funnel cakes and candy floss

every year for about 3 weeks in the summer, the city goes crazy at what they call the "Ex" (or Expo, basically an excuse to set up the biggest funfair/carnival/petting zoo/exhibition event of the year). everyone brings their children, dogs, and other mobile dependents to join in the fun. so we decided to go before it closes on Labor Day... and came home with a pair of sore feet but lots of fun memories.

view from bridge crossing to the carnival

and then night falls...

the expo indoors - a Rock Whisperer!
(some irish dude creating gravity defying rock displays)

and then there was a tank and artillery exhibit...
the military history buff husband was all smiley-faced after that

... we also stumbled upon a petting farm exhibit
what's this, Old McDonald's Farm? look, real sheep!
cutie little lamb
cutie little calf
dairy cow feeding time

ooh, tiny little chickies!and big momma hens...look, a crate of piglets! can i take them home?a really frisky goat - i thought he was going to jump the pen!

okay, someone stop me! enough of the pictures already... suffice to say, we had a great time and i look forward to next year's event. wonder what other creative exhibits they'll have next time?

gainful employment (part II)

the job market seems to be really moving this month... absolutely no one called us in July for any jobs, i was starting to wonder where all the people went. and now in August we get deluged with crazy recruiters and lightning job offers. i think this is the month everyone comes back from summer vacation... i'm a little bewildered at the pace but things are really moving quickly for us now - edward has also found a job!

perhaps we should play the lottery this week, we're on such a roll. i promise if we win big, everyone gets a free trip to toronto, yippee! no but seriously, i'm really happy things are starting to fall into place and starting to get excited about both our new jobs. edward will be working for a software company doing intense software engineering schtuff that only geeks and other initiated cult members know about. i'm so jealous he's going to be able to show up in shorts and t-shirt (yes, they are THAT kind of dot-commy software company... *envious*)

so whaddaya know, Sept 5 will be first day of school (err i mean, work) for me, and edward follows shortly after...

toronto toronto

dutiful wife that i am, i became chauffeur of the day when edward went for his interview downtown... rush hour traffic and marauding city drivers aside, it was fun to explore the city a little more. went to several waterfront parks to check out the scenery and enjoy the nice weather, there were quite a few sailboats out.

strolled along the lake and got some shots of Toronto while i was waiting for edward to finish his gruelling interview and aptitude test. wow i felt so sorry for him, the poor guy was being barraged with written and verbal questions for almost 3 hours while i gallivanted around town in my cool sunshades.

here's some of the sights i took in:

duck for dinner, anyone?sailboats on the watersleepy gulls resting after a feast from the picnic leftovers...

neurotic headhunters need to get a life

so now that i've found a job, it's edward's turn to go trolling. he's been getting a few good hits for close matches, but occasionally you meet with a neurotic recruiter. yes, this dude was seriously flaky or something. i really didn't think that someone whose bottom line depends on job-searchers (ie. clients like us) would be unprofessional, but we had an uncomfortable encounter with one of these HR recruiter types.

so, basically this recruiter (we'll call him X) found me first. he came up with several promising leads and we agreed to try floating my resume around his contacts. but always with the upfront knowledge that he's not the only fish in the sea and i'm definitely talking to other folks/companies as well. during this process, he found out edward was also in the job market so he offered to send him any possible matches too. what a great deal for him!

i ended up turning down his leads because frankly, i moved faster than him and found something else suitable on my own. stuff happens, just too bad for Recruiter X, right? well, he seemed to take it fine, closed off our conversation with a few token remarks and that was that. BUT, he did a Jekyll and Hyde on edward when they went on to discuss opportunities for him; it almost seemed like he was a different person. maybe he was already pissed off at the loss of (my) business?

apparently he got upset with edward for trying to postpone an interview with his client (it was a scheduling issue and the reaction was totally unjustified. come'on, edward is technically still working and cannot be available at his whim and fancy!) i guess he didn't believe us and just blasted us for not wanting to "keep options open", and not appreciating his efforts in lining stuff up for us, yada yada yada... i forget what other histrionics he displayed. but the whole encounter just makes me want to steer clear of these people unless i'm desperate. sheesh! i could write volumes about his customer service attitude and general unprofessionalism... but i'll stop whining now. *mental note - will NOT do business again.

beware of neurotic recruiters! next time, i'll learn not to share needles or recruiters with my husband, no matter how much they cajole me. it's not worth the trouble...

certified ontario local (car)

... got our Ontario license plates today, so our car has now been successfully "exported" to Canada! but only after much teeth pulling and escalation to management in the murky depths of the Ministry of Transportation - an ordeal i wouldn't want to go through again. someone give me a prize for all the talking i had to do in order to wade through local bureaucracy! so, after much ado and commotion about our lack of title and unfamiliar TN paperwork - we finally found someone at the Ministry who could think beyond their Official PaperPusher Guidebook. phew! i thought i would have to give them my first born son before they'd agree to issue us plates.

yay, now hopefully we'll stop getting weird looks about the alien license plates!

harbourfront food festival

the taiwanese invaded! (ok sorry, hyperbole - they just turned out in droves for the weekend, down by the waterfront)... there was a pretty good turnout at the Taiwanese Festival despite the gloomy gray weather. we braved the rain and general ickiness to check out what's going on. (ignore general motif of ugly umbrella in all our photos) it was a fun trip, but not all the photos turned out good enough to post. i think i need therapy, my hand keeps shaking and blurring up the image. am i getting old?!

the food tent with all the yummy goodies...

murtabak! mmm...
oops - ran out of fishball soup and char bee hoon!
chinese cooking demo with bad ABC engrish translation
dreary toronto waterfront

eerie photo of the occluded CN tower behind...

ignore the ugly umbrella...

and then we stumbled upon art galleries and craft studios tucked around the corner from all the food and fun. did a walkthrough of the ceramic workshop, metalworks and glassworks - pretty cool stuff... edward took lots of geeky pics of the equipment and space, but i'll spare you guys the boredom here. just look at my pink face, hehehe :-)

white onde-onde and other yummy eats

tried making onde-onde today... (for you non-singaporeans: it's a local singapore dessert, kind of a sweet rice ball rolled in coconut) turned out quite yummy except for the fact that i botched up making the fresh pandan extract and didn't have enough. so, ended up with just plain white onde-onde. why is pandan so yummy? without it, there's something missing. somehow the familiar green color is a much better version, but oh well... i learn and improvise.

there was a taiwanese food/culture festival on the waterfront this weekend. we went to join in the fun, even though it was a dreary drizzly day. the food lineup was pretty decent, Toronto seems to grab any excuse to set up stalls for street food. so there was malaysian, caribbean and indian food booths, in addition to the taiwanese ones touting their wares. we even ate murtabak!!! they had a real indian guy there flipping the pratas and everything... totally satisfied my craving for home food for the next month or so, hahaha.

here's the freaks-of-nature we created: albino onde-onde... (yes, they're edible!)

gainful employment

yay! somebody loves me, i got a job! all that whirlwind interviewing last week paid off and i got a job offer today from one of the top on my personal list. that was quick (less than 3 weeks), and here i thought we'd be jobless and destitute for a while longer. edward also has several 2nd interviews lined up, he just came back from one today that sounded like a nice fit. we'll see how his office interview goes next week. it's so good to feel wanted! hahaha... so, this all bodes well for the personal plans ... (next up, ensure we don't get fired and then start looking for our home sweet home!)

i start work on Sept 5, which gives a nice little bit of time for a last minute vacation. we also have a friend visiting from singapore, so it's perfect timing for a fun trip. we'll be heading to montreal next weekend, i just can't wait!

have an awesome weekend, all of 'ya! we're going downtown to check out what other exotic festival is going on this weekend... (it's starting to seem like this town has some festival or street party every weekend, all summer long!) - fun, fun, fun!

auto insurance nazis

omg, kill me now. getting car insurance in Canada is a pain in the * especially for newcomers. Good thing we at least have driving experience in the USA, which is somewhat transferable. I feel sorry for the rest of humanity coming here from other civilized places like Europe or Japan. Their driving history is of zero significance to these auto insurance nazis, they might as well have been a teenage driver.

our poor car is on foreign soil and it doesn't know when it's going to get recognized as a hardworking local vehicle. so we're in this vicious cycle of paperwork and process (hmm, maybe i should help them with their workflow!)... to not get a ticket, you need to get the car registered for local plates. to get local plates, you need local insurance. to get local insurance, you need to show them your family inheritance and birth certificate of first-born offspring. we stump the system coz our situation is non-standard. so their forms can't handle our info and even addresses are a pain (coz we had 2!)... so everyone spins in a frenzy and no one goes anywhere. i'm exhausted.

speaking of cars, it's been a hoot driving around town, 2 chinese people blasting korean pop music with TN plates. the juxtaposition stumps many a passer-by. i've lost count of how many times people walk by and do a double-take: is this a legal car? why doesn't it have front plates? (walks to back) what's this, TN plates? these people are really lost! do they even speak english down there?! (squints into car), who ARE these people?

good thing about it - we can be marauding drivers or slow movers gawking at scenery... the cars behind just assume we don't know what the hell we're doing coz we're from the South. which is true in some respects!

boom! the cannon fires...

Didn't take any photos this weekend coz all we did was one big crazy end-of-summer shopping spree. But last weekend, we went to Fort York and learnt a little bit more about Canadian history. This was a re-enactment of the War of 1812 when the US invaded Canada.

Feels weird to be standing on the other side now! Edward got a kick out of all the quaint uniforms and muskets... and they sure aren't joking when they talk about smoke on the battlefield.

preview of toronto

...better pics to come, but these are all i have of the toronto skyline for now. taken on our road trip into town - our first glimpse as we approached the city from the west.



some forgotten weekend ago, there was a Jazz Festival in the Distillery District (area with nice restored warehouses and urban lofts that now house an eclectic mix of art galleries, furniture shops and foodie haunts)... here are a couple pics.



oh yeah, silliness - a few weekends ago we drove out to Georgian Bay (north of Toronto) where there was an Elvis festival in Collingwood. No, we are not elvis fans, but just stumbled upon a festive looking event so we stopped to gawk as any decent tourist would.

if you squint hard enough, you can just make out the blue elvis singing on stage. there must have been at least 200 other Elvises peppered around the scenery, ages ranging from 10 to 75. we even spotted a few marilyn monroes as accessory pieces.

the job scene

'twas so quiet for past few weeks on the job front, i was starting to wonder where everyone was or if i listed my number wrong on the resume. then all hell broke loose this week, my phone's been ringing off the hook (not a bad thing for a jobless girl!)... did they all secretly arrange to come back on the same train or something? hmm....

well, one thing led to another and i've barely had time to breathe this week. 6 phone interviews and several office visits later, i'm exhausted and ready for the weekend! one of the prospects sounds promising... but we'll know more next week.

so... looks like we can't take off for Montreal after all. if things worked out, i had originally thought we might have some time after Aug 31 when Edward is done with his contract. but if i have to start work soon (or just stick around for interviews), we won't be going anywhere. i can just see Edward pouting already.

alrighty, i'll sign off for the weekend. there's a greek food festival somewhere around town, yummy eats - here we come! :-)

gallivanting through Toronto...

on the american side...
the bubbling brook (calm before the maelstrom)... all this water ends up in the churning depths!
















swoosh... swoosh! misty falls and churning waters