I have to admit that I felt a lack of enthusiam for this upcoming trip. Perhaps its because I've already been to Toronto, New York and Italy but there are always new adventures to be found in familiar territories. Albert and I went to the Royal Ontario Museum as it was free on fridays. There were decent roman, greek and egyptian collections but that seemed to be the highlight of the museum. I didn't see a lot of Canada's history (perhaps thats in another museum). One random thing I did learn, that I'll share to enhance your trivial knowledge, is that [View Full Entry]

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Yesterday mom and I did a day trip by boat to Macau. We felt honor-bound to undertake this adventure as my dad grew up there and well, he did pay for this trip. The place now belongs to China but is a special economic zone with relative autonomy over itself other than national security and foreign relation policies. This place is relatively unexciting if you don't feel the need to go to one of the many casinos. I found that the lights were just as glittery in Macau as Las Vegas but not as exciting. Las Vegas casino hotels had certain [View Full Entry]

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The cooler temperatures have been a source of relief. Mom didn't quite enjoy Bangkok as the 30 degree heat + humidity was a bit much for her. We made the best of our last day in Bangkok by going to a weekend market that was monstreous. I think with 15 000 stalls you could go without seeing the light of day for quite some time. We shopped until we left with empty wallets. Now that we're back in Hong Kong we're catching up with family and friends. We went to visit my grandfather's grave on the Kowloon side. He's buried in [View Full Entry]

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We got into Bangkok late last evening. I took a stroll around the hotel and saw some of the things Bangkok/Thailand seems to be known for - transvestite prostitutes, street vendors selling deepfried cockroaches/ants/various bugs, more prostitutes/escort girls and the western men using these female services. We headed out this morning and checked out the National Museum and learnt a bit about Thai history having known nothing beforehand. From there we headed down the road to see the Golden Palace and the Emerald Buddha. Later on by chance, a thai man introduced himself and told us about a gover [View Full Entry]

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I love Hong Kong! Sure the streets are crowded enough to make one clausterphobic when crossing an intersection and there are strange smells wafting up from the streets but its great. The food here is fantastic and the Chinese sure do love to eat. From morning to late late evening there are always plenty of restaurants and stalls open to cater to any taste. The HK seem to be especially fond of tripe and tendon noodle soup (mm... tasty). Mom has gotten ahold of old friends in Hong Kong and they've taken us touring around and also taken us out for [View Full Entry]

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We arrived safely in Singapore (amist the rain... again). Singapore has been good from what we've seen so far. The one thing that's blown me away is how much of a nightlife there is in Singapore. Its a bit different when the shops are open until 10pm and not 6pm in Australia (There are also a high number of shopping centres quite odd for such a small area). There are fast food joints and food hawker stalls galore here. When I asked someone who had been here before on what there is to do... he just said eat and shop. He [View Full Entry]

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We flew down to Newcastle from Brisbane last night. This place seems to be fairly small as it only had one luggage carrousel in the tiny airport. The main attraction to most backpackers seems to be the surfing. We, however, came for the wine tour which should have been more appropriately labelled booze shopping/the drinking bus. We didn't get the explanation on how wine was made like other places (ie. Okanagan, Niagara-on-the-lake). We did, however, get free samples galore starting off with the semillon (famous in the hunter valley) to shiraz (also famous in the valley) and sweet sweet port. [View Full Entry]

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We've been in Brisbane for the last few days. Although this city doesn't hold a lot of sightseeing attractions itself (other than the typical museum, art galleries) we've made the most of our time here. Saturday, we checked out the south bank of the city and watched a free aerobics class going on in this artificial lagoon created (complete with beach and lifeguard) on the site of the former Expo 88. We also checked out the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary. Most australians would say they havn't been there since the age of 5 but I figured since we came down all [View Full Entry]

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My mom and I have made it to Australia after the long-haul flight on Singapore Airlines with stops at Vancouver, Seoul, Singapore and we finally arrived at Sydney. For those of you thinking of doing long-haul flights, I highly recommend Singapore Airlines as you'll be entertained for hours on end with your choice of over 50 movies to watch at any time (Malaysian only had twelve that ran regardless of you watching or not). Colin and Val, a couple that we were with on our European tour two years ago, picked us up from the airport and gave us the quick [View Full Entry]

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I'm back from all my adventures (I'm not so sure about this -20 business that awaited me in Edmonton) but I did promise an entry from the glamerous world of LA/Hollywood. The flight back from Kuala Lumpur/Taipai to Los Angeles was plagued by delays. The most memorable part of that plane ride was being told to exit the plane in Taipai with all my carry on luggage and that my gate was A4. After coming back from the bathroom, I tried to enter the lounge the same way I came despite a curious no entry sign. Well, it turns out that [View Full Entry]

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