Travel Journal

Something my crazy boyfriend does for fun - downhill mountain biking. It's interesting to note that he crashed just after he disappears from the video frame. He looks pretty good up until that point, though. A 360 on the Brooklyn Bridge with a surprise guest star at the end: Conveyor belt sushi in Tokyo! T and I are chatting about oo-toro (yum).

General state of mind: Status: In a great relationship! Still stubbornly refusing to join Facebook Trying to figure out my new Macbook Thnking about: Happiness, family, conflict management, productivity, motivation, leadership, friends Listening to: Panic! At the Disco, LCD Soundsystem (but will add Björk, Feist and Rufus Wainwright to the list soon) Activities: Running, yoga, kickboxing, canoeing, kayaking, biking, soccer, Ultimate frisbee, flag football(!) Upcoming plans: T in Ottawa! Quebec City! COSTA RICA! Camping (x2)! Bluesfest! NYC!

"I miss the good old days before Isha hated the internets." I'm not hatin', just not participatin'. Lately I've been enjoying life too much to take time to blog about it. I don't want to waste a second...who knows how long it will last? This is how I'm feeling most days: But thank you, my few loyal readers, who come by to check up every so often!

I have really good friends. Recently, when I put out an email call for anything interesting or funny to help cheer me up, here is a sample of what I received: Some pictures: [photo courtesy of Jorge ] [photo courtesy of Dave ] ...and another photo that I won't post here out of fear of being murdered by Michelle, but I will print the caption for it: "Smile, you could be 39 weeks pregnant with a big belly, a broken ankle, using a freakin walker!!!" A link to a sugar daddy dating site A link to a video of Darth Vader being a jackass Funny stories about Malaysian astronauts, adventures in hair waxing, and office pooping etiquette A 3-hour telephone conversation (which I don't think I have done since I was in high school) Holiday stories from Croatia and China; everyday life stories from Vienna and Huntsville ON. Offers of tickets to a political comedy show Someone called me a " vulpes vulpes " And, general well wishes and nice things about me It was all fanta...

This post would be more interesting if I had more pictures to share, but unfortunately the weather was very crap this past long weekend (yay for not doing Labour!) and picture-taking was not high on the list of priorities. Thanks to the effects of Tropical Storm Ernesto, we received torrential rains and grey skies for a large part of the weekend. I took a road trip to an area between Ottawa and Toronto called Prince Edward County. It's along the water, in particular the Bay of Quinte, and is usually quite charming and beautiful. There are miles of farmlands and quaint little towns and countrysides home to loads of retired people. The area can get quite touristy in the summer, as the major provincial park there is Sandbanks. It's right on the water and it's surprising how nice the beaches are. One of them looks and sounds like it could have been in the Caribbean, long sandy beach with wavy water. The other feature is the amazing sand dunes, kind of a rarity in Ontario, I wou...

I’d like you to meet Sue. Sue is a good friend of mine. We met about a year and a half ago when she was doing a maternity leave replacement contract in my unit. Since then Sue has quickly become what I would call a “surrogate mom” to me. It’s very rare to meet people as incredibly kind, caring, open-hearted and open-minded as Sue. She is very intuitive and can read people well. She always has a big smile for you, and knows when you need hug or a shoulder to cry on, or just a sympathetic ear for listening. Criticism and judging other people just aren’t a part of her character. Having a lot of life experience allows her to empathize and advise without being overbearing about it. Sue is also the world’s greatest pep talker. She makes me feel special just for being me. After a session with Sue you feel as though you could do anything, because she has such an unconditional belief in your unlimited abilities. She has so much love to give and I’m happy that I get to be one of the people who b...

   Okay, I know it may just look like a bunch of green growing in dirt to some of you, but I really can't explain why I love my crappy little garden plot. Well, actually, let me give it a shot... 1. It's in a community garden called BUGS (Bytown Urban Garden Society, or something along those lines.) I think it's a great way to make an urban dweller feel part of an (albeit small) community, as we often have a tendency to become isolated in these crowded urban wastelands known as cities. 2. It also allows us city-livin' types to feel connected with earth, and the Earth for that matter, a feeling that modern technology and invention has taken away from us. I love the feeling of getting my hands dirty. 3. I feel like I'm nurturing something by making it grow and taking care of it. Last year (my first), I was highly reluctant to eat my beans and peas because I had spent so much time getting them to flourish, it seemed like murder to cruelly pluck them. Gardening of...

  My little plot is not doing too badly. Cherry tomatoes are abundant, carrots, beets and green onions seem to be doing well, the popcorn is taller every day. But the cucumbers and basil and watermelon didn't take, our poor zucchini has a fungus, and a rabbit ate all our lettuce! Considering we grew everything from seed except the tomatoes, that's not too shabby. 

   The best part about visiting Toronto is hanging out with Natalie. It feels like family.

   Oh yes, did I mention that it's her BIRTHDAY today? Happy birthday Nat - love you lots!

  

Last weekend was one of those rare times when I wasn't out of town or had a million things to do. So, on Friday night I caught up on some paperwork (i.e. filing some of the crap I had lying around my apartment for months) and chatted with H for a while. [DO NOT call me a loser. After chatting with a few people about their own Friday night activities, I can safely say that paperwork is on par with watching 3 hours of Buffy and going to bed at 10, or going over to someone's house for dinner and being back by 9.] Saturday was gorgeous and I took full advantage of it...by staying inside and alternately sleeping and reading. I did manage to finally drag my butt out the door when Mark came to pick me up for some sushi in Bells Corners. I'm sad to say that going to Japan has kind of spoiled my palate for sushi in Ottawa, since everything in Tokyo was so fresh (and I imagine the stuff you get at any port would be the same), but it was great to catch up with Mark, who coincidentally...

How happy was I when the first picture I uploaded came back with a match with Prince Charles?!?! He's not a handsome man on his best day. Another picture of me matched well with Eva Longoria, but I thought I was a little more in the same league as these ladies (and at least they're female!) Thanks to Viv for being a finder of cool things and posting it on her blog . While I'm at it, I might as well give a little plug to Blend Creations , the business that she and Eric started up which sells fantabulous stainless steel pendants (I am the proud owner of the purple mother of pearl) and paper products. I covet many of their items. Go check it out - the stuff is way cool.

It's been a while since I last posted something here, so I'll just make this a quick one to say that I have safely returned from the wilds of Algonquin Park after a 4-day interior camping trip that involved canoes, portaging, a lot of sleeping in tents and A LOT of booze. An excellent time was had by all 10 campers (and a moderately good time was had by one lovable black Lab named Farley), in spite of the gruelling 3 hour paddle against gale force winds and mini tidal waves on Smoke Lake. Pictures and recaps hopefully to come soon-ish.

Blogger has been a bit of a bee-yotch lately, so I wasn't able to post more before I left Tokyo, and now here I am back in Ottawa experiencing some pretty major jet lag. When I left Tokyo it was Monday afternoon at 5, and when I arrived in Ottawa it was still Monday, 7.30 in the evening, and I'm pretty certain that my flight was more than 2.5 hours long. Mt. Fuji ended up being a bust, as I seemed to have caught the extended tail end of a rainy season in Japan that just doesn't want to end. Going to T's colleague's parents' place in the country was also a bust due to an illness in the family, so instead we went down to Koya-san, the holiest mountain in Japan, to stay in a Buddhist temple, eat surprisingly delicious vegetarian meals based mainly on tofu, and take part in a confusing, fairly unintelligible but wholly spiritual Buddhist prayer session. After visiting one of the largest and most beautiful cemeteries I've ever seen, we accidentally hiked down ...

The weather forecast predicts 100% chance of rain for the next 3 days. It was certainly right for today, as it pretty much poured all day today. It was the kind of day where you don't feel much like going out and walking around, so I didn't. I got up, made two one-hour-long long distance phone calls (sorry T, I owe you dinner for those!), and watched the pirated DVD box set of Season 4 of Six Feet Under that I had bought in KL. I didn't leave the house until nearly 7 p.m., when I met T at Ebisu Station after work and we went for conveyor belt sushi in Shibuya. After dinner we did crazy photo booth pictures, and browsed at Tower Records. I'm going to buy the new Thom Yorke album as well as the latest Radiohead tribute album tomorrow. I did, however, pick up a copy of " Charisma Man " which is probably one of the funniest things I have read in a long time. (If you are familiar with the term rice king , then you'll probably find Charisma Man hilarious ...

Due to popular demand, anonymous comments have now been enabled on this blog, policed by word verification - sorry, comments-bots! Of course, now that I've enabled this, probably no one will care enough to actually leave a comment.

Tricycle and child's helmet, Peace Memorial Museum, Hiroshima. On August 6, 1945, the U.S. bombed Hiroshima with the world's first atomic bomb, in the effort to get Japan to surrender in World War II. The Japanese have preserved the site of the bombing, the A-bomb Dome, and established the Peace Memorial Park which contains the museum, the Children's Peace Monument, the Memorial Cenotaph with the names of all the known bombing victims, and the Flame of Peace, which will not be extinguished until the last nuclear weapon on earth has been destroyed. The Peace Memorial Museum presents a very balanced picture of the event, explaining why it took place, the science behind nuclear weapons, and the harrowing effects on the environment and humanity. It is a very moving experience to visit this place. Garlands of paper cranes, Peace Memorial Park, Hiroshima The paper cranes are folded by schoolchildren all over the world and sent to Hiroshima, where they are kept at the Child...

Lanterns at the Kasuga Taisha grand shrine, Nara Women in traditional Japanese kimonos, Kyoto Some of the 1001 Kannon (Buddhist goddess of mercy) at the Sanjusangen-do temple, Kyoto The floating red torii (gates) of Itsuku-shima, Miya-Jima, Hiroshima The temple of the Golden Pavilion, Kinkaku-ji, Kyoto