|
nichan
|
read my profile
sign my guestbook
Name: Nina
Country: Canada
Gender: Female
Interests: travelling, playing board games/card games, rock climbing, reading, watching tv, horseback riding, chinese folk dance (happy now mommy? hahaha), sleeping
Expertise: Sleeping...and supposedly teaching (HA!)
Occupation: Education/training
Industry: Education/Research
Message: message meEmail: email me
MSN: huang_nina@hotmail.com
Member Since:
4/24/2004
|
|
| Its March and I'm starting to plan out my travel schedule for this year. Lots of ideas, lots of planning ahead...but one thing is for sure, Alfred and I will be doing plenty of travelling. Tentatively, these are our plans:
End of June: Vancouver - 1 week (to visit Alfred's family and friends)
August 5th - 20th: Hawaii (to visit my cousin Diana and her family in Honolulu!)
December 21st - January 7th: Hong Kong and Southern China (I am treating my parents to a well deserved vacation in return for having put a roof over my head these past 25 years and paying for my education)
Yep, its gonna be great...and a heavy expense on my wallet. But hey, you're only young once! I'm thrilled to be going to Hawaii this summer as I have 2 baby nieces I haven't even met yet! Its been so long since I've seen my cousin...in fact, I haven't seen her since she got married! When I was still a little girl, she stayed with our family one summer and I remember how much I loved going everywhere with her. She was like my big sister. And now, we're all grown up and she's got a family of her own. In Hawaii, no less! What a lucky girl. Can't wait to see her again :) | | |
| March Break was spent relaxing and taking a 3 day trip with Alfred to "one of Canada's 8 great escapes" - Prince Edward County. Most of you have probably never even heard of this place but thats part of its beauty. If you're in Toronto and looking to get away from the noise and traffic of the city, this is a great place to head. There are plenty of quaint bed and breakfasts, friendly county people, and the sound of waves crashing against the shore.
We stayed at "The Ganders," a bed & breakfast owned by a nice retired couple in Wellington. Their property has a beautiful view of the lake - very scenic - even in the middle of March. The weather stayed bright and sunny the whole trip but it was still quite brisk. We visited a couple of the young wineries around the area and tasted some of the regional cuisine. I foresee this area becoming quite popular in 10 years time once the wineries have matured and people start looking for other wine regions, now that Niagara-on-the-Lake is becoming very over-crowded.
On the third day, we took a day trip to Kingston and I showed Alfred my old University town. We ate lunch at one of my favourite indian restaurants (Darbar) and drove around Queen's, the Kingston penitentiaries, downtown Princess St., and Fort Henry. After having coffee and dessert at my favourite bakery, Pan Chanchos, we headed back home. All in all, a nice vacation away from home and I even got to brush up on my spanish. Alfred slipped in his spanish CDs on the car ride there and back. We must have gotten through a dozen lessons. Its amazing how quickly you forget a language when you're no longer using it on a daily basis. | | |
| So I got an email from Alfred today about a fellow Canadian friend who was complaining to him about living in Amsterdam. Apparently customer-service is non-existent there. This led me to reflect on my current level of satisfaction with living in Canada. If I really think about it, I don't get ticked off that often here. Aside from it being REALLY cold in the winter, I'm generally content with the way things are run. People are nice and polite, there's no smoking in bars and restaurants, customer service is efficient and helpful, food selection is plentiful and varied, quality health care is available to everyone, and there is a minimal level of corruption here compared to the rest of the world. Yup, I have to say, I'm quite content to be living in Canada. | | |
| Its Alfred's birthday today so I'm dedicating this entry to him.
At precisely 12:05 am Alfred gets a text message from his best friend in Vancouver. Me, having dozed off while watching Will & Grace, did not realize the clock had already struck midnight! Thus...as in the story of The Tortoise and the Hare, I came in second to wish my boyfriend happy birthday. Not a good start Nina, not a good start. Fear not, there is always next year! The race is on!!
3:30 am, my body wakes up in excitement to sneak out into the kitchen and decorate the condo with a "Happy Birthday" banner and balloons. And I must say, its quite hard to surprise someone like Alfred. Especially since he's got the eyes of a hawk and notices immediately when there's something askew in the condo. I had to go around hiding all my decorations in a box tucked away into the back of the closet. While blowing up the balloons, I accidently caused one to pop. And EVERYONE knows how loud it sounds when a big balloon pops...its DEAFENING. At that point...I thought for SURE, the jig was up...and a few moments later, I hear Alfred calling me to see if there was something wrong. I quickly poke my head into the bedroom and tell him it was nothing and to just go back to sleep.
6:00 am, I'm up again to prepare his birthday breakfast that consisted of fruit, pastries and desserts from his favourite french bakery in Toronto called Patachou's. Once everything is arranged, I light the candle on his custard tart and walk into the bedroom singing "Happy Birthday." Sleepy-eyed Alfred, with his hair all toosled, makes a wish and blows out the candle. He comes out with me and sees all the decorations. He pretends to be all surprised (bless his soul) and sits down to have a delicious breakfast of his favourite sweets. I then tell him about all the noise I was making, the balloon bursting...and he looks and tells me that he didn't even hear anything while he was sleeping. So maybe I did manage to surprise him afterall! 
See: Sleepy birthday boy below.
But the fun doesn't end here! I'm taking Alfred to The Windsor Arms Hotel for dinner tonight at the Courtyard Cafe. The interior of the hotel is supposed to be very luxurious so I'm looking forward to celebrating with him there...just the two of us. I will end my entry here for now since my next surprise for him has yet to come into fruition. If you are really that nosy and want to know what happens on the rest of "Alfred's birthday weekend," please click on this link: www.salsasian.com and it will take you to his website where the details continue. And yes, I really am THAT lazy. | | |
|  Here's to celebrating my first Valentine's Day with Alfred...
He's such a romantic...surprising me at work with a beautiful bouquet of flowers. I get teased by Gloria (the secretary at our school) every time a delivery of flowers arrives for me.
After work, we headed over to Casa Loma for their Champagne & Chocolate event. I enjoyed the chocolate fountain a little too much and Alfred had to pull me away before I ruined my appetite for dinner.
There was still a little time left before our reservation so we went back to the condo to take pictures and exchange gifts. We're so alike that we actually bought each other chocolates from the same store - Godiva. Thankfully, we chose different ones. I got Alfred various chocolate truffles.
 And Alfred bought these delectable chocolate covered fruit, which he remembered I really liked in Belgium.
As the second part of my gift, I got him a Valentine's Day picture frame to put our photo in. Hopefully we'll be able to develop pictures soon...
He got me something from Tiffany's!! I think its every girl's dream to see their man bring out that infamous turquoise bag. Inside was a beautiful heart tag bracelet. According to Alfred, this particular design was only recently released 2 months ago. He's such a sweetheart :)
As 9:30 pm rolled around, we got ready to leave the condo again. Alfred made reservations at North 44 - one of Toronto's finest restaurants. And since it was Valentine's Day, it was no easy task to get
 those reservations. So thanks for going through all that trouble hon! American Express rocks! By the way, the experience was totally worth it. I'd have to agree with the critics on this one. North 44 definitely deserves a 4-star rating. The food was fantabulous...
| | |
|
