Actually, I am not laughing very much. My mood was reflected in the weather today. The skies turned grey at about 8.30 and rain poured down, first as a fine drizzle then heavier drops. I left it as late as I could to get to Yoga to see if it would ease, but it didn't, so got very wet, walking to 2 blocks to get there, that's about half a mile in English. Was late for the hot class, so went to Level 1 Hatha instead, which was good. I reassured myself that Yoga was not all about losing weight and getting that lovely figure I've never had, but also about my inner well being and doing the lower level classes give me time to breathe, think/ or not think and devote my practise to inner peace.
Is Toronto friendly?? Yes, I think it is. At Yoga when new people I met found out I was new to their country, they openly welcomed me to their country and hoped I would like it here. On our first visit in June, we found that customer service here was excellent, and after coming from a country where this didn't exist, we were very pleasantly surprised. The staff in Maccy Ds were very courteous and friendly, the staff at the bank where we opened a non-resident bank account were extremely helpful and friendly too. When they found out we were coming back and may move into the branch's area, they gave us a local information pack that the bank had put together so we could familiarise ourselves .... it was like the citizens advice bureau! We now know why they were so friendly though, to get our custom.
Banks here charge for everything, you pay a monthly fee unless you have an agreed minimum balance in your account, for eg $1000, you pay for cheque books 50 cheques for $31.54, pay for transactions if you go over your monthly limit- 65c per transaction. Better not make too many mistakes with the cheques- they look different to the ones I am used to, and have spaces for names and addresses on the top left hand corner, and some funny memo thing on the bottom and alongside it, a picture of a chair ????what does that mean. The cheques would take 1-2 working weeks to arrive, and if you needed them in a hurry, you pay $16 extra and they come in 1-2 days. Not only do you have to be able to afford what you write on the cheques, you have to be able to afford to buy the bloody things, who uses cheques these days anyway?? You can't even pay in S'bury's with a cheque now, but I am not in the UK am I?? I have to keep reminding myself this.
Is it friendly, truly friendly? To be honest, I am not sure yet, maybe after several months of living here, I will reassess the situation. I was offered a lift home though by a fellow yogi, it was raining really hard after yoga, and I declined several times but she insisted so I said yes in the end and was very grateful as I would have got a good soaking had I walked. After nearly 20 years of living in a country where I was an ethnic minority, it seems I have come to another where I am not. The Yoga Tree is run and owned by a young chinese couple, the yogis in class consists of orientals mainly, and I live in an apartment where most of my neighbours are chinese and speak cantonese. I have become a majority... well on this bit of the Highway 7 anyway. It's like I've moved back to Malaysia, apart from the weather and that they drive on the wrong side of the road!
Whilst we were walking down on of the main thoroughfares in Toronto, this greeted us, shouts of, "I hate you! I hate you all... I want you all to die, and go to hell. I hate you, I want you all to go to hell" you get the picture, this was hollered over and over again by a deranged woman. Initially I thought she was cross at someone, it's like something my kids would say to each other or secretly say it to me if I wasn't letting them have their own way. But is transpired that she was not hollering at anyone in particular, just all of us that she was walking past.
We were on our first trip to the city, we used the subway from Yonge and Sheppard and got off at Union Street, then on a streetcar to get to the harbourside. At the weekends, you can buy a day travel pass for $10 and it can be used for up to 6 people, eg 2 adults and 4 kids. You can travel on the TTC subway, streetcars-which are a bit like trams, and buses too, and you can go all over the place.
It was a sunny day and warm, and many people were milling about, we had stopped for an ice cream, a small was 2 scoops, portions are big here. We were on our way to check out the pet warehouse play area thingy. As in the UK, the Canadians love their pets and they have this huge warehouse where you can bring you pets to use the equipment and have fun with them, they are allowed in the cafe, though not by the serving area. This was downtown Toronto, the CN tower looming overhead. They have shows about pets, pet awards, pet advice, boards with pictures of pets that have saved their owners lives etc etc, pet haven. Why did we go in? We don't have any pets at the moment, nor are we considering having any in the near future. I guess Dave was just curious to see what was in there and Mitch wanted to pet some dogs. We spent about 30 mins in there.
The harbourside was a hive of activity, they have all sorts going on there at the weekends, and most of it is free. The Sunday we went there was a hot and spice festival as well as Taiwan Festival with stalls selling crafts, jewellery and food and drink. There was a live performance by a Taiwanese hip hop rap band. Interesting.. and they invited some guest artistes who were in the audience to join in with a rap jam session. There was a duo from Taiwan who'd just performed in NYC and a local Torontonian rap singer. The band tried to get the audience to join in, and we did, it kinda worked.
A lot of Taiwanese food stalls were serving delicacies, we didn't have any but the kids had some bubble tea type smoothies. No tea, but mango smoothies with tapioca pearls. What? you say, bubble tea?? tapioca?? The tapioca pearls were about 5mm in diameter and were black pearls made of tapioca flour, and were chewy affairs, took a bit of getting used to but Jasmine loves it and I do too, as it reminds me of eating ee- a type of desert we had at home every year one everyone's birthday. Most of you won't know what this is, but my malaysian chinese friends will. You could have all kinds of tea with these tapioca balls at the bottom and they provide you with an extra wide bore straw so you can suck all the bubbles/tapioca up!
Here is a pic of the bubble teas!
Pearl Milk Tea is a sweetly flavored tea beverage invented in Taiwan. Drink recipes may vary, but most bubble teas contain a tea base mixed with fruit (or fruit syrup) and/or milk. Ice blended versions of the drink are also available, usually in fruit flavors. Bubble teas usually contain small tapioca balls or pearls called "boba". Pearls made of jelly are also available in many places. These teas are shaken to mix the ingredients, creating a foam on the top of some varieties, hence the name. Bubble tea originated in Taiwan in the 1980s, first spread to nearby East Asiancountries, migrated to Canada before spreading to Chinatowns throughout the United States, and then to various college towns along the West Coast.[1]
There are many variants of the drink, depending on types of tea used and ingredients added. The most popular kinds are "bubble black tea" (traditional Chinese: 泡沫紅茶;pinyin: pào mò hóng chá; literally "froth red tea"), "bubble green tea" (traditional Chinese: 泡沫綠茶; pinyin: pào mò lǜ chá), and "pearl milk tea" (traditional Chinese: 珍珠奶茶; pinyin: zhen zhu nǎi chá).
A common misconception in its English usage, the name "bubble tea" is often associated with pearl milk tea. However, "bubble tea" simply refers to the shaken or whipped drink base. "Bubble tea with pearls" is a more accurate description of the Taiwanese shaken/stirred/whipped tea containing tapioca pearls. Pearl milk tea (of which "bubble tea with pearls" is a subset), also known as "boba milk tea", can refer to any milk tea commonly used, such as Hong Kong-style milk tea, combined with tapioca.
Taken from wiki, so read with caution as to accuracy!
We were also treated to performances of chinese musicians, tai chi demonstration, dancing, chinese tea ceremony, the importance of recycling... Recycling??? The Taiwanese are very eco friendly and showed us a fabric that was made from recycled plastic drinking bottles, it made a polyester type of fabric and also a fleece, so t- shirts, blankets, baby wear, scarves and sock were all displayed. Very impressive... considering the kids school at the moment have an unwritten ban on plastic bottles, and teachers saying to them, no plastic bottles in my class, they kill dolphins!! So, my kids who bring plastic water bottles that we use and reuse are afraid to drink their water in class! This is ridiculous of course... it's the irresponsible humans that do not control their waste that are killing the dolphins, not plastic bottles. We have ordered the school's metal drinking bottles but they have yet to arrive, so, we're having to use plastic ones in the meantime.
The way I am feeling at the moment, I may just ring the school tomorrow and discuss this with them. Scaring kids so they don't have a drink??? What is friendly about that???
Is Toronto expensive? I would say yes, but if you shop wisely then perhaps it's about the same as London, and London was rated 10 in that list of most expensive cities in the world. Property is not cheap either to buy or let, letting is worse. I think there may be some landlords who do not look after their properties like they should. Certainly, some of the properties we saw for let in June proved this, but they were still demanding premium rates. I am not entirely sure how it all works, as my last post showed.
TV news in Toronto has reported problems with bed bugs in some residences and it seems quite a wide spread problem, not only on the bedspread but affecting the whole house. I am a strong advocate for hard wood flooring, always have been and always will be, carpets can harbour all sorts no matter how well your vacuum cleaner works. I remember the old thick pile we had at Fellows Road, which I vacuumed twice daily when the kids were small, and when we took the carpet up to lay the laminate flooring, there was a pile of sand on the overlay... sand the kids must have carried in from the sand pit, but all the vacuuming failed to pick it up, so, who knows what else it failed to pick up.
We did see some lovely apartments and one house yesterday that were decent and very attractive. We have put in an offer on one of the apartments but after filling all the forms, we will now have to wait for the landlady to say yae or nae. The apartment has 2 bedrooms, is a corner lot so is very bright, and we will have the use of a pool, gym, sauna, jacuzzi. It is unfurnished, so we will have to furnish the whole place, the lot, as we would have to do if we had bought our own place. This is because we decided not to ship our furniture over, we couldn't anyway, as our tenants are still using it!!! Wouldn't be very fair on them.
All this shopping should fill me with joy and happiness, but I am not feeling happy at all, me the shopaholic, who jumped at any chance of a trip down to the shops, even if it's window shopping. This is all becoming to much of a chore. I am not excited about anything, I miss all my friends, and I am hating it here at the moment. There, I've said it. I know why we had to come, but I am finding it all too difficult at the moment. I know, I know, what have I got to moan about, people in Pakistan homeless, starving, many have died, people in Haiti having to rebuild after the earthquake last year.
Just feeling a bit sorry for myself.. perhaps it's PMT making things worse, I hope so, if so, it will pass in a few days and I should be back to my old self.
Better end with something funny, well it was funny to Dave and I yesterday anyway. We were sat in the gardens of the apartment we went to view yesteday, on a bench looking at the fountains, and I had looked up at Thornhill Towers and say that it had green glass windows and said to Dave, "Those are the green, green glass of home." How we laughed......
No comments:
Post a Comment