Summer Travel

The past few weeks have seen a lot of travel and I am well backed up with uploading photos. I may not get the opportunity to write any in-depth travel reports, so I thought I would just make some quick notes.

Quebec and Ontario

This September my oldest daughter will enter Grade 11. Things are starting to get serious on the academic front. Next year will be prepping for university, with campus visits and the like. So this summer’s vacation was probably our last big one as a family.

Originally we thought we would do the Grand Canyon, but with the situation in the US, we decided to stay in Canada. My oldest went for a 5 week French language program in Quebec City at Laval University, so we made the Belle Province our summer destination.

I won’t got into all the gory details, and I still have over 2000 photos to process and upload to Flickr, but here are just a few highlights from our 16 days of travelling In Quebec and eastern Ontario:

• Montreal
  • After having our plane cancelled, put on a new flight redirected through Toronto, we finally got to our McGill University dorm hotel only to have the fire alarm go off after midnight… three times
  • Saw the Notre Dame Basilica, met with Vincent from Hypha, ate lobster poutine and went to Just for Laughs pics →
  • Walked a lot of streets and saw some of the famous sites of Montreal (pics →) and live-blogged a witch cafe →
  • Domes →
  • Ran into former Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau
  • Cirque du Soliel is mind-boggling 🤯 We saw Luzia
• Quebec City
  • Took a bus across the flatlands of Quebec to the oldest city in Canada pics →
  • Really enjoyed the Old Town both Upper and Lower pics →
  • Did the K-Drama pilgrimage pics →
  • Did a tour of Château Frontenac pics →
  • Made some 360s of the St Lawrence river and the Château at dusk
• Kingston
  • This side trip was purely for nostalgia. I lived in Kingston for 2 years during grad school, and we got married here nearly 20 years ago.
  • We visited our old apartments, my old alma mater Royal Military College of Canada, and a number of our old hangouts. Lots of memories.
  • Drinking in the old pub with my kids! 🤯
  • Had dinner at the place we had our wedding banquet. Still great!
• Ottawa
  • Parliament, Museum of Nature, National Gallery of Canada and Canadian Museum of History,
  • Met a dog, saw the famous Churchill photo… and Hitler’s car pics →
  • Walked around the Canadian War Museum video →
  • Met up with some old friends from my grad school years
  • Yasuke beer
  • And even though I have been to Ottawa a bunch of times in the past, this was my first time walking down the locks and crossing the river. No wonder it is a world heritage site! (Photos and vids coming soon)

Quebec is a must-go for Canadians like me from the West. There is just something about seeing historical spots that help you really understand the history. It was also interesting to see how they present indigenous history… or the lack thereof. I think in BC we have come a long way in recognizing the victimization of indigenous groups, but in Quebec with the spotlight on the Quebecois (and Acadians), the indigenous experience is still left in the shadows.

One other note: the pedestrian streets in Montréal are amazing. Vancouver really needs pedestrian streets and a nice walkable shopping and food area like the Montréal Old Town.

Quick drive to the Okanagan

After we got back from Quebec we quickly jumped in the car and drove to Kelowna for a couple of days for a friend’s baby shower. Not much to report from this trip other than we spent time with my family and with a bunch of friends, ate loads of cake, and it was great.

”Concrete jungle where dreams are made of” 🗽

Once back from Kelowna I had a day to pack and prep for a week in New York. I stayed in Manhattan, worked out of betaworks, ran a 2-day event with publishers like WaPo, ProPublica, Semaphor and many others (I will write this up in the future but here is some coverage already) and then attended an atproto hackathon in Brooklyn. It was pretty packed but on Saturday we did a walking tour of Manhattan hitting a lot of the famous parts, like:

• The Highline, the Shed, the Foot Fountain and Grand Central pics →
• Times Square, St Patricks, got rainbow bagels and then Central Park pics →
• Strand, Union Square pic →
• Took a lot of selfies 🤓
• Empire State Building pics →

It was a great experience. I hadn’t been there since 2006. I spent most of my spare time just walking the streets, moving from movie set to movie set.

Next up?

I am holding still in Surrey for the next few weeks with no travel plans until I go to Birken Monastery for a week-long meditation retreat at the end of September. Until then I am just happy to be still for a while, in my comfortable home office… it will give me a chance to process all these photos!