Tidbits

Sleepover at Ikea - Maybe this is the only way to get to the $1 early enough…
A ramen bath - Japanese spa with special baths resembling instant noodles. I wanna play!
Old age homes for dogs - 1) Old dogs don’t like to be abandoned at strange places. 2) Playing with young puppies will probably cause the older dogs to die faster due to exhaustion.
A remote-controlled pigeon - Oh the poor thing…
An article on a brilliant method of teaching grade schoolers about bats and rabies. I smell a lawsuit.
Will trade beer for Crumpler bags. Tempted by the beanbag and messenger bags…

August started off busy enough

August 07, 2008, 3:50 am

I didn’t even remember that the first weekend in August was a long weekend, which basically means I had nothing planned for it. It turned out to be rather busy regardless.

Headed back to Brampton Friday night. Saturday afternoon had dim sum with family and did some shopping at T&T. Came home to get ready for Kevin and Pauline’s wedding reception that evening. That is like, the second wedding I’ve attended. The first one was Mike’s cousin last year, and it was pretty much westernized, at least the parts we attended. The one on Saturday was more Chinese, and had some interesting traditions and customs I’m not familiar with. I’m still undecided about whether I should go to my cousin’s wedding in HK at the end of October. I can only stay a week, and someone needs to babysit Tobey.

Sunday, we started off the day with brunch at Eggspectation at Eaton’s Centre. The original one in Montreal was suppose to be famous, so decided to check it out. Yeah, nothing special, Cora’s is probably still better. I was a bit too conservative with my time estimates, so we had an hour or so to kill before the 2 pm show we were watching at the Elgin Theatre. There was a Turkish Festival happening at Dundas Square, but half the booths there weren’t Turkish. There was mostly food, which we weren’t particularly interested after our heavy brunch.

We watched Avenue Q, a musical comedy described as an adult version of Sesame Street, with puppets and everything. The puppet concept was pretty interesting, they were operated by actors on stage wearing black. The “live” actors have colourful clothing in contrast. It was actually quite effective, in that I find myself focusing on the puppets for the character, but also on the actor behind it for additional body language. Lots of swearing, adult themes...puppet sex. Fun songs with titles such as “The Internet is for porn” and “What do you do with a BA in English”. I’m impressed that the actors operating the puppets also sing and talk in puppet-voice (sort of pinched and whiny), making the puppet more realistic. They also make brilliant use of the small set. Good fun if you like this sort of humour. Can probably still get $30 tickets through Travelzoo until the end of August. Though in the end, it comes out to be more like $40 with the ridiculous fees that ticketmaster charges. Seriously, $7 convenience fee for each ticket? Like we have to pay for the convenience of ordering tickets online? Isn’t it kind of a convenience on the box office staff too?? Oh, and it’s also extra if you want to print your ticket yourself. Again, doesn’t that cost them LESS money? Argh!

After the show, we had dinner at the Sultan’s Tent. It’s this Moroccan place on Front Street by St Lawrence Market that we walk by all the time but never actually tried. They have a ”Morocolicious” event in August ($25 three course dinner) so we decided to give it a try. Generally positive. The meal came really quickly cause it’s probably what everyone was ordering, but the dishes were still quite good despite of this. Portions of the ribs and lamb were more than generous, flavourful and tender. Stay away from the salmon though (huh? Salmon and Morocco?), it was bland and the sauce was way off. Might go back for another dinner special if they change up the dishes.

Almost done. Monday, went over to Emily’s for a BBQ lunch and to play in her pool. It was a great day for swimming, sunny and hot. Until we got into the water and it became all overcast and cold. I can see how having your own pool would be awesome in the summer, but it’s way too much work to maintain. Waterproof camera pouch is fun in the pool!

Finally, I’ve added another set of China photos:

Zhouzhuang (周庄)