Margot Disko
...is the name of our new GPS navigator. XD The voice sounded like a British woman so I thought Margot sounded like a sophisticated name for her. Her "last" name was given when I heard Uhm Jung Hwa's D.I.S.C.O playing on the car stereo. But instead of a "c" I replaced it with a "k". I guess it sounds more European like that. And thus the name stuck. Even my parents call it Margot but pronounce it as "Mar-goat" XD Anyway, she was a big help getting us to NY/Canada, about 12+ hours to get there. O_o
Sleep? What's that?
So we left about 3pm Wednesday and arrived in NY around 11am Thursday having very little sleep at all. And instead of finding a hotel right away we already set out to go around the park at Niagara Falls all day. We got to see the little aquarium there but the most fun was getting really close to the falls. First, we rode a boat that took us near the the falls where we got splashed by the mist coming off the falls. We wore plastic ponchos that made us feel like a bag of steamed veggies cuz it was hot outside as well. Then we got a little closer to the falls by walking along a deck near the bottom of the falls and we were just a few feet away from a waterfall. The little showers coming from it felt like really hard rain coming down on you, almost like the massage setting on the shower head (if you have one of those) but more sporadic and hard. hehe Then at night we got to see the falls lit up with colorful light. Prettyful. And that pretty much sums up our time in New York. I wish we got to see the big city but that would've been another 7 hours drive. Eek.
At the aquarium: Grandpa looking seals and waterdogs (the albino one freaks me out!)
1. Taking a pic of my sisters inside my poncho. I didn't want to get the camera wet.
2. The boat that we rode near the falls. See the mist on the bottom left corner.
1. Taking a shower
2. Mandatory sisters pic with falls in the background
On my other LJ I've posted pics of the falls in the daytime and night time. ---> Click.
Oh, Canada!
The next day we drove over the bridge into Canada. The lady at the border check was kinda mean. I don't know which side she was from US or CAN but she was such a B. Didn't even say "Welcome". hehe So while the Niagara Falls, NY has the park and all, Niagara Falls, Canada has all the amusement touristy attractions. They remind me of the beach stores in Myrtle Beach and Virginia Beach with a souvenir shop every other block. My sisters and I rode an air conditioned ferris wheel and viewed the falls from that angle. Then at night we viewed the falls lit up with colored lights again but from the Canadian side. There was also a fireworks show along with it.
The ferris wheel and the view of the falls from it.
Austropean Space Savers
On Saturday, we went to Toronto which was an hour and half away from the border. I was surprised we even had time to go there since we were suppose to leave for home that night. Well, it was nice to go to a place where it wasn't so touristy, it gave me a chance to see how Canada's like. It almost reminds me of when I lived in Europe and visited Australia. An obvious change is the speed limit switch from mph to km which we had no trouble figuring out. One thing we thought was strange is that the houses were too much too close together. Like there's only a car's width of space between each house, it's as if you can have a conversation with your neighbor by talking across from your windows cuz it's that close. I live in a cul-de-sac street where there's 5 houses in it. If we were to arrange it like those houses you can add 5 more houses and make it a total of 10 on our street. hehe I guess that shows what we think of our neighbors, we want to be as far away from them as possible. XD
zOMG! Asians!
Toronto's a big city, much like Atlanta but you can sense something different about it. Maybe it just doesn't feel ghetto and that's a good thing. hehe Plus there's a lot of Asians there! I've never seen so many Asians in one place. I know we have a fairly decent Asian population back home but you hardly see them on a regular basis. So it felt nice being around my peeps even though we're not the same ethnicity. LoL When we were there there was some Thai festival thing going on. Then we found Chinatown which was cool cuz I wanted to see the one in NY but of course we couldn't. It felt like the markets in Philippines, the smells, the crowds, the stores. I was so tempted to buy a bunch of Asian DVDs cuz they had a 10 for $30 deal and I found 4 Isabella Leong movies. I even found the drama/movie Rika Ishikawa and Miki Fujimoto did called "17". But then I thought nah they can be that great. I've had several experience buying Chinese version DVDs and it's not that great. But then again I should've at least bought a few. Oh well. hehe
Spying on adorable Asian babies at the Thai festival. OMG! I want to steal them. XD
1. Chinatown, it started raining.
2. Chinese versions of Korean movies. My Sassy Girl and Attack on the Pinup Boys. There's some Yonsama movies underneath that. XD
1. Pig and ducks in a window display.
2. The only thing I bought from Canada. It reminded me of someone. LoL XD
So that same night around 9pm we left Toronto to go back home. I wished we had more time to really look around cuz I know there's so much more to see. But overall it was a fun trip. Maybe next time we'll be more prepared and not so "Ok, we'll go here. Pack up, we're leaving today." hehe
Mandatory Isabella pic
I really should've bought those DVDs of hers I found in Chinatown but it's ok I'll get them eventually. I'll leave you with a screen cap from her movie "Bug Me Not!" She reminds me of Kusumi Koharu in this one: tall, goofy, kinda dumb, but cute. hehe
