I’m just about a week into my trip, and am currently on a Greyhound bus bound for Ottawa from Toronto. Thus far it’s been a relaxing and largely enjoyable trip. It was great spending part of the Thanksgiving holiday with my relatives in the DC area – I mean couchsurfing’s great, but it’s always nice to be with people you already know as well – it lends a different aspect to the trip.
After a few days with them, I took an overnight bus all the way up to Toronto. Now, it’s been a while since I’ve taken a bus up to northern Malaysia from Singapore, so I’m not sure how that compares to the DC – Toronto bus, but suffice to say that now that I wish that Megabus covered the Toronto – Ottawa route as well. While it didn’t have those business class seats that some of the Malaysia buses have, it had free (and hi-speed – or at least fast enough) wi-fi, which made me so pleased with myself that I had decided to bring my laptop along (and admittedly, also ponder about getting a tablet of some kind, if not at least a netbook). Now, since I’m stuck on Greyhound, I’m just typing this into a word document that I’ll just cut and paste later on. I have to say though that this Greyhound bus is probably the best one I’ve ever sat in (which is not saying much anyways). As i type this, there’s a finger-sized piece of unidentifiable half-eaten food right under the seat adjustment lever of my seat, not to mention a far-too-squeaky pair of windscreen wipers, doing extra duty in this particularly rainy day.
Toronto is the only place I’m visiting in Canada this time that I’ve been to before. That however was no more than a four-hour day trip from Niagara Falls twelve years ago. The only thing I remember about that visit was gazing upwards at the CN Tower and then retreating underground due to the cold and browsing a bookstore while my mother randomly bumped into someone she hadn’t seen for around twenty-five years. It definitely is worth a visit, regardless of the weather (which, in keeping with my snow jinx status – has remained stubbornly slightly above freezing and rainy). You can just be walking along the street and cross into the next city block and feel like you’re in a totally different place. I remember reading a couple of weeks ago about how someone was basically saying that in terms of a multicultural place, Toronto can’t compete with Singapore. I beg to differ. Singapore is still predominantly Asian, whereas in Toronto the people seem to come from all over the world. At last count I heard at least ten different languages from different continents being spoken. And this was all within a three day period, and only the languages that I could positively identify.
Whenever I travel, I normally try to stay as far away as possible from Chinese food. (Ok, I do that when I’m in Singapore as well =p). What’s the point of travelling for more than a day if you’re going to eat the same thing as you can eat back home? (Though I did have a good bowl of pho at a Vietnamese place in Chinatown, but that was in part due to the rainy weather – you’ll never see me in line for dim sum, that’s for sure).But since being on my own and on a budget means that I’ve usually taken my meals at food courts here, I’ve found that hard to do. Maybe it’s due to the large ethnic Chinese population here that even the “Bourbon Street Grill” and “Caribbean Queen” serve up chow mein as one of their meal offerings, let alone the stalls that sell other types of Asian food. At least I did have one satisfying Greek (or at least Greek-inspired) meal, which I was quite happy with.
So anyways, we’ll see if the weather gets better by the time I reach Ottawa. Forecast, last I checked, is for rain for two days, then a sunny day, followed by some light snow showers. And wouldn’t you know it? That’s the day I leave town… #snowjinx
