Topdeck Southern Nomad: Paris

We joined the topdeck southern nomad tour (camping) in the morning which headed first thing to Paris via ferry.  The tour is quite convenient as the bus drives us from place to place and things like food and tents are pretty much taken care of.  The group, as with most Topdeck and Contiki tours consists of young people from Australia and New Zealand and yes, as is expected with most youth tours, drinking is a staple.  The nice thing is we get a lot of free time in the places we go and the whole "stay with the tour" thing isn't required. Unfortunately it was pouring rain when we got to the site and getting soaked on the first day is never fun. We set up camp while the rain continued to pour before grabbing dinner from the food tent and heading out for a night time bus tour. 

Paris is amazing, literally everything I imagined but more.  One day was not at all enough to see everything, I mean even three months wouldn't be enough.  Since my friend and I are coming back to Paris in a couple weeks, we spent the day walking along the river and looking at all the major sights along the way.  

-M 

Toronto to London

And we're off!  My friend and I headed off from Toronto to London at 9pm and landed at 10am London time.  Because of the tube strike,the transition system was unfortunately quite slow but we arrived at our hostel in good time.  The hostel, Click 78 is located very close to Kings Cross station which was amazing in that sense, the hostel itself was pretty standard as hostels go...I was in a fourteen girl dorm with questionable sheets, funky smelling washrooms and a stuffy room; nothing particularly surprising as most hostels go.  We spent the afternoon in a bit of a jetlag/sleepwalking daze but explored the area while getting excited for our trip back to london at the end of the month!  I didn’t bother bringing my laptop this time, and my Internet is very patchy so hopefully these photos show up properly on a computer because they aren't on my tablet xD! (also why all these posts are going up at the same time...found a cafe!!)

-M 

Getting Ready for A New Adventure!

I haven't blogged in a while...it's reassuring that no one actually follow this blog so it adds absolutely no pressure to anything.  BUT school's ending, and I'm going on another adventure!  A very expensive - so expensive I might regret it, but actually even if I'm dirt poor I'll probably never regret it type of adventure! Ever since High School I've loved everything British...something inside me just snapped and I magically woke up and decided to fall in love with the UK.  So I was chatting with a friend early in the school year and we decided it was completely necessary to go to Europe, especially since we are both graduating, and who knows what happens once we hit the job force or go back to school.  Plans flipped and flopped, and finally we bit the bullet and started buying plane tickets, tour packages, booking accommodations etc. Somehow, this is all actually happening!  So this is the plan:

• We'll be joining the Topdeck Southern Nomad Tour (camping!!) which covers: London, Paris, Swiss Alps, French Riviera, Florence, Rome 
• We'll stay in Rome a couple days before heading to Barcelona
•  From Barcelona we'll be taking a bus to Lyon 
• A couple days in Lyon then back to Paris
• Then the most exciting part: LONDON! 
• We may or may not hit another area in Britain before going to Edinburgh 
• Then finally, back to London before flying home (just in time for Convocation)

So this entire trip will be 36 days and besides the fact that we're already down $2000 (and barely anything is booked), I'm ridiculously excited!  I'll of course try to blog and whatnot, but since laptop isn't on the packing list, we'll see what happens! 

-M

Around Toronto

This week I had some time to rediscover Toronto (aka awkward tourist in my own city) as one of my friends from Japan came to visit for a couple of days!  Needless to say, I love Toronto...I mean how can you not!  From Koreatown, Chinatown, Little Italy, Greektown, Kensington, Little India....to the parks, malls, and theaters...no place like home.  



Ai Weiwei currently has an exhibit at the AGO, but one of his installations - Forever Bicycle (3144 bikes) was still hanging around from Nuit Blanche in Nathan Phillips Square.   
 
UofT's rare book library is absolutely gorgeous! For some reason I've never taken the time to check it out these past four years...so glad I did!

Grafitti alley off of Queen is a full kilometer of epic

I was really excited to check out the new Ripley's Aquarium which just opened beside the CN tower, but the lineup was absolutely ridiculous!  I think I might have to wait a couple months....

-M 

Digitour & October Hike

This weekend (between studying) I attended the Digitour concert and I went on a day hike with the Duke of Ed club!  Both were a lot of fun, and also reminded me why I love Toronto so much.  

Digitour is basically a number of YouTube personalities who do a couple shows in North America.  This year the British YouTubers I've been watching came for a show in Toronto, so my friend and I parted  ways with $50 each and got balcony tickets for the show at the Sound Academy.  In the end it was (obviously) worth every penny, and I'm so incredibly glad I paid extra for the balcony seats.  The main floor looked like madness, people were pushing so much at the front, that security guards had to lift people out of the crowd!  I also got a full view & I figured it'd be a bit more bearable being surrounded by 19+ aged fans rather than the crazy youngins downstairs. The YouTubers were awesome, they entertained the audience, and I still can't believe we saw them perform in person!  

Brit Crew <3  Caspar Lee!

& Jim Chapman!

LA YouTube Crew

View from the Sound Academy (which actually had terrible sound quality..)

So the day after that awesome show, I went on a day hike with the Duke of Ed club bright and early.  This year we went to Rouge Park in Scarborough which was surprisingly quite nice.  All the trails we hiked were very scenic considering it was in Toronto - not as difficult as other hiking trails outside of the city - but still a lot of fun!

Love the Fall!

Back to studying now!

-M

Flashback: November Backpacking in Algonquin

So I've wanted to write about my experience at Algonquin for a while now, but my pictures are quite terrible so I've been contemplating whether it's worth a blog post.  Now that I'm in the procrastination mood, I figure I might as well rant about it anyways! The pictures in this post are pretty bad...sorry bout that xD.  A while back I blogged about my experience backpacking in Bruce Peninsula which was absolutely gorgeous, and still my favourite location for camping.  However, I don't think I would have been able to handle that trip, if I hadn't experienced Algonquin beforehand.  I've gone camping in Algonquin twice now for the practice journey of the Duke of Edinburgh Award which has been a lot of fun, but also quite challenging.  Due to the hectic university schedule, our club can only schedule the camping in for November which has been quite interesting over the years.  

November 2010 was my first backpacking experience, and probably one of the most eventful trips I'll ever have at Algonquin.  There was an extremely large group of us participating in this trip, which in many ways made it more difficult than normal.  The hike was extremely challenging because that particular winter was extremely cold, and the ground was a mix of wet, muddy and icy which was extremely scary, especially on the rocks.  We began our hike mid afternoon, but unfortunately got quite lost about 5km from the campsite.  We found ourselves stuck in a section of the trail while the sun was quickly setting.  As soon as we got our bearings it was pitch black out, and we were hiking in the dark, which needless to say was not fun at all.  By the time we got to the campsite we were beat, but we had to continue trying to pitch our tents and cook....in the dark.  Again, things like hanging up dry bags ended up being a million times harder than normal.  To top it off, it was a really cold night, there was snow on the ground and not many people managed to get to sleep.  Since the practice hike was only one day, we headed back to the parking lot the next morning, which was comparably a much easier journey (we were practically running back home).  Although this first trip was really difficult, it was also where I met some of my closest friends, and in hindsight I think it was a good introduction to backpacking - problems and all. 


My next trip to Algonquin took place November 2012: it was a much better experience and I was definitely more prepared!  For starters, it was a very very warm November, I think most of us ended up hiking in t-shirts; but it also meant the ground was very wet with puddles everywhere (no ice though, so can't complain too much).  The group was smaller, and we decided that since we made it all the way out to the park anyways, we might as well stay for two nights.  The hike was challenging - don't get me wrong, Algonquin is extremely hilly and rocky....but my most vivid memories of the trip were of the campgrounds (Psychology can explain why we generally only remember the good bits...but I won't go into that).  The first night we stayed at an a nice campground backing onto the water.  It rained overnight, but by the time we woke up everything was nice and dry.  After a long day of hiking on day two, our second campsite was amazing!  Again it backed onto the water with three large rocks sticking up above the surface. We had a nice fire pit, and of course a clear blue sky to see the stars at night.  One thing about me: I don't sleep very much in general, but when I'm camping, I barely sleep at all.  Somehow I always wake up at 6am if not earlier (which was totally cool because one of my friends was up at that time as well)...Anyhow, this trip was awesome...a bit more relaxing and a lot less chaotic!  

Soooo that's my experience in Algonquin...a bit of a love/hate (but mostly love) relationship going on.  I have to admit, writing about it is making me excited for the trip scheduled in two months!!!!  I just hope the weather is on our side again :) 

-M

Back to Toronto :(

Here I am, heading back to Toronto!  I can’t believe the month in New Brunswick/Japan ended so quickly, it literally went by in a blink of an eye!  The twelve of us spent our final week in Japan working on our final projects and preparing for the presentations (good thing we did, because the past Vice President of Panasonic came in as a panel member and questioned some of us to death!).  There’s still a load of work we have to do after we get back, so we’re not finished the course quite yet, but everything feels pretty final now that we’ve all said our goodbyes. 

Right after our final presentation, we were taken to a really really good restaurant where we had our farewell party with all our professors.  Afterwards, we packed our bags and headed off to a baseball game – Hanshin Tigers verses the Carps (sounds terrifying right?).  It was a sad game, the Tigers played worse than the Blue Jays (say what!!?), but it was amusing to watch anyways.  In Toronto, people cheer...but never the way the Japanese cheer!  The Japanese fans had full on songs for each player which they sang in unison and echoed through the stadium.  Then the carp’s fan section had an actual dance that they did in unison, it was literally one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen.  The fans varied from extremely old people, to men who clearly came straight from their job and were eating dinner in the stands.  Afterwards we had our own final farewell in the 24 hour pub we spent some time in over the past two weeks.  Afterwards I tried to catch some zzzzs before seeing off my roommate at 5am, while others chose to YOLO it and pull an all nighter doing crazy stuff like climbing mountains (literally) while they still had the opportunity.  It was a pretty fun night with all of us no longer scared of the crazy rules – we snuck out like pros (without setting off the alarm this time) and we didn’t give a hoot about getting caught...yup...pretty badass. 

The next day we all went our separate ways and said our final goodbyes which was bittersweet.  After a full month of seeing each other literally every second of the day, it was hard to say goodbye and even harder knowing there almost definitely won’t be an opportunity to see everyone all together again.  Some Canadians stayed in Japan while others took direct flights to the states.  I headed to Tokyo where I caught a bus from one airport to the other.  Then I checked into the airport hotel for the night and headed back to the airport bright and early this morning. Check in literally took 22 minutes and I got to go home on Japan Airlines (I’m loving it – new movies and really good food...it’s as close as you’ll get to 1^st class without being first class!)!  

This trip has been so much fun – it’s had the ups and downs, but I’m so grateful to have experienced an exchange trip before graduating.  Making the personal connections, and meeting 11 really close and amazing friends is something which would probably be much harder during your typical traveling adventures. Overall, I think the hardest part about being in Japan was the language barrier – in some ways I think it would be easier if I looked western as most people assumed I was Japanese.  I’m so sad this summer ended so quickly, but I can definitely say this has by far been one of the best summers of my life.  From Toronto to China, New Brunswick to Japan, I’ve seen so much and learned even more along the way. To whoever has been reading this blog, thank you for coming along on my adventures with me and I hope it hasn’t been too boring.  I will of course continue blogging (this thing addicting...and a wonderful procrastination tool) but I don’t expect anything exciting enough to happen anytime soon...so until then have a good one xD 

-M