r a n d o m << s c r i b b l i n g s >>: easter trip

Just came back from a short easter getaway! Bee and i skipped school from wednesday 19th March to saturday 22nd March to go to Moncton & Halifax, which are nearby "cities" in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia respectively. Why the parenthesis u ask?? Corz they were FREAKING MINUSCULE, moncton was like soooo tiny, we pretty much saw all of it in one day (no kidding, actually make that half a day), Halifax was bigger but it was freaking ghost-lish, like a scene out of "Sweeney Todd, The Demon Barber of Fleet Street". SERIOUS. What kind of city has ghost walks as a tourist attraction?? AND...what kinda city is it that has more cemetries than shopping malls in the main tourist shopping areas??!!

Halifax!

halifax burial grounds in front of Dalhouse University Tech Campus(apparantly it has the highest school fees in the whole of Canada, bt it's still suffering from financial crisis) & along Barrington Street(where our hostel was)

can you imagine the students who paid big bucks to study in front of a graveyard...i wonder why...well, imagine boy sitting at school desk dozing off as the lecturer rattles on about philosophy...he starts to day-dream and looks out the window...right outside he sees black tombstones & probably a few ghouls --> an incentive to pay attention in class i guess...

It was raining the ENTIRE DAY when we got to Halifax. No kidding k, it rained from morning till night...i thought i could drown in the rain. We walked along Spring Garden Road, which Catherine recommended to us corz it has small little boutiques and nice cafes. There we saw AMERICAN APPAREL(a.k.a absurdly overpriced money rippers)...they sold plain tees for 20+ to 40+ CDN bucks. C.R.A.Z.Y. I can buy like 5-10 of those from the pasaar malam can. Okay...i did like one of the plain, white, oversized tee, but it was like 21bucks la, friggin money rippers!

And then we went to the wharf to see MORE WATER (machiam the rain not enough, we still wana torture ourselves *sheepish*). So we walked along the harbour and there were ships in the distance and a light house too.

One of the highlights of the trip was eating SEAFOOD!! That night(the first night we arrived in Halifax) we ate at Hamachi Steak House. We ate teppanyaki and I ordered Scallops, Jap Fried Garlic Rice, Miso Soup, Grilled Veges while Bee ordered Shrimps instead of Scallops. We were all blowing money into the meal, which was the priciest we've ate so far since coming to Canada (40bucks for me), and of course, I was expecting something really good and fresh. Well...it was alright, the scallops weren't THAT great, i mean, Halifax is near the sea and all, you would expect the seafood to be really, really fresh (u know, as though, they killed the scallop right before killing them in the extreme heat of the teppanyaki stove)...but they weren't...they were NORMAL...Singapore can find better, bigger ones i think

Chef Kwan cooking our teppanyaki meal (not even Japanese chef lor, make me pay so much...)

Hostelling International - Halifax (the nice, cosy hostel we stayed in at Halifax where we met Jane)

I truly enjoy staying in hostels cause you really get to meet people from all different cultures and background. So far I've gotten to know Brazilians, Japanese, French people from the hostels we've stayed at. This time round, we met a 39 year ol' Canadian woman from Cape Breton called Jane. It was really cool cause she hitch-hiked across Canada when she was younger (she never once took the train) and she told us tales of Jamaica, which she recently went to.

For those you who don't know, Jamaica is in South America and consists mainly of West-African descent. There is much unrest in the country and Jamaica has had one of the highest murder rates in the world for many years, usually ranking third after Colombia and South Africa. Jane told us that the people there freely smoke weed, and alot of them are addicted to it, but then the government decided to burn down the poppy fields and the people had no choice but to turn to cocaine(worse than weed). Jane told us that during her stay in Jamaica, there was one night when 21 people were killed...i was really shocked when i heard that, it's one thing to hear such thing on the news, it's another experience to actually hear it from someone...

Jane's Story

Jane was staying under a host family in Jamaica, she went there to seek recluse as she was suffering from depression and she wanted to get well. She decided to stay with a woman she met 10 years ago. This African woman (i shall now call her Herb Woman) was iliterate but has a lot of knowledge on natural herbs, and Jane thought that it would be a wonderful opportunity and honour to write a book to record down all the knowledge of the woman. However, Jamaica proved too dangerous to stay in, and at first most of the violence was localised at Kingston, but soon became widespread and the place Jane was staying at(she said it was a more touristy area) was placed under a ban and all tourists had to be sent back. (Sounds really terrifying right? We've all lived in such comfortable and protected surroundings, it's almost beyond us to actually believe that such a thing could happen...) Anyway, what happened was the government called on Herb Woman and asked her alot of questions regarding Jane and they placed Jane under the care of Herb Woman, meaning that Herb Woman would take responsibility of Jane's safety. Hence, Herb Woman became very obsessive(can't find a word for it), she felt that Jane had to be constantly within her sight, otherwise she might be charged for negligence(which was a bit crazy and silly). So whenever Herb Woman goes out to the market or anywhere else, she forces Jane to come along even though Jane wasn't feeling well. What Jane couldn't stand was the discrimination against the white in Jamaica. Whenever Herb Woman got angry with her, she would call Jane a "white woman"...and there were alot of expectations placed on Jane due to the fact that she was a white and whites are supposed to be rich. Herb Woman expected Jane to bring her riches and fortune, but what the former didn't understand was that Jane wasn't very rich herself and the purpose of her visit was to get treated from depression. So things got worse and Jane got robbed (she believed it was Herb Woman who planned it). After which, Jane left the country and returned to Canada.

Interesting eh? Most of the time we hear about discrimination of blacks, chinese, etc...never knew that discrimination against whites would be that pervasive too...

we went up to the citadel in Halifax the next day, the view from up there is pretty good :)

Canons again! Lolx, we've been seeing so many canons, you might think we have some slight fetish for this merciless guns...

Nice view of the clock tower!

Another nice place we went to was the Farmer's Market at Keith's Brewery, it's only open on Saturdays from 7am-12.30pm. It's really the authentic kinda market you'll find in Europe countries. There were violionists playing their concertos, street musicians strumming their guitars and there were many stalls selling fresh produce (meat, seafood, tea, smoothies, bread, cupcakes, cookies, chinese food, maple syrup,fruits, crafts, hand-made jewelry, paintings, etc.) Over there, we visited one of the Japanese girls Bee got to know in Quebec. Ai(the Jap girl) is currently on a working holiday in Canada and will be returning to Japan soon. She was working at one of the Cafe at the Farmer's Market called City Deli. The boss, Jean Paul, who was a French ol' man, was really friendly and warming. He comes from St. Pierre and Miquelon, which is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean, 25km off the coast of Newfoundland,Canada. It's really weird though, cause St.Pierre and Miquelon belongs to France, not Canada, even though it is essentially in North America.

And guess what?!

Bee and I got offered a job! Haha, Jean Paul was asking us to go get work permits cause we got a job in City Deli...lolx. Would be nice to work there though! I'll get to taste all the tasty French dishes that Jean Paul cooks for Ai ever so often, she's tried wild rabbits even!