monkeycrap's Diaryland Diary
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Torontario I
I must apologize for not being able to blog as regularly as I would've liked to, or at all for that matter. The reason being that I was hit with a bout of, erm, well, whatever you call it - ill fortune, bad luck, misalignment of stars, being at the wrong end of the probability spectrum, obstacles, barriers, hiccups, whatnot. This resulted in my laptop totally dying on me and being totally unrevivable, very much like zoe tay's post pregnancy career in showbiz.
Other side effects of this bout of infelicity include:
- Being bankrupt for a couple of days due to problems with the Canadian banking system (namely in the bank drafts division)
- Prepaid SIM card issues (had to go down to the handphone shop 4 times in 5 days to sort it out)
- Random snapping of watch straps
- Random splitting of grocery shopping bags (chasing after 2-litre bottles of nestea and canadian ginger ale down Marlee Avenue, not fun)
- Inability to get battery charger to work
- The breaking of my PDA phone's stylus into half
- Housing issues with the landlord (what's new huh)
- The cracking open of my digi cam (still workable nonetheless, just gotta be more careful in the snow)
- Getting into a car accident on the way to dinner (no worries, only casualties were the cars themselves)
So yeah, got myself a new laptop, resolved most of these hitches as well. Can't quite believe it's been 20 days since I stepped into Toronto, with a bad headache I must add, caused by the vile and potent combination of a 20+ hour flight and the prancing around of Zac Efron and gang - the plane authorities decided to screen High School Musical as the only in-flight movie.
The Crib
The cab driver, when asked by me about Viewmount Ave, my home for the next 5 months or so, replied, "Yes, yes. Werrry goood place to stay. Glenkaren (that's how Glencairn's pronounced here) is werrry good neighbourhood!" And in all, I can't possibly disagree. It's a 2 minute walk from the subway (the mrt lah, not sandwich shop), not too far from school (as compared to the arduous bedok-NUS-bedok journeys i'd to undertake on a daily basis) and price wise, rather affordable. Of course, there are drawbacks, and i'm not just referring to the pink toilet.
With glamourous make-up lights.
Landlord's lovenotes
You see, our landlord's strict. No friends allowed. No making noise. No doing laundry after 10pm. No paper in the toilet bowl allowed. Switch off all lights anytime, everytime or you will burn in hell. And the way they choose to remind us of the devastating fate we will suffer should we not comply, is to write us little love notes, in ancient chinese, on fluroscent pieces of paper. Somtimes they write vertically downwards on long strips of paper, which kinda resembles the talismans used to paste on chinese vampires (jiang shis) to prevent them from further hopping around. I'll let my housemates further demonstrate.
The Housemates
In planning my exchange, I was fully prepared to go at it alone. To see how, what it's like to be plopped into somewhere alien. But, you know, having great people around makes the situation a whole lot easier, and more enjoyable I might add. So yeah, I'm saying that, yeah, bad luck in the first few weeks, but good fortune having the 2 of you food/travel junkies around for the next 4 months. If you guys read this, nope, its not written in order to bribe you guys for more bak kut teh or watercress soup. Although I wouldn't mind la.
Goodie Foodie
seafood tofu egg drop soup embellished with clams and dried scallops.
Svedish meatballs slushed with gravy and topped with lingonberry jam.
Spiced assam fish curry, simmered with okra and beans.
Chap chye.
Chye poh garlic omelicious omelette.
Bak Kut Teh.
egg tofu or luak.
Chillitized long beans
This did not come from a food mag.
Yup, all lovingly home-cooked by us. Seriously, yeah we've been to some pretty good places for grub, but most of the best meals I've had, all at home. It's really quite impossible to survive on daily pizza-pasta-pop set meal diets.
7:20 p.m. - 2008-01-23
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