters came up.

Bike repairs

2007-07-10T10:14:00.001-04:00

I've been trying to avoid ending the holiday.
Aimee is busy writing her resume, so I'm outside fixing up one of the bikes in the shed here. It's got a couple of flat tyres and the gears need work but otherwise it's in fine condition. It's just a bit short for me so Aimee will be the one doing the riding.

Today is my turn to finish my resume. I need to compact my 6 page CV into a 1 - 2 page executive summary of my career and skills highlighting my strengths which will hopefully be enough tantalising information to get me an interview.
If anybody knows of an system engineer job going in the downtown Toronto area which is paying well, hook a brother up!

If we get this done today, then we're off to Canada's Wonderland again. Some roller coasters again and also some swimming! Last time we only did a few of them, most are similar to rides in Gold Coast except for the Tomb Raider ride - you lie flat as you fly like superman through loops and twists. There's also a ride where you're standing up, and can feel the G forces as you pull through corners. Very cool...

Right, enough stalling, must continue talking myself up.

A Home Away From Home

2007-07-09T12:10:00.000-04:00

We've been in toronto for three weeks now. and so far so good, we are loving every minute of it! but i do get homesick every now and then, still missing everyone so much :) but thanks to our home away from home(at my aunt's), we are very much comfortable and enjoying the canadian summer!!! very hot hot hot at the moment, with temperatures ranging from 25-30 degrees everyday, no wind and very little rain. i'm becoming even more tan and chris is turning into a lovely pink person heheh nah, he's got a good tan too :)

We are currently staying in woodbridge, Ontario, 32 km away from downtown toronto, which according to my brother, a suburbia that resembles pleasantville. The houses are very similar to each other, made out of brick, with family cars parked just outside the house, we don't quite understand why canadians don't use their garage, its something we've pondered over and over again... we've also visited my cousin's school which is nearby, check out the indoor swimming pool, nice eh? this school is fairly new, but it made me wish to be in school again, they have a pool table in their common room, and subsequent rooms allocated for "other" school activities hahaha. Also, instead of seeing the rugby/cricket/softball fields, they have the baseball/hockey/soccer fields. Apparently the skating rink that we now see will be transformed into an ice skating park which chris and i are really looking forward to! Some pictures of the Dominguez' neighbor and their house below, their spa makes life divine:) a bundle of THANK YOU Tita(aunt) Haydee and Tito(unlce) Joy!!!

our trips to downtown have proven really exciting. we love the challenge of finding our way, which is pretty much knowing where north is(they're very big on the whole N-E-S-W), and with a city map of course. From woodbridge, we have to catch a bus to the Wilson subway station, this trip takes up most of the time, a one-hour ride. I just wish they didn't have to stop on every block! and then on to the underground trains which is very reliable since it runs every 5-10 minutes. We haven't really been exploring much of the city, we figured when we move closer to town we'll have the chance to see it "up close and personal", although we have seen nice parks, University of Toronto, the Eaton centre(huge mall) and the underground walkways. These walkways are not so popular at the moment since it's summer, but i'm imagining it to be packed during winter when temperatures are below zero(eeek!). The paths are really done up well, it's almost walking in a hotel lobby.

Summer

2007-07-08T18:16:00.000-04:00

Agggghhhh, it's soooo hot here!
The metservice here are about as reliable as the one back home.

Today was supposed to be 34 degrees, humidity to be making it like 40! But we woke up to torrential rain!
We were driving down the motorway and watching the forked lightning hit the nearby buildings, it was incredible. No photos unfortunately...

Lazy days

2007-07-04T14:33:00.000-04:00

Fortunately things have calmed down here a bit. Yesterday we got our Social Insurance Numbers (like the IRD number) so we can legally work, HURRAY!

Today we're going to the bank and hopefully get a free iPod when we open an account with TD. Or not...

Am working on putting up the rest of our photos now, I know some of you out there want pictures, instead of reading a thousand words...
Will post the link when done, but keep checking here

Chris

Niagara Falls

2007-07-04T00:11:00.000-04:00

Canada day sales! Oh yeah, the Americans know how to make some money; when Canada has a public holiday the American malls near the border have sales!

We headed south, stopped briefly at the Niagara falls for a quick photo op, then went over the bridge, back to the USA which Aimee and I had only left 6 days ago.
There is an immediate change in atmosphere when you go back into America, I definitely feel safer in Canada. Anyway, outlet mall shopping is certainly great. We brought some label clothing for very cheap prices, it leaves Dressmart for dead. There was GAP, Oakley, Calvin Klein, Burburry to name a few. All at reasonable prices (except Burburry).
We did some good shopping there, then headed down to another mall further into the US. Again, more name brand shops, but with our $US getting low, Aimee and I really took the time to explore.

We found the Apple shop, and had a play with the new iPhone. It certainly is a cool device, but with only one provider offering it (AT&T, a non-sim card service like Telecom) there's a big delay in people getting their phones activated.
We took some photos with it, looked at youTube, browsed the internet, listened to music, sent text messages but never actually figured out how to make a call.

Passing the cheesecake factory on the way out, it was hard not to go in and just sniff the air, but we managed. There's more time to get back down there i'm sure.

The drive back seemed to take a long time, and everyone was a little nervous coming back across into Canada cos we'd outdone our $50 limit per person. If you break this limit, you have to pay tax on the goods you're bringing back, DOH!
Fortunately it was very busy and we were waved through.

Another successful day done, we're looking forward to a day off tomorrow.

Toronto

2007-07-03T23:47:00.000-04:00

Our last day in Vancouver involved sleeping, and packing.
Vancouver airport looks a lot different departing than it does for arriving, perhaps they hold all the nice shops for the international passengers and the domestic passengers just get a gate lounge.
The flight was delayed when we checked in, and for the second time this trip we needed to re-organise our bags at the airport cos Aimee was overweight (the bag, not her!).

So after waiting the extra 30 minutes, we got on the plane to go to Toronto.
It was dark when we arrived, and we had time to look around the airport a bit before our host family came to pick us up. In true Filipino style, they had been out partying and were delighted to see us.
Aimee's Aunt Haydee, Uncle Joy, counsins Jun-jun and Hanna live in the very nice city of Vaughn, in the suburb of Woodbridge which is about 20 minutes north of Toronto downtown area.

They have a beautiful house and have been kind enough to open their doors and share their beds with us while we get settled here in Toronto.

The next day we had a bit of a relaxing start. Then because it is Sunday, we headed of to their church. After a very musical service, we assisted in pulling a few weeds from the front garden, before heading off to drop Aimee's brother Alex off to the airport. He's continuing his trip around the world, and it was nice to catch up with him, even if it's only for a few hours.
We head home for a 'early' night as it's a big day tomorrow.

Oohh, before I forget, it's Canada day today! July 1st is Canada day (like our Waitangi day) and a day for all Canadians to be proud of their country and wave flags. They also have a big fireworks show.

Vancouver - part quatre

2007-07-03T23:02:00.000-04:00

Waking up on our final full day in Vancouver, we see that it's greyer than it was yesterday. Bugger.
Our plan for today is to head up grouse mountain, and see the Capilano swing bridge.

Aimee and I get up nice and early anyway, and head out to our public transport. We buy a 2 zone ticket and catch the train one stop from Burrard st to the waterfront, then use the same ticket to board the seabus going across the harbour. Then we use the same ticket to board the bus on the other side which leaves shortly after the ferry arrives.

The bus winds its way through the lovely northern shores of Vancouver, dropping us to the bottom of Grouse mountain.
There is a 100 person cable car going to the top, but we are advised that the weather is very clouded in, and visibility is low.
Unfortunately for us, this is our only remaining opportunity to visit so we have to do it.
We board the cable car, and Neil from Yorkshire gives us the commentary as we go up the hill.
We take a look around, and eagerly check out the timing for the 'world famous lumberjack show'. We decide to have some lunch first, hot dogs and hamburgers. It turns out that visibility and rain is such that the lumberjack show has been called off for that session. This time we were prepared, so using my umbrella we take a look around the top of the mountain. We manage to spot the grizzly bears that are housed in the park. These bears were rescued from certain death as both had lost their mothers in separate incidents. Normally bear cubs cannot survive without their mothers and are put down. However a facility was setup on Grouse Mountain to see if these guys could be looked after, and so far it's been a great success. They are surviving well and have put on healthy weight. They even have been through a winter with their enclosure covered in snow and them in hibernation.

By the time 2:30 comes around, the mist has cleared enough, so we and the hundred or so other punters dry off seats for the lumberjack show. And what a show it was! They chopped logs with axes, cut logs with saws and had a log rolling contest (you know the one where they're both running on a log, just like in the cartoons).

So with Grouse mountain covered, we headed back to the bottom of the hill, and caught the bus back to the Capilano swing bridge. This is on the main road back to town, and was not affected by the weather.
The bridge was built over a 450 foot wide canyon back in 1889. It really is a swing bridge, it rocks back and forth with all the people walking on it, I saw a lot of people walking very uncertainly, holding on to the rails.
While it swings a lot, it has proven it's strength. Last year, back in november, a 46 ton, 300 year old Douglas fir tree lost it's hold on the sodden earth and fell onto the bridge, hitting it at approx 100kmh. The bridge held although the concrete mounts at the west end moved 2 metres.
The tree then had to be cut off in sections, otherwise if all the weight was lifted the bridge would spring up and catapault the poor guy holding the chainsaw 230 feet into the canyon below (apparently this actually happened with an earlier version of the bridge and the guy miraculously survived!). The swing bridge is not the original one from 1889, it's actually been replaced and rebuilt 4 times!

The walk across the bridge was only half the attraction. On the other side of the canyon is a series of paths allowing you to walk around the area. Most are at ground level, and you get a sense like it's a NZ bush walk, but there is also the treetop walk, which is a series of bridges joining the big trees. It allows you to walk above the ground, getting more of a 'birdseye' perspective on the forest and almost brings you up into the canopy of the trees. A truly amazing experience.
There is also the clifftop walk, where the paths lead out onto the edge of the cliff allowing you to look straight down into the river below.
This is a very well maintained and put together attraction and we'd reccomend it to anybody in Vancouver. Link

Exhausted, we made our way back to Vancouver and ate dinner at Red Robin. The burgers we had are probably the best we've had so far, rivaling the Kiwi fish and chip shop burgers, even getting close to the ones we make on the BBQ at home!

Vancouver - part trois

2007-07-03T19:46:00.000-04:00

I awoke to the smell of pancakes. Aimee had gotten up early and began to cook breakfast (bless her!).

We began our Vancouver exploration with the novelty map that Mum had given me, but it did prove reasonably helpful. The city is like Wellington in the sense that it's nice and compact.
We walked a few blocks down to the waterfront, around the pier where the cruise ships dock and then continued down the city. It began to rain and as we huddled for shelter and we realised that we were in Gastown. The steam clock was right in front of us, and about to strike 2:30pm.
We took a look and were showered with spray as it's steam vents opened up.

History: The name has nothing to do with Gas. Gastown is actually named after a man, "Gassy" John Deighton who had the 'gift of the gab' and liked to tell tall tales.

We looked around the shops for a bit, while we eagerly awaited the 3pm tolling of the clock. It was also raining so we needed an excuse to get out of the rain as I'd left my umbrella in the hotel room.

After watching the clock imitate the Big Ben at 3pm, we headed up. Up to the Vancouver lookout. I'd seen it earlier in the day, a kind of UFO perched on top of a tall building. It looked like it should have been a tower behind another building, but it was just the observation deck.
We go a good [dry] look at Vancouver, and got talking to one of the guides up the top. He was actually French, and had only been in the country 5 months, so gave us some good tips on looking for accomodation, and also showed us how to use the public transport.

Public transport in Vancouver is incredible. It runs like a well oiled machine, the skytrain every 6 minutes and the seabus every 15. The train does a short loop around the city, before heading out into the suburbs, starting and finishing at the seabus dock, which is a 12 minute ferry ride across the harbour.
The coolest thing about these is there seems to be no driver. In fact, the skytrain really is an automated train. There is no driver.
The seabus also appeared to be computer controlled, but i did see a guy leaning out the window to control the doors.

We caught the skytrain on the advice of our french friend out to Metrotown. We got off a couple of stops too early, and had a walk around a really nice suburb, before getting back onto the train and arriving at the Mall. Metrotown was a big mall. It had lots of shops and Aimee and I really enjoyed checking them all out.
We couldn't buy too much, cos we had to carry it all back on the train, but grabbed some dinner and a few small purchases.

Vancouver - part deux

2007-07-03T19:30:00.000-04:00

So after a short rest in our hotel, we decided to head out for something to eat. Aimee and I are finding the timezones very hard to get used to, especially since the sun doesn't go down until 9pm! Very weird after it getting dark by 5pm in Wellington.

We walked out into the main centre, which wasn't far. We found Robson St, and wandered down. The city is so different to San fran. So clean, so nice. We instantly fell in love with it.
We ended up at burger king for dinner (i was too hungry to care) but it gave me the energy to keep going. By now my cold had totally taken hold and I was feeling very lethargic and coughing a lot. We pretty much headed back the way we'd come, although stopped off at a starbucks for a frappuchino.
I was amazed to see another starbucks on the other corner of the intersection! It was just as busy as the one we were in!

We decided that tomorrow we were going to explore the city a bit and head down to gas-town.
So on the way back we grabbed some pancake mix and some maple syrup to make breakfast with.

Vancouver - part Un

2007-07-03T18:49:00.000-04:00

Well, we made it safely out of America. It took a while though, security in was very tight in San Francisco airport.
Because we were nice and early it was merely an inconvenience to us but some people weren't so lucky; They had 30 minutes to get on their plane and the line to go through security snaked along all the check-in counters. A funny guy with a megaphone was directing people, pulling out all the 7:40's, and anybody boarding after 7:40 was told to "stay where you are!"

Once into the security area, we were set into the maze of barriers, and were told that we'd been 'randomly selected' by a computer for Super Special Security Screening (SSSS). There we had to remove our shoes, then step into a bomb sniffing machine which blew air at us to see if we'd been in contact with bomb making materials.
Our checked luggage was then searched for anything suspicious, although a least the security guard was chatty and friendly.

We purchased a bit of duty free, then went to the gate to wait. After our boarding time had passed and there was no boarding call, we got a bit worried, when word came over the speaker that our flight had been delayed by 20 minutes due to some 'technical difficulties'.
So after finally getting on a the nice new plane (2005), we listened to the cabin crew give their messages in both french and english. This was a weird concept for Aimee,
as each message was repeated in a seemingly speeded-up, incomprehensible language.

The trip was short and un-eventful and we made a smooth landing at Vancouver airport, unfortunately so did about 10 other planes so there must have been about 2000 people clearing customs! The customs hall was at least the size of a rugby field, and was full. And still they kept coming!

We worked out that we walked approx 500 metres through the barrier maze to get to the front, where we formally entered Canada. We then collected our bags, left them in a corner (!) and went into immigration. A nice immigration lady gave us our work permits, valid for 365 days, and invited us to work in Vancouver, telling us it's much better than Toronto...

Customs then presented no problems, we simply walked out into the airport! all the signs about food and illegal imports were never checked up on, and we just walked out.
We were surprised again by the row of taxis. No falcons, no giant yellow cabs, just a long line of compact Toyota Prius's, the hybrid cars. The driver had a bit of a squeeze getting all our luggage in, but he did it.

Vancouver didn't have quite the same motorway leading into the city that I was expecting, it was just a main road with lots of traffic lights.
Then once in the main downtown area (which is actually a peninsular) it was a maze of one way streets.
The driver dropped us off to the front of the hotel, and I was surprised to have a porter take care of our bags for us.
It was a very grand hotel, but with us checking in at 2pm, they weren't quite ready for us. Our original room was supposed to be 1208, but it was still in cleaning, so they gave us one on the 8th floor. But when Aimee, the porter and I got up there it too was still in cleaning! So we went back down to the ground and they told us 1208 was ready. When we got up there, the cleaning lady said '5 more minutes...'

Eventually we were allowed in, and it was worth the wait. It was a really nice room, with a good view of the construction sites across the road. Mum tells me that 2 years ago you could see the sea, but now there is a hotel in the way.

So we settled in, unpacked a few things and lay down for a rest - Travelling makes you tired!

More photos from San Francisco Part 2

2007-06-29T02:35:00.000-04:00

And some more photos :) This set was taken on our second day in San Francisco. We booked an Alcatraz tour and caught the 10am ferry (26/06/07). Have you ever seen the movie "The Rock"? Sean Connery and Nicolas Cage is on it, hmm i might hire it on dvd and watch it again, anyway this movie was filmed in alcatraz :)

It's hard to believe that this maximum-security prison was once a home to the most notorious criminals in America, circa 1934-1963. When we docked on the island, we have already noticed that the buildings are very old, some already deteriorating, but seeing the high fences and walls, there's no doubt that this was a prison, it gave me goose bumps as it was the very first time i've ever been to one.

We did the audio tour and we were given a headset and a player each. The audio was well put together, it was being narrated by one of the prison warden, some of the original guards and prisoners, so off we go with our imagination and viola! another mind blowing experience. We were especially intrigued about the escape attempts that happened inside the prison. Have a look at some of the photos we took inside alcatraz :)

More photos from San Francisco :)

2007-06-28T09:53:00.000-04:00

Here are some more photos
enjoy :)

On our first day, we joined a bus tour to the city. We took off from the fisherman's wharf and then drove off to the center of town. Check out the photos of some of the city structures that we saw, especially the San Francisco city hall which is huge and good enough to replace the white house. we also saw the "crookedest street", San Francisco's china town and the "gay st" where most of the gay population resides, too bad we missed the gay parade, apparently they had it last monday(24/06), which was our expected arrival, oh well... we've photographed some of the wall murals around this area, very interesting.

Eventually we stopped at Mission Dolores, it's a very old church, kinda reminds me of the church i saw from "nacho libre", its amazing how they have maintained that place. We then proceeded to Twin Peaks to see the whole city, the site was breath taking :) on our way back there was a falcon just gliding, looking for food, i think that was the first time i've ever seen a falcon up close, so that was a bonus.

Next was the San Francisco garden, they had a japanese garden there, but we had to pay to get inside! It's pretty but I still prefer the new plymouth and the hastings garden and they were free :) And finally, we drove to the golden gate bridge, and then parked at the end for some more sightseeing. It was incredible, and once again we ponder on human ingenuity, what a sight it was! It's one of those "I wish you were here" places, and i did wish you were all there with us at that time :)

After that, we decided to be dropped back at the fisherman's wharf and go out for dinner. we ordered a fish(chris's choice) and a crab(aimee's choice). the meal was very enjoyable, but eating the crab was the highlight of the night! the waiter said that he'd crushed some parts of it already so it'll be easier to eat, because otherwise they will have to give me a hammer! i guess its an embarrassing site to see a lady pounding that crab with all her might hahahha we took some photos of this crab eating event :)

2007-06-27T03:35:00.000-04:00

Aimee gets to meet the cast of The Wizard of Oz.

As seen in the wax museum, along the boardwalk at fisherman's wharf. This was a really fun way to spend an hour. We met a lot of celebrities; George Bush, John Travolta and Bill Gates to name a few.

2007-06-27T03:25:00.000-04:00

Chris Riding on a cable car.
Cable cars are a great way to get over the hills of the city, however you have to wait in a 30 minute line with all the other tourists, and it costs about as much as a taxi ride. But so much more enjoyable!
As you can see, Chris is holding a bag from the hard rock cafe, which we visited on Pier 39, after our visit to Alcatraz island.

Golden Gate

2007-06-27T03:11:00.000-04:00

We're on the north side of the golden Gate bridge.
This is the final stop on a 5 hour tour of the lovely city that is San Francisco. It's a really fun place, so very much like Wellington that we don't feel too out of place.

San Francisco!!!

2007-06-25T13:38:00.000-04:00

Well we've finally arrived safely in San Francisco!
What a drama;

Our plane was a bit late leaving wellington, the pilot blamed the fact that he received it late, bad weather in akl i think =)
But this was nothing compared to what happened next!

Our plane left Akl on time, but we had to turn around and head back, 5 hours into the flight!
Apparently Rolls Royce had been monitoring the engines, and found a good reason for us not to make the full trip, so the plane had return to Auckland for repairs with us on it. At first we all thought it was a joke when the captain made the announcement, but it ended up being real.
So we had 10 hours in the air, only to end up back where we started.

The whole thing was a bit of a farce, they even made us fill in the NZ customs arrival cards.
Air NZ did a good job in managing the situation, and fixing up people's connecting flights (fortunately not us), but it was obvious the situation wasn't part of their normal action plan.

We arrived back in Auckland at 5am, and were scheduled to get a 9am plane back out, arriving in San Fran at 2am. However the American's didn't like that idea, so while they prepared another plane for our departure at 2:30pm, we got sent to a nearby hotel for a 'day room'. We grabbed a few hours sleep, and some complimentary food and phone calls before getting back on the bus to the airport at midday.

Hehe, then while they were calling the rows of people to board, they had to stop while crew attended to 'a problem with the onboard computer!'. The whole gate lounge let out a big groan...

Our plane then left on time at 2:30pm, NZ time, 19 hours after we left the first time.

So after sitting through the most turbulent ride I've ever been on, we arrived here. We were in row 62 of 65 rows on a Boeing 777-200er (9 seats across, 314 passengers total). The tail was wagging around like a dog on speed for most of the trip.

US Customs was a real interrogation for me, what school did i go to, where do i work, how did i pay for the ticket etc... Aimee said the guy was talking to her about other things. Her American accent must be helping.
So after picking up our bags from the conveyor, it was simply a stroll to the kerb. We are so used to NZ customs checking for all these banned items it's strange when our bags don't get searched and we walk right out of the airport.

Then it was a short cab ride into 'downtown' and we've checked in a day late. Will try to claim the room (pre-paid) back on insurance.

The time now is 10:30am, so now we're taking a well deserved break and heading off for a tour of the city at 2pm.

Bye bye
Chris and Aimee

One more day

2007-06-14T06:12:00.000-04:00

Last day of work tomorrow.
Purchased insurance today, we're almost set, just need to purchase that foreign currency before Mr Cullen has his way with our dollar.
Next week is packing and goodbyes. Who to hug, what to take, the decisions...

Need to find out when Nick's funeral is too, pay our last respects to my dear flatmate. We miss you Nick, our thoughts are with you Lisa.

Preparations

2007-06-12T05:41:00.000-04:00

Preparations are nearly complete for our trip to Canada.
Aimee no longer works at TLC, and I've got 3 days to go at LANsmart.

We've both sold our cars, arranged where to put most of our stuff that we can't take with us and sold off what is no longer useful.

So far we have all our flights booked, 3 nights in SanFran, 2 more in Vancouver and arriving in Toronto in the evening of the 30th of June.
It's just the final packing to go really, trying to decide what we're going to take immediately and what to ship later. I'll be packing up my bike just in case Toronto turns out to be a cycle friendly city.