Toronto Buskerfest on Front Street.
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Author: sikander
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Farewell to Jessie
Lunato’s friend Jessie called yesterday to tell her that she is leaving Canada and going back home to China tomorrow night. They were close friends when both of them were studying at Algonquin College in 2003 and had kept in touch ever since. With lunato living in Korea and then in Toronto and jessie’s love of travel, they hadn’t had a chance to meet ever since our mutual departure from Ottawa. Saturday, today, would be the last chance for both lunato and I to meet Jessie before we visit Beijing or Shanghai later in our lifetime. So, an impromptu Ottawa trip was in order.
We left in the afternoon with an appointment with Jessie at 5 PM. She had finished all her packing and was just meeting her friends all over town and so we decided to meet her in China town at a Bubble Tea shop. The long drive had famished both of us and Jessie was at a lunch date with her friends when we arrived in Ottawa, so we decided to visit our favourite Vietnamese restaurant. We’ve been there numerous times but I’m still unable to memorize the name of the restaurant. It’s excellent food, take my word for it.
After meeting Jessie and spending some quality time with her, lunato and I met shekhar and dooh and headed to Casino-du-Lac-Leamy in Hull for the Intenrational Fireworks competition. It was quite impressive and the fireworks were probably the biggest and most astonishing that I’ve seen.
Back in Ottawa and after a late shawarma-dinner we arrived at Carleton university at half past midnight and spent the next hour and a half talking about whatever and ever while sitting in the Quad in front of the library.
It was a dark and windy night and the atmosphere was just brilliant. Lunato and I spent the time mischieviously while shekhar and dooh debated about the meaning of life and so on and so forth. Good times.
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Taste of the Danforth
Taste of the Danforth is an annual event held on Danforth Avenue in Toronto that celebrates Greek culture and food. AM640 had been promoting the event pretty aggressively so we decided to participate.
Danforth avenue was closed down and like I said before, I love it when the streets get shut down and the public is allowed to wander freely on the asphalt.
An expected 1 million people from all over Ontario and even the United States visited the event last year. This year was supposed to be bigger than before. There was a lot of food there and not only Greek food. We visited Demetre for some light ice-cream snacks, had corn-on-the-cob, calamari, and finally gyros. Not bad but not that exciting either. I liked the atmosphere more than the actual event.
Oh and there was a belly dancing show too! That was quite a surprise. By chance lunato and I had front-row seats… well not seats but we were in the first row. I was incredibly confused about where my eyes should be. It is a belly dancing event so presumably the bellies are the main attraction. However, looking at dancing bellies of unknown women for an extended period of time can become uncomfortable very fast. Try it some day if you haven’t had the chance yet.
My solution was to take pictures and make videos of the dance and just stare at the camera screen instead of the actual dancers. I uploaded two videos on youtube: 1, 2.
Good show, will visit again next year.. but wouldn’t buy the calamari again.. ugh!
Update: I was browsing Flickr and found this picture by prof46ca of the belly dance audience. Lunato was on my right so she’s hidden from the view but you can easily spot me in the crowd with a stupid smile on my face.