Anyway, I love food. If you don’t know me (and you should by now), you will know that I will practically eat anything. Anything. There are few things that I absolutely refuse to eat, and they are uncommon enough for me not to have to face them in my everyday life. I’m also not going to tell you what they are so you can’t bully me with them.

Honestly I don't really eat sandwiches. I don't eat a whole lot of bread in general and I pretty much get my carbs from other sources. This sandwich, on the other hand, is no ordinary sandwich. So I devoured it all.

Kevin introduced us to this neat hipster bakery by Bayview called Art is In. As I said in the caption, I don’t really make sandwiches for myself and I don’t order sandwiches when I’m out for lunch/dinner. But these sandwiches, oh god, they could put poop meat balls on that bread and it would taste delicious. *Insert a million star recommendation*

One platter from Schwartz's came with a plate of meat, bread, cole slaw, and fries. FOR EACH PERSON. Now I know why Celine Dion bought this place.

We were determined to go to Schwartz’s Deli when we went to Montreal. The time we went was a couple of week after Celine Dion and her husband bought the deli. We were expecting it to be even more busy, but it was also St Patrick’s Day, and in a party city like Montreal, mostly everyone was busy partying. We still had to wait about 15 minutes, which apparently is pretty quick by comparison.

Mmmm, look at that meat. (That's what she said)

The meat was so delicious (that’s what she said), that I didn’t even want to eat it with bread (go back to whatever I wrote about not really eating bread above). We couldn’t finish it all and we had to get it wrapped up. Kevin wanted to leave it for the hotel cleaners, I said no and brought it back with me to Ottawa. Hello, lunch and dinner for the next week! (Seriously)

These were supposed to be rainbow cupcakes, but I got lazy. So I just dumped blue food colouring and swirled it around.

These cupcakes were the first batch I made in Ottawa. Shamefully, they were from a mix BUT that was because I forgot to buy baking powder, and when Ashley tried to buy it for me, she left it on the counter, despite already paying for it. Mix was on sale, and tbh I wasn’t in the mood to make anything exotic, so I just went with it and put blue in t make it LOOK less shameful.

This was also the first time baking with my roommate’s oven so I had no idea how they would turn out. Crossed my fingers and hoped for the best!

For Ashley, that duck thief >:( (She gave it back for like .. a day, and then stole it again)

I’m sure Ashley would say they turned out well This was also supposed to be frosting practice, as I had bought new frosting bags/tips and wanted to try them out. My star tips are way too small, so I ended up doing half-assed bag and then spreading it. I also didn’t account for how incredibly hot the kitchen would get, so the frosting was a bit runny too. Oh well, it turned out okay anyway!

My beautiful wontons :') Not bad for someone who hasn't wrapped wontons in ages!

A couple of days later, we had an Asian feast afternoon/night at Ashley’s house. I had a stack of wonton wrappers because I was going to make wontons but got too lazy to, so we made them at Ashley’s house instead. Wontons and dumplings are also a lot more fun to make when you’re making it with someone else.

I’m pretty sure the wonton wrapping motion has been embedded in my brain, because I could not remember how to properly wrap them until I picked one up and started doing it subconsciously. Thanks Mom, years of wonton wrapping practice when I was a kid did not go to waste!

Mmmmm, wonton soup. Now I remember why we go through the trouble of making them.

Mmmm, wonton soup. It may as well be chicken noodle soup for Chinese people. It’s hard to find someone who vehemently hates wonton soup. (There’s also wor wonton soup which is different from regular wonton soup — wor wonton means there’s a shitload of other things in the soup that can enhance/clash with the taste. Personally, I say clash, but I’m sure there are people who think regular wonton soup is too simple)

The soup can be made with anything light like chicken broth or bouillon, since the focus of the flavour is on the wontons. I like having wontons with a lot of pí (皮; literally, skin, or in our case, the wrapper part) because I think it tastes better with soup.

Our super asian dinner, where everything was too salty because we all suck at cooking (just kidding, I wasn't cooking )

I actually didn’t contribute to the dinner, I just made half of the wontons and cupcakes (as you will see later). Going clockwise from 12, fish of some sort, rice, rice, rice, rice, salt-pepper chicken (Yán sū jī; 鹽酥雞, recipe), preserved tofu wings, and can’t remember what it was in the middle brown blobby blob.

I told you rainbow cupcakes would be here somewhere ;>

I finally got to make my rainbow cupcakes at Asian night. Normally it’s a bit of a pain in the butt to separate batter and mix colours, but it’s definitely more fun with people to boss around to do that for you :> Cupcakes were from mix because I couldn’t be arsed to lug around all of my ingredients (ie, a hundred thousand pounds of cake flour) just to make one batch.

Frosting practice ... the two in the bottom right corner are Kevin's, the all-covered ones are mine, and the rest are for Ashley and her roommate to play with.

I used this as another chance at frosting practice. I’ll make them look really pretty someday. Someday… (when I have a bigger star tip)

Taste the rainbow! The colour didn't come out as vibrant as I hoped (also doesn't help that I took it with a camera app that applies filters to pictures)

This was also the first time using Ashley’s oven, so crossed my fingers and hoped they would turn okay for that too. the tops did rise but frosting covered that. Our colouring was also nowhere near as vibrant as other ones, but close enough

LOOK LOOK, ALMOST JAFFA CAKES. They could almost pass for the actual things but the chocolate at the top is a bit too thin and the biscuit at the bottom is fatter. YES I KNOW MY JAFFA CAKE ANATOMY.

 I love Jaffa Cakes. I friggin love Jaffa Cakes. One of the big boohoos I had about leaving Vancouver was that I didn’t know where to get Jaffa Cakes from in Ottawa. That’s why I was super excited when I saw Pim’s.

Pim’s is known in the Jaffa world as an alternative. It’s like turkey bacon instead of regular bacon. Sure it’s still *bacon*, but .. it’s not the same. However, after being deprived for 3 months, it was good enough. There are also more flavours for Pim’s (that are easily found here) so hooray for fatty me!

QNX building cafe ... woop there goes my lunch money for the rest of the month.

Remember that time I mentioned Kevin and UX team were moving to another building? Well their building’s cafe recently opened (by recently I mean at the time this post was originally made). We’re always looking for excuses to go to their building for lunch because it’s sooooo goooood *drools* In fact, I think we will go there tomorrow. >: |

I got cupcakes for being nice These cupcakes were also nice everyone wins!

 I ordered a bunch of cupcakes from 3 bakers and a bikebut their debit machine was broken. Retail + default IT training kicked in and I set out to help them fix it. In the end I just went to the bank and took out cash so I could pay and go. They thought this was super nice and gave me 4 for free ~ BEING NICE IS PAYING OFF.

I know, I went a bit overboard with bacon BUT I LOVE BACON. Also look at that badass salad. Smoked salmon and grape tomatoes, yum.

 Mmmm. Bacon. I only let myself buy bacon once a month, because I know I’d be 300 lbs otherwise. I mean … come on. I’ve put bacon on my SALAD before.

Bacon is a good as any topic to end a blog post about food on. Here is a ridiculously happy plate from Hard Rock Cafe.

Ridiculously happy plate is ridiculously happy.

Ok time to do real work now, goodbye forever

This freak snowstorm happened while we were waiting for the bus. My entire backside was all white with snow by the time the bus came, and even that was only a 10 minute wait.

We (Ashley and I) left for Toronto at around 4:00pm on Feb 17. Since there was no time to go home after work, we just brought our stuff so we could run out at 3:30 (the time we were supposed to leave at), catch the bus to Greyhound, and then line up forever for the bus to Toronto.

That obviously didn’t happen.

I had been bored out of my brains all day (managers, stop reading now), so I figured we could leave even earlier. But as luck would have it, suddenly, at 3pm on Feb 17, I was the most popular person at the office. Emails came flying in, report requests, other testing to be done … I guess everyone else realized that it was the long weekend (Monday, Feb 20 is Family Day in Ontario) and decided that the coop should pick up all the pieces. I had already told my buddy that I was dead to the office after 3:30, so he took a bunch of the work. Thanks, Chris! That didn’t stop people from sending me requests over the weekend .. but more on that later.

So rushing to the bus stop…we left half an hour late. We were supposed to be at the terminal an hour before the bus departure. Ashley’s bus was at 6:10pm, while mine was at 7pm. We didn’t get tickets to the same bus because Ashley waited too long, and my bus sold out. But that’s okay, we found out that she could get on my bus as long as she had a ticket dated for the same day. So now instead of barely making it to her 6:10 bus, we were 2 hours early for my 7pm bus. That, by the way, was totally fine with me. My legs were incredibly sore due to a highly intensive kickboxing class (thanks, Scott!) so I mostly crawled along when Ashley was freaking out about missing her bus. All I really wanted to do was sit .. a lot …

Korean "sushi", which wasn't bad, actually. Instead of raw fish they just put vegetables.

We didn’t have time to get dinner, so I sent Ashley to a nearby Korean supermarket to pick up some food. She picked up some mystery snacks, Korean rice crackers, and Korean sushi. I thought we would be starving on the bus and devour everything, but we both just fell asleep. Ashley had a headache, and I had old man legs (thanks again, Scott!)

We arrived in Toronto safe and sound and groggy. Our hostel (no link because I can’t even remember the name) was about a 10 minute walk to subway, 2 minute subway ride, and another 10 minute walk to hostel, so we just said screw it (actually I said screw it (actually my legs said screw it)) so we hailed a taxi. $10 later we arrived, only to find out that the hostel only takes cash and Ashley didn’t have enough (I paid for the greyhound tickets), so we had to go out and find an ATM.

Lizard? What the hell?

We found a convenience store with an ATM … but it ran out of cash. The nice guy at the desk told us of a bank about 2 blocks down, so we started to head that way. Some Indian dude noticed we were lost and offered to lead us to the bank … and then offered alcohol at his place and asked us if we wanted him… sexually. We thanked him for showing us to the bank and ran away. What would’ve happened if he started to pursue us? Well, he had no idea that my legs were super sore. If necessary I could’ve just delivered a swift roundhouse kick to where ever and however high my sore leg felt like going .. (thanks, Scott!)

Thankfully, creep was nowhere to be seen after we left the bank so we just hightailed it home. Giant lizard on a window was on the way.

The snow followed us

Remember that freak snowstorm that hit us when we were leaving the office? It’s like those snowflakes embedded themselves into my jacket and then floated up in the Toronto sky, only to make it come down ten times as hard. The streets of Toronto were completely bare of snow at night, but in the morning? BAM instant winter wonderland. Luckily it wasn’t super cold (I say luckily because I wasn’t properly dressed) so it didn’t hinder us too much.   It was just incredibly annoying having to navigate through snow covered streets while trying to find our way around.

One of UoT's many campus locations.

One of our stops on Saturday morning was to explore U of T’s campus. However, it is fairly HUGE, and the ground was gross and wet and slushy, so we just took a picture to say that we went past it. The sign was neat. We visited two museums instead; The Royal Ontario Museum (hereon referenced as the ROM), and the Bata Shoe Museum (the Bata).

The ROM! We had lunch right across from this beautiful view. *burps one month later*

We didn’t have breakfast upon leaving the hostel, so we decided to look for cafes around U of T. We were fairly unsuccessful, and decided on having brunch at a pho restaurant right across from the ROM. Since we barely had dinner, and didn’t have breakfast, it’s safe to say we were both staaaaarving.

Look at this huge ass bowl of pho! Holy crap! That thing was bigger than my head!

I ordered an XL something (and a drip coffee, as you can see :>), and as the picture shows, it was friggin huge! That’s alright. Like I said, staaaaarving.

D-d-d-demolished!! (Not shown: the fatty meat that I shoved down to the bottom of the soup)

That was hard to finish, even for me. At the end of it, I just wanted to lie down, and nap forever.

The ROM was featuring a special exhibit on the Mayans, so they had some sucker dressed up presumably like the Mayans did. This kid was not having any of it. The guy did not help.

We finally made our way to the ROM (I know, I know, it was just across the street). As you may be able to tell, the ROM had an exhibit on the Mayans. We actually went around the Asiatic wings first before going through the Mayan exhibit. I did take many blurry pictures of displays but for the sake of my sanity, I will just throw them up on Facebook.

Unfortunately for us, without a guided tour, we spent about an hour to an hour and a half in the Asiatic wing. Thankfully the Mayan exhibit had a clear flow and obvious progression. Unthankfully, it was incredibly crowded. We glossed over about half of the displays just because groups of people thought it was the most fascinating thing in the world and spent 10 minutes staring at it (from what I could glimpse, it wasn’t that fascinating). They also had a section devoted to the Mayan calendar, what with the end of the world nonsense and all. I honestly do not remember it all to accurately summarize, but the gist of it goes like this: The world is not going to end in 2012.

The rest of the museum was dinosaurs and other neat things. It was also when my legs got pissed and wanted to stop walking. So we rushed through the third and fourth floor, snapped some quick pictures, and made our way to the gift shop, where I bought stuff for people who didn’t need them. (Seriously Peter, what the hell are you going to do with a rain stick?) That was my first mistake; buying a lot of things earlier on. It was after I bought all that when I realized I would have to also carry all that. Cue my legs kicking my brain.

I honestly thought this museum would be the place of my dreams. However, I was so tuckered out from going to the ROM that I just wanted to go home and lie down forever by the time we finished the first room in the Bata.

The next place we went to was the Bata Shoe Museum. I have no idea what I expected. Some parts were interesting, but I was so spent after exploring the ROM in so much detail that my favourite part was sitting down. They also had a section on the Roaring 20′s which actually super interesting. It also spawned one of our funny inside jokes that no non-Chinese person would understand (you could try, I guess).

I had been bitching all day about my legs hurting/aching (我的腿非常痛). The word to learn today is 痛: tòng, pronounced like tone, but ending with a g (I am such a great teacher). It means hurts, or pain. (Like, you hit me, now my face 痛). The pronunciation is the important part. Remember, pronounced like tone.

So back to the roaring 20′s. They had a display about Louis Vuitton shoes. (Knowing how to pronounce Vuitton ~properly~ is also vital here). So I said to Ashley,
“Hey Ashley! Look! Louis Vuitton shoes!”
Ashley, “什么?! 什么痛!?!” (“Shénme?! Shénme tòng!?!”) (“What?! What hurts!?!”)
Me, *confused* “Louis Vuitton?!”
Ashley, “Didn’t you say something tòng?”
Me, “No I said hey look at Louis Vuitton”

And then we both realized that she thought I said something tòng (hurts) when I actually was trying to show her neat Louis Vuitton shoes. The joke is that tòng is a homonym of Vuitton, and she heard the first word because I had been bitching about my legs being tòng all day. * Uproarious laughter*

Look at these tiny shoes eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeh

All in all, Louis Vuittòng and everything, the Bata was interesting. But with no guided tour (at the time we went), extremely dim lighting, and a looping clip of Justin Bieber singing “BABY BABY BABY OHHHH”, I think I will wait a while before I go back again.

Bloor & Yonge, not really sure why KEVIN told us to come here...

After that, we got coffee and tea at Tim Horton’s. This is where I got introduced to French Vanilla coffee for the very first time. Now I can’t stop drinking it. We made our way over to Bloor & Yonge, and promptly spent like an hour in the H&M .. shopping. In the evening we went to a Greek restaurant in Greek town with Ashley’s friend Christy.

Thus ended day 1 of Toronto! Status: Not sick yet.

What the hell are these things???

Day two comprised of us going to CN Tower and Toronto’s Eaton Centre. We passed by those statues and I’m still wondering what they are. Dogs? Wolves? Rabbits with weird legs? They look like they’re in very compromising positions.

View of Toronto ('s coast?????) from on top of the CN Tower.

RIM provided us with discount CN Tower tickets so we had the Total Tower Experience package. That meant we could go up to the highest point and got to watch 3D movies and stuff. Now, one thing you should know about me is that I am terrified of heights. I used to have troubles going up a ladder (but years of having to do visual work at La Senza cured that). Going up to CN Tower was no problem; I had been to the top of the Empire State building, they were both spectacular views and definitely a must see for all tourists.

The problem was the famed glass floor of the CN Tower. I made it my goal to be able to stand on top of it…but when we actually approached it, my palms got sweaty just by looking at it. Ashley, on the other hand, did not have a care in the world and promptly sat down, and demanded me to take a picture of her. And then she told me to sit so she could take a picture of me.

At this point my palms were practically dripping with sweat. I wandered over the beams, looked down, wiped my sopping palms on my jeans, and wandered back to the non-glass floor area. Repeat x 5 minutes. At this point Ashley also started to freak herself out from going back and forth on the glass floors, and she really wanted me to just sit my ass down so she could take a picture.

It took a lot of willpower to not barf, and my jeans were practically soaked from my wiping my sweaty palms on them, but I finally sat my ass down on the glass floors. There is a picture of me on Facebook on which I managed a smile for Ashley to take the picture. Then I had the great idea of looking down and I just about froze with fear. I sat there for a few more minutes until some kids wanted to take a picture and I was stuck in the background because I couldn’t move. So I summoned my pride and got up on my wobbly legs, and looked at myself standing over a glass floor from 342 metres in the air. It scared the hell out of me, but the initial fear was over. I even took a picture of my shoes as I stood on it!

Do I think I’ll be able to do it again? Sure. But not without the palm-sweat-pool and minutes of bargaining with myself. I imagine it’ll still be pretty scary for me, no matter how many times I do it. But the only thing that matters is that I did it at least once so I know I’ll eventually be able to do it again (my palms are sweating up just thinking about it). Kevin, it’s your turn now

Yonge Street! I really only took it for that neat sign and to prove that I was here.

So after the terrifying experience at CN Tower, we went to Eaton Centre to do some shopping (What? We’re girls okay). We had made reservations to some fancy place and it just didn’t feel right showing up in jeans and ugg boots. We both set out to look for dresses and shoes (for once I didn’t want to buy shoes…mostly because I didn’t want to carry them home )

Inside Eaton Centre. I got tired of walking.

Eaton Centre was incredibly packed, especially since it was the long weekend. It’s like Metrotown on steroids. I was already carrying a bunch of souvenirs from CN Tower (no, I did not learn from my mistake on the first day) and it was incredibly hot in the mall, so I had to carry my jackets as well. Needless to say, I got really tired, really quickly. I’m sure I would’ve been happier if I didn’t have to carry a whole bunch of junk, but .. I did, and it was one of the few times in my life when I wanted to lie down and nap instead of going shopping.

The "famous" La Senza of Eaton Centre (you know that store that always gets featured with models and DJs and cupcake parties on the LS FB page? Yeah, this is it)

I did check out a few stores that weren’t available to us in Ottawa or Vancouver…Victoria’s Secret being one of them. Suddenly, I understood why La Senza was the “cheaper option” of VS (In case you don’t know, Limited Brands owns both Victoria’s Secret and La Senza. They focused VS for ~*mature*~ (aka has lots of money) ladies while LS was for hip and young ~*trendsetters*~ (aka poor college folk)). It was pretty unbelievable when I worked at La Senza, since we had bras that were priced at ~$40, and that was supposed to be cheap? But no. VS bras are $20 more expensive for pretty much the same quality stuff (after all, they are owned by the same parent company).

I’m not sure what it was that threw me over the edge. The combination of CN Tower and this massive mall, maybe, but soon after my bones began to feel really really sore. You know that feeling when it feels like every muscle in your body just quit? Your throat kinda hurts, your joints ache … Yep. Suddenly I got sick.

Since we had reservations to said fancy place, we couldn’t very well cancel at the last minute, so I dragged my sack of bones to Panorama and had fancy dinner with friends. After that, I went back to the hostel and hoped I could sleep away the sick.

Day 2 ended with me getting over a fear and getting sick too!

Toronto's street cars. We boarded them at a level above the subway station (but wasn't quite the road) and BAM it came out here.

On Day 3, I lost my voice. We were also leaving in the afternoon. We went to Chinatown with Ashley’s friend and had dim sum. To get there, we took a street car. We had seen signs for them but hadn’t actually *seen* one.

Toronto's Chinatown, which actually had more Vietnamese places than Chinese places.

Chinatown should’ve been named China and Vietnamese-town. About half the stores were Vietnamese, or they were Vietnamese with Chinese workers, or vice versa.

What could entice you more to have some ramen besides a giant doll holding a bowl of it and winking at you?

I liked Chinatown. Some parts of Vancouver (apart from Chinatown) are like one big Chinatown. It felt nice to be surrounded by familiar gross looking chinese herbs and snacks that I wasn’t allowed to have as a kid. Also, ramen.

YES I LOVE RAMEN LIN I WILL COME EAT SOME RIGHT AWAY

Apparently I have written over 3000 words in this post. I am all worded out.

Anyway, I went home that Monday sick and feverish, and proceeded to have a week of hell at work. On the Tuesday my temperature yo-yo’d so much I had to carry a thermometer with me (it has a cow on it ). I didn’t get my voice back until Thursday so I had to miss kickboxing classes, and on Friday my nose started leaking like a faucet so I couldn’t go on Saturday, either. But that’s okay, on that Saturday we went to a super cool bakery. But that’s another post.

View of the CN Tower from ... Chinatown? Honestly, I've forgotten.

Here is a parting shot of the iconic Toronto downtown as seen from apparently Chinatown. Now I have to go bug my manager about filling in a site visit form that is due today that I completely forgot about until an hour ago.

Goodbye forever

This is my cubicle. there are my bags, phone that I've never picked up, and Bob, whom I've also never picked up (I value my life and my eyeballs). There is a computer and a chair around the corner, just letting you know so you don't think I stand all day.

I sit all day. The only time I get up (after my getting-into-the-office-and-stuff ritual) is when I have to go to the washroom, get a beverage, go to a meeting/lunch, or going home. My desk is right beside the wing doors, so everyone who works on this side of the floor has to pass by my desk. Luckily (and also sadly, but more on that later), the UX team who was also on this floor moved to another building, so there aren’t *as many* people going past my desk. I’ve started a mental tally of people who go back and forth a lot. The UX team used to be the biggest offenders, but there’s this one chinese lady who pretty much spends all day wandering around… what does she even do?!

My cubicle is also right next to the break area. Literally .. right next to it. I hear a lot of interesting stories though, it's like people forget that a) I'm RIGHT there, b) I have ears, c) I have pretty good hearing or d) MY DESK IS RIGHT THERE.

Yes. I have the dreaded cubby next to the break area. Pros: 1st in line for the microwave. Ability to get 14 types of tea on demand. No judgement for going to the fridge to eat whipped cream. Cons: As mentioned in the caption, people always feel the need to tell dumb stories/anecdotes/share every detail of their past hour in the break area. I don’t know who any of these people are, but I can match up voices to stories. Seriously…do you people not know I have ears?!?!??!

Now, my coop position is a software tester. It’s known in the industry as QA/Q&A. I test when the devs throw stuff at me, and then I break their stuff and they get mad and come to my desk and demand snacks (more on that also). Consequently, there are periods of non-testing, and I can’t very well visibly slack off because of all the people walking by, so I’ve developed a method of making myself look busy while actually doing nothing. (Coworkers stop reading here). All I do is throw something important looking on the screen, print out a crossword, and hunch over it and look like I’m trying to work out some extreme problem. Crosswords are still pretty challenging for me (sorry my english not good ok) so I’m not faking that …

I might have a problem with snacking .... Pictured (in case you're blind) : Lychee jelly, Doritos, motherfucking Creme Egg Snack Cakes, Peek Frean Fruit Creme cookies, and Ritz bits cheese sandwich crackers. Also dinosaur magnet and batman.

To ease my slacking, I also have a ton of snacks at my desk. Nothing says extremely hard at work like eating a lot of snacks, right? Sure. Word got out about my snacks pretty quickly, and soon I had the lead developer at my desk demanding a creme egg snack cake. :’(

Also yes I really do have a batman bobble head on my monitor. In case you forgot, I also have a Mijumaru figurine, duck screen cleaner (as pictured), and dinosaur magnet (pictured). People probably think I have a mental age of 12 … oh wait ………..

Seriously what the fuck is a Haw (If you make a Nelson joke I will kick your box)

I had a package of Haw Flakes on my desk, (had because I ate them all) you can read the T&T post for the origin of those. Now, I can’t read Chinese and I have no idea what Haw is, so here’s a picture of the label, as promised.

TAKE IN DIRECTLY. DO NOT TAKE OUT DIRECTLY.

Will I die if I put Haw flakes up my nose? Only one way to find out!

(No I’m jk no pictures of that)

Let’s move onto good food. In our attempts to find Winterlude (we didn’t even go to Winterlude, but that’s later), we stopped by a place called Elgin Street Diner. Oh mein gott, they have the world’s best poutine.

Trevor's philly cheesesteak poutine. That entire diner deserves to be on This Is Why You're Fat (.com).

Now, as you may or may not know, poutine originated in Quebec. So it is only natural that the closer you are to Quebec, the better the poutine is. Since poutine is really only made of three ingredients (fries, cheese curds, and gravy), I don’t know what it is that makes East side poutine so much better than West Coast. IT JUST IS. Also, a bit of trivia for you perfectionists, poutine is properly pronouced (with a snooty french accent) as poo-tsin, not poo-tan. “Putain” actually means something else. A very offensive and probably extremely confusing to the waiter something else. (No, I am not making this up).

There's chili, and there's poutine, and then there's chili poutine. *drools*

So yeah. I don’t think I will ever be able to have West Coast poutine without being snooty and an “I’ve had better” attitude.

My Winterlude Stew. Not pictured: my "small" garden salad which was the size of the plate. (This is why you're fat with a giant salad)

I could go on and on about Elgin Street Diner. I highly recommend it to anyone who comes to Ottawa. Even if you’re a vegetarian (*AHEM ALLU*), they have pretty huge sized salads. The “side” salads is literally another meal. (I know, I’ve gotten take out and split the dinner between 3 days before). Their poutine is to die for and the rest of their food is excellent. Don’t order the hot chocolate though, you’ll just get hot water with some chocolate powder floating on top.

Earl Grey cupcakes at the bakery near my kickboxing class...Whatever weight I hoped to lose whilst kicking boxes has been gained back with these devils. :<

This cafe near my kickboxing class serves the best tasting Earl Grey cupcakes I’ve ever had. I’ve tried to make them but they were always super dense, and nothing like these babies. When I used to go to kickboxing on Saturdays, I’d always stop by there before the class began. I feel like it was the Hail Mary of my inner fat girl, trying to reach out for one last hurrah before she’s kicked back into submission (until she rises again, 2 hours after class ends).

Our first attempt to go to Winterlude. It looks pretty from across the street!

As I mentioned before, we didn’t actually make it to Winterlude the first time we tried to go. That night was the opening ceremonies, held at a museum in Gatineau, Quebec. The only reason we didn’t go was because the bus passed by full and we couldn’t be arsed to wait half an hour for the next one. We did go later on though, pictures from that are in another post because I’m too dumb to figure out how to insert a gallery into a post and I also can’t be arsed to write about every single blurry ice sculpture.

May Lady Rainicorn watch over you always.

Look at this adorable pink unicorn I got for Peter for Valentine’s Day. I’ve nicknamed her Lady Rainicorn (if you don’t know who Lady Rainicorn is, I feel bad for you son, you’re missing out one of the BEST shows of all time, ALL TIME). This Lady Rainicorn may not have a rainbow body or a pink head, but Peter can pretend that she speaks Korean and protects Princess Bubblegum :3

Barbie shoes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! All I need are giant boobies and an impossibly small waist. Oh and a plastic boyfriend. And a pink car.

Peter got me these shoes (in pink of course) for Valentines Day. Unbeknownst to him, I had been puking rainbows about them to Allu just the night before.

Needless to say, it was pretty sweet when I found out that he had gotten them for me. I have nowhere to wear them to and nothing to wear them with, though. BUT AT LEAST THEY’RE MINE.

Look at these sweet ass Batman DVDs I got from Zellers. 3 HOURS OF ENTERTAINMENT RIGHT THERE.

Luckily, I never have to poo when I look at this.

Ok thanks for reading, now it’s poo time, goodbye forever

My roommate was lovely enough to drive me all the way out there so I could satisfy my asian cravings. I loaded up on ~*healthy snacks*~ and stuff to make wontons with!

Is it obvious what I miss most about Vancouver .. And hopefully this is indicative of how desperate I am to have some, even if it is in MSG'd/instant nooble form.

Alright fine, healthy is as healthy does. I tried to get things that I couldn’t find at Loblaws/Metro/Walmart (DESPERATION KICKING IN), such as coconut bread, *real* Korean instant noodles (that sounded a lot more hardcore in my head), Lychee drinks, Vietnamese salad rolls, nori, Haw slices (what the fuck is haw? Someone remind me to take a picture of the label), and shit like sesame oil, chicken powder, and *real* teriyaki sauce. I also bought a giant Japanese noodle bowl … I thought I took pictures, but apparently not I also have some pork tenderloin (lol real food) down there! I promise!

I had hoped to go to the Canal on the weekend, but it was closed due to the “warm” weather. (“Warm” should really be “less cold”). Instead I spent all Saturday in my room watching Modern Family and having a very healthy brunch.

What do you mean bacon isn't healthy?

Okay, I’ll stop saying that I eat healthy. That is my very lovely greens and bacon salad! Everyone needs greens and bacon :> … At least it was delic– oh who am I kidding bacon would be delicious wrapped around a turd. I like my bacon extra crunchy, so it would be broken up and sprinkled on a turd. How did talking about eating shit end up here?

Anyway, we had freezing rain and regular rain last week. I’m pretty used to rain (thanks Raincouver) so it didn’t bother me. However, the rain combined with subzero temperatures turned everything on the ground into ice (except the canal, apparently). Stomping through snow was safer than stepping on a clear looking patch of ground (more fun too).

Skating at the Canal? Pfft just go on RIM's parking lot.

See all that grey on the ground? That’s ALL ice. Every old person and clumsy tard (like myself)’s worst nightmare. Getting across the parking lot and into the building’s doors was like fighting a creeper on hardcore mode. You slip (up)? GAME OVER.

The same day, after work. Snowshoeing at <mountain resort of choice>? Pfft just go to RIM's parking lot.

Yes, this was the SAME DAY. Thank god for snow, it covered the ice so it wasn’t (as) hazardous. Also you can really tell who are the hard workers here (or people who like to take long lunches) … for example, that grey car and the minivan were here before me and are still there when I left. Go home, guys. I bet you’re not even working.

At least the snow is pretty >:( OTHERWISE YOU FUCK THE HELL OFF.

Unfortunately, Ottawa’s transit system/drivers have the same mindset as Vancouver when fresh snow falls. EVERYONE will want to go home at the same time as everyone else in the city, thus creating huge traffic jams, slowing down buses, and making it hard for poor, car-less plebs like myself and fellow coop sufferers to get on a bus and go home. It also always so happens that whenever my friend and I want to take bus A to go home, bus B will come. Today we decided to wait for bus B … it never showed up

This snow just never stops I figure if I have to stare at this for any bus to come, I may as well take a picture and make you all pretend to suffer with me. Stand in an industrial freezer for added realistic effects.

I spend pretty much most of my not-at-work and not-sleeping time either waiting for a bus or actually being on a bus. Hence why most of my pictures are taken around bus stops (lol ghetto). As mentioned in the previous post, buses are notoriously not on time so I’ve always got an extra few minutes (or 10) to spend freezing my ass off or taking pictures and freezing my fingers off.

Rest assured, that house does not randomly change colours nor suddenly turn all slanty IRL. (There's a racist joke in there, I just know it). In other news, Pano is a really neat app!

Lol that pole by the mailbox is a bus stop sign This also isn’t my neighbourhood (close though) so feel free to snoop. I got tired of waiting at my stop and I was really early for the bus so I wandered down a few stops. I had been wondering why people walked on the road, especially since there’s snow, people without winter tires, etc, they must have a death wish. After wandering down 2-3 blocks to this stop, I realized that sidewalks are probably more hazardous because no one ever fucking shovels. Or if they do, they do a really half-assed job so there’s patches of safe spots in a minefield of ice. One wrong step and BAM you’ve fallen on your ass in front of some people getting their groceries from their driveway. (This almost happened).

*Insert random rant* Why is an emergency alert button even needed … ? If there is a serious tragedy happening in the back, wouldn’t the driver notice at some point? If there was some crazy guy with a gun, wouldn’t s/he notice you breaking this cover and pushing this button? It’s not exactly inconspicuous like the yellow strips on Skytrains. Note that the button doesn’t even stop the bus or anything..it just ~*alerts the driver*~. What if driver isn’t paying attention? BAM you just got shot for trying to alert someone by yanking off a piece of plexiglass and pushing a button. *End random rant*

Work comes in waves; I’m extremely busy if builds come out, but since they’re not consistent, I’m bored for a good part of the week. Usually I convince people walking by that I’m hard at work by hunching over my desk looking deep in thought … which I totally am … with a crossword. At the end of last week I just gave up and started doing crafts.

Poor limb-less Honeydew and stumpy Creeper

Don’t worry, I finally made limbs for Honeydew. I ran out of tape/can’t think of an excuse to get more so they’re just lying around with their stumpy limbs in a pile.

It's "raining"! Abloo bloo bloo.

This is the “rain” that Ottawa got. It’s like .. misty by Vancouver standards.

˥O˥ you guys

I’m getting used to the weather though. I went out over the weekend in ancient Vans! It was really sunny, and the sun reflected off all the snow on the ground so it was really fucking bright. I didn’t think I needed sunglasses in this barren wasteland but now I see (lol pun) that it was a huge mistake.

Anyway I realized that I was side-eyeing both Ottawa and Vancouver for each of their weather woes. Vancouver will never be as cold nor have as much snow as Ottawa, and Ottawa’s rain will never compare to that of ~*raining/reigning*~ rain champion, Raincouver.

D: oh god what am I

Not gonna lie, I have no idea where my loyalties lie, weather-wise. When you’ve experienced the “best” of both worlds (or cities I suppose), it’s hard to see which city is the “best” for weather. (Notice all those bests in quotes? And italicized for extra emphasis?)

The worst kind of elitist.

This day had to come. And so has night, and my bed time.

Ok goodnight forever

In my second week, our team had a weekly meeting so everyone would know what everyone’s working on and stuff. I just sat there with a dopey expression on my face hoping no one would ask me questions. A lot of projects/names being thrown back and forth, roles, responsibilities getting ticked off …

This dog would probably get more things right on the exam than me

The first week was, well, to be blunt, terrifying. I was freaking out on the first Thursday because I had so much stuff to learn how to use … pretty much how to do my entire job, and I couldn’t remember any of it. It was our first payday Friday lunch on the day after (not payday for me yet, but still) that actually got me to start being able to breathe again .. hanging out with my team being regular ole beeraholics really changed the environment and the way I saw things. My sitting on the opposite side of the building from the rest of them meant I didn’t get a lot of interaction with anyone so it was nice to derp around a bit.

I’ve stopped taking as many pictures .. mostly because I don’t go anywhere during the weekday except work, and it is usually too cold to be taking pictures when I wait for the bus. On weekends I’m holed up in my room watching TV or out getting groceries .. and tbh they aren’t the most exciting events.

I honestly don't know what the two zip ties are for. The 60 is an express bus to downtown which only runs on weekends ... sucks since the only time I go downtown is on a weekend. And I take the 93 to everywhere.

Ottawa Transit (OC Transpo) … sucks. Translink seems like the world’s most evolved transit system compared to OC Transpo. Buses have a tendency of showing up at any time other than when they’re actually scheduled (or just not show up at all) and the drivers were incredibly unhelpful (either this changed as my time here progressed, or I just wasn’t level 100 bus noob anymore..probably both). Case in point; on my first day at work (orientation), I hopped on a 93. I had taken the 93 on the day before so I knew that it would go by the office and I knew which stop I had to get off at. What I DIDN’T know was that it was the 93 from the run BEFORE the one that I was supposed to get on, and that the one that I was currently on (20 minutes late btw) terminates 2 stops after the one I got on at.

Okay, no problem; that stop is technically a terminus/break point for drivers. What WAS a problem was that the driver didn’t bother telling anyone that she was going to terminate there. Instead of being decent and letting everyone else on the bus know (there was about 5 people still on), she kept on going, made a turn where the bus wasn’t supposed to, and basically started to head to her next route. She only stopped when some brave guy went up to her and asked where the fuck she was going. Then when I went up to her to ask the same thing, she acted like I had gravely offended her and responded with “Ugh what now? Did I make a wrong turn? This bus is supposed to be at Stittsville [aka far away from where I'm supposed to go] and I’m late for my route there.” WELL WHY THE FUCK DIDN’T YOU LET ANYONE KNOW THAT?! Fucking seriously. I had to walk to the office in -25 weather wearing dress pants. Do you know how thick dress pants are? Not very.

The Boyfriend worries about me wanting to stay here forever. YOU TRY WAITING FOR THE BUS 7 DAYS A WEEK IN THIS WEATHER.

The best part was when I saw her later in the week .. she saw me waiting at the stop, and didn’t bother picking me up. Which is okay because I did not want to go for another adventure… but lady, you need to get fired.

Are there seriously sequins on these shoes? Really? The glitter platform pump craze was haute for the first month .. and then it spread to fucking everywhere. But now sequins? REALLY?

I went to Kanata Centrum to get groceries and some shoes to wear at work. The Centrum is basically a giant strip mall. It’s a nice place, but not in -20 weather. The only shoe place that I saw was The Shoe Company, which also owns Town Shoes, aka expensive fancy shoes that I don’t need nor can walk in.

Now let’s talk about the glitter/sequin platform pump craze. Long before it became popular, I used to fantasize about these gorgeous silver glitter platform pumps. Combined with watching too much Gossip Girl, I often dreamed about hitting the town with these and a silver cocktail dress in a town car with Chace Crawford.

*drools*

Next thing I know, they’re fucking everywhere. Expensive versions at Aldo, cheap ripoffs (that look exactly the same) at Sirens/Suzy Shier. Basically every single store that carried heels of some sort had a variation (aka looking EXACTLY the same) of them, all at different prices of course. WHAT STARTED THIS TREND? Let’s play google detective for a moment.

blue = glitter shoes, red = glitter pumps, orange = glitter heels

FALL 2010, WHAT HAPPENED? Apparently 2011 was just year of all glittery shoes. 2012, it’s time to stop. Pls, no more glitter. And at the end of all this, I don’t even own a pair of fucking silver platform pumps. (I do have it in black glitter though … *shifty eyes*)

My dirty salt-ridden boots! I haven't bothered to clean it off, even though I really should. I am so lazy. AND THEY'RE EVEN DIRTIER NOW!

Speaking of shoes, my boots pick up so much salt from the ground. I’ve left it sit for too long and now it is a pain in the arse to get rid of My poor $7 black boots are now an unsightly shade of whitish-grey-gross colour. And let’s be real, I don’t walk anywhere far in these boots…house -> bus stop -> work, reverse, repeat. It’s maybe .. 20 minutes of walking in total for the entire day? And they still end up like that. And I’m still too lazy to do anything about it. Such is life in lazy Hope land.

The view from my room... this was in response to Vancouver's dramatic 5~10cm of snow with -5 weather. "Go outside and make snowmen!" I CAN'T MY HANDS WILL FREEZE OFF THAT'S WHY THERE IS A LACK OF SNOWMEN IN THIS PICTURE. (Except for that poor guy shoveling snow I guess)

Okay sorry Vancouver, and I know I used to be one of you, but 5~10 cm of snow isn’t THAT big of a deal. I will ship you all the snow here if I could. You can have the cold too. In regards to all of this “Ohh it’s so cold it’s -1 abloo bloo bloo” nonsense; bitch please, -10 is a decent day out, and -5 is one-pair-of-pants weather. Also all of this is in Celsius; the best method of measuring temperature ever. (I really like semi-colons here. I’m probably not using them right either. This; sentence; is; just; to; piss; people; off; )

Crotch Cat makes angry faces at me whenever I have to work. Also that mug probably contains my 3rd coffee before noon ...

Work is pretty fun now. It makes all the difference when you know what you’re supposed to be doing so you’re not panicking about what you SHOULD be doing and how to make yourself look busy when you’re actually doing crosswords (wait, what?).

Related to work, I went to my first RIM coop event on Friday. It was a sushi lunch. Now, I had been apprehensive about having fish here because I know it just won’t compare to the glory back home, but the sushi place that we went to (fucking $13 or whatever All You Can Eat) combined fish with tempura batter. I guess it was to disguise the non-fresh/super fishy taste that true sushi lovers love, but it worked out pretty well (it won’t replace it but it will just have to do ). No pictures because I was too busy scarfing down food because I was too lazy to make breakfast that day. Also, AYCE comes with a certain familiar mindset …

ALL THE SUSHI

In regards to the shopping spree .. I got paid today. I uh, bought ALL the things (sorry). No pictures because I’m lazy and/or they’re not online so I can’t just pasta from there. I think my total at the end of the day was ~$300. I also spent ~$100 yesterday, half from preordering the PS Vita, and half from buying a new jacket and one of these:

In black and white instead of blue.

Tomorrow is groceries day, and maybe round 3 of mall. I still need to find somewhere to thread my eyebrows and buy a new goddamn wallet (mine actually has RUST on the fabric-y parts).

Bonus picture of name plate and bunch of phones. (Left most is corporate, right ones are test devices):

My FANCY name plate :') I didn't even know I was getting one of these! IT'S LIKE A WHOLE NEW JORB.

Ok goodbye forever

On Thursday, Dec 29, 2011, I made my way to Ottawa. I’d be gone for 8 months to do 2 coop terms at RIM. I was too nervous (and QQ-y) to eat beforehand so I had $3 carrots on the plane.

LOOK AT THESE $3 CARROTS. And free orange juice. (I got a lot of orange juice)

Wait, does that say FOB carrots? Oh god I didn’t even notice til now. I just took this picture to show off my $3 carrots! They are Fresh On Board carrots though, not Fresh Off Boat (they could be, but carrots don’t exactly grow in the ocean).

I was pretty sad because I had to leave Peter behind (I know, I know, boo hoo hoo), so I spent a good first 30 minutes to an hour QQing. The poor old guy beside me didn’t know what to do and was really interested in his book for a while.

Here I am flying over Winnipeg

I pretty much had no idea what the outside world looked like because I had an aisle seat. Good if I go to the washroom a lot .. which I don’t.

This is pretty much what outside looked like. A shining ball of light.

Anyway I pretty much just did nothing on the plane except be sad, play Lego Pirates of the Caribbean on my PSP, listen to sad music, and sleep. (So interesting, I know).

Great Lakes :3

I wasn’t really sure what to expect when I stepped off the plane. I was really warmly bundled up (tanktop, t-shirt, sweater, fleece sweatshirt, regular sweatshirt, jacket, tights, jeans, socks, wool socks … ), but everyone else seemed to be dressed .. normally.

My first vision of Ottawa. ("Oh ... god ........") I could already feel the cold in that tunnel

I stayed at Radisson Parliament Hill. It’s literally right across from Quebec, so I could look out my window and see buildings in Quebec! Pretty neat, IMO. I’ve never been this close to a border before As the name suggests, it’s by all the parliament buildings and all that stuff downtown. I checked into the hotel at night and only went to Tim Hortons to find food, but I wandered for a bit in the morning before I had to check out.

The lovely walk from either my hotel to Tim Hortons, or vice versa.

To give an indication of how cold it was, I got a piping hot extra large double-double (lol so Canadian amirite) at Tim Hortons at say, 10 am. By 10:15 it was just regular *hot*, and by 10:30 it was lukewarm, and I was chugging it down like orange juice (apparently I really like orange juice).

Bank of Canada building!

I have to admit, it was the first time I got to be a real *tourist*. I kinda sucked at it though, since I was also carrying a bag of stuff from Rexall and balancing this lukewarm extra large coffee. Also from judging so many tourists in Vancouver, I felt kinda ashamed and always had to wait when all the cars and people passed by before I could sneak a quick picture. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.

Parliament building, as seen from the other side of a fence that I was too cold and lazy to navigate around.

My plan was to wander around until about 11am, since I had to check out at noon. I made it to as far as the Parliament Building at 10:45, snuck a quick picture, and then started walking back. Also by that time my hands were getting pretty numb from cold so I figured it would be in my best interest to put gloves on for a while.

Bank of Montreal building

Yeah gloves didn’t last for very long. Hooray for lukewarm coffee keeping my hands from getting frostbite!

Some building that looks nice

Downtown Ottawa, especially where all the historic/legislative buildings are, is a pretty site to see. You can definitely feel the ~*history*~ in the city, which is a pretty stark contrast to Vancouver, where everything fights to be as new as possible.

Supreme Courts of Canada! I could've gone closer, but that too cold and too lazy thing kicked in. (Also I had to check out of my hotel)

Luckily, the Supreme Courts were close to my hotel so I could stop and admire that for 20 seconds before a car drove by.

In case you don't believe me (I know I wouldn't, my knowledge of Canadian politics/law and anything related is pretty sparse)

Right across the street from the Supreme Courts is the Veterans Memorial. I wandered past this in the dark on the night of my arrival because my GPS was being dumb and told me I was somewhere else. This is actually a block over from where I wanted to be…

Veterans Memorial

It was frightening in the dark (“Oh god what did I just walk by”), but clearly much more interesting in the morning.

I walked by this several times when I went to get Tim Hortons.

After my hotel, I got driven to my new place in Kanata. I met my roommate, Christy, for the first time. She drove me around the neighbourhood for a bit, and I picked up a few things at the grocery store. Now, I had heard about bagged milk in Canada, but it is primarily East Coast. Someone, not from Canada, hoity toittily told me that Canada doesn’t have bagged milk anymore. GUESS YOU’RE WRONG.

Bagged 2% milk ahuhaeuheau. Look at this nice guy and his son drinking a nice cup of bagged milk.

This was so hilarious. I wanted to buy a bag but you also need an accompanying jug, which my roommate did not have. Also there’s no way the two of us can finish that much milk before it expires. (Yes Peter I know you can).

The view from my room at my new place :>~

I got settled into my new place. The roads are pretty well maintained, for the most part. Sidewalks are a whole nother story though. People just don’t walk I guess? Or walk very far? … Smart on their part, as it’s fucking freezing outside.

This is pretty much what it looks like when I go to work. Except recently we have a lot more snow.

We recently got about 10cm of fresh snow. Let me tell you, it is very pretty to look at. It sparkles like a vampire, it’s as pure and virginal as someone before they hooked up with a sparkly vampire, and it looks really, really inviting, like a fucking pile of snow for you to jump into. It’s really powdery and sounds great when you stomp on it … but it gets on everything. My 3 minute walk to the bus stop (hee hee I know :3c) will get my boots completely covered with snow. And because it’s so powdery, I can’t just kick it off, either. I have snow boots but I look so dumb when I wear it, and for some reason I never wear it when it’s *actually snowing*. SMRT.

This is what it looks like when I leave work at 5pm. Ironically this picture wasn't even taken outside of work.

I started a full time coop job at RIM. For those less informed, it’s the company that makes Blackberries. I do a full 8:30-5, although I get there a bit earlier and leave a bit later (like .. 10 minutes) because I have to get a temporary security badge, because they hate coop students and takes forever to get a badge issued. My hours are pretty flexible (my manager doesn’t really care if I’m in at 8:15 or 8:30 or 8:45, as long as I’m there some time doing some work for 8 hours), but I make an effort to get in by 8:30. That means I have to get up at 6:30 though (shut up I’m a girl ok), and THAT means I have to sleep early, which I have not been doing. *tired eyes*

This is my alarm clock. Meow meow meow.

I actually don’t have the alarm set on it (well, I do, it’s just not turned on), because I usually just use my phone(s).

My desk set set up: Mijumaru, USB, tissue box, half-eaten bagel, pens, 2 phones, test device under USB cable, laptop on the side...not pictured: tumbler and coffee mug. You can zoom into my desktop all you want, it's just Java lol.

My desk has a funny smell (it was there before me, honest!) and it is right beside the coffee machine. Perks! In more ways than one! I didn’t even bother asking for a garbage can at my desk … I can just walk 10 steps to throw my stuff away! (No, I’m not that lazy)

Work has been pretty overwhelming for the first week. There’s a lot of stuff for me to learn, and I have to brush up on a lot of things (like Java, for instance). It’ll gradually start making sense, I hope! I’m usually super exhausted, physically and mentally, at the end of the day… but that is also attributed to my inability to sleep early. (As I should be doing now)

Another picture of bagged milk for good measure! I tried picking this up to see if it really was a bag. It was. Really heavy, too. (Well duh Hope it's 4L of milk)

Ok goodnight forever