Winnipeg, Gimli, Portage la Prairie, Gladstone

Good day everyone! Jon and I went to the Royal Mint in Winnipeg. It was quite interesting. We learned about the different processes involved in making circulation coins such as pennies, nickels, etc. First, the branch in Ottawa creates a large image of the coin then scales it down to form the template die or the stamper. Then Winnipeg recreates them to form coins. They have to make blanks which are cut outs of metal in the size and shape of the coin. Then the blanks are given ridges on the edge of the coin to prevent the head and tail of the coin from wearing out. Then they anneal or heat up the blanks to make it malleable or easier to shape. However, they cool the blanks before they strike them with the stamps.

The tour guide told us that in the past, all workers would have to wear steel-toed boots. Since they would have to go through the equivalent of airport security every time they entered or exited the building, the scanner would be set-up to ignore the metal in the shoes. One worker bought shoes that were too big and stuffed it with coins because the metal in his shoes would not be detected. He was eventually caught and is in prison because stealing from the Mint is like stealing from the Queen.

The Mint makes over 20 millions coins a day. It also makes coins for over 70 countries. They are currently making coins for Ethiopia.

Afterwards, we drove to Gimli and visited Jon’s grandpa’s friends, Jim and Carolyn. They were very friendly. We walked around the dock and saw a Viking statue. Along the dock, there is a wall with local paintings. We also saw a family fish by the dock. We also went to their Marine Museum. We had such a great time with them.
We then drove to Portage la Prairie and took a picture of a giant Coca cola bottle by Canada Inn. It wasn’t an inflatable and was quite impressive.

We’re now in Gladstone. We’ll be staying the night here and heading to Riding Mountain National Park tomorrow.

Good Night!

P.S. Internet is too slow so pictures will be posted when we have faster internet.

Thunder Bay, Dryden

Good day everyone! Jon and I had a long driving day. When we woke up this morning, we drove to The Bluffs Scenic Lookout which overlooked the city and the Sleeping Giant. The Sleeping Giant is a rock formation that is 11.25km long and 335m high and is named as such because it looks like a sleeping giant. It is commonly heard of in Ojibway Indian legends.

We then drove to Metro grocery store to get some food for the road. When we entered, there was a plate of oreo cookies and coffee. We were wondering if it was for everyone but a senior sitting by the plate told us to have some and we saw some workers take some so we took one each. We wound up buying bananas, milk, cheese sticks, and pizza buns.

As we were leaving, we took two more oreo cookies each. We were wondering why there were so many seniors in the store. There were more per cubic inch than in Kerrisdale which is saying a lot. As we were leaving, we heard some seniors ask if the school bus parked in the parking lot was theirs. At that moment we realized that the cookies were put out for the seniors. The seniors were having a group trip to the store and the cookies and coffee were there to welcome them. I felt bad for taking their cookies but Jon reassured me that it was fine because the workers at the store ate them too. Since we bought milk, we would take a bite of cookie then drink our carton of milk.

We drove to Dryden to fill up on gas. We went to Tim Hortons to buy hot chocolate.
Then we drove to Extra Foods to get gas. Since we got $2.03 in superbucks, we went to the store and bought milk, 3 packs of mini crunch bars and rainbow chips ahoy cookies. We wanted to have cookies and milk again. The 500ml carton of milk is good enough for 4 cookies in total. Jon finished his 2 and wanted another one but I told him that there wouldn’t be enough milk. So I offered to share my last cookie. When I was feeding him, he wouldn’t bite into it. He wanted me to let go and give him the remainder. Eventually he bit into it but as karma would have it, when he was drinking the milk, the milk spilt all over his shirt. He immediately said in a shrilling voice, “Clean me! Clean me!”

In Dryden, we saw a large moose. Since we forgot to take a picture in Moose Jaw, this will have to suffice.

We took a nap along the way. We are now in Winnipeg. We have a microwave and fridge in our room so we went to Sobey’s and bought some microwaveable dishes. Jon chose Salisbury steak and I chose lasagne. Jon liked his but mine was not good. We also had a Caesar salad as well. We’ll have an early night.

Good night!

Sault Ste Marie, Echo Bay, Wawa, Thunder Bay

Hello everybody! Jon and I drove to Echo Bay to take a picture of their big loonie. I have to say, the loonie looked better than the nickel we saw yesterday at Sudbury because you could see rectangular pieces of metal that made up the nickel but the loonie was nice and smooth. However, both were nice. We then drove back to Sault Ste.Marie. We scootered/skateboarded along the boardwalk and found a relatively large camel and 2 fishes. Then we drove to Strathclair Park and took a picture of a big baseball.

We then headed to Wawa where we saw not one but three large geese. We also went to Scenic High Falls where we saw falls 38m across and 23m high. There were signs that showed how the falls can change from a mere trickle to a flood of water in a matter of seconds. Unfortunately, we did get to see the flood of water but it was still quite a sight. We then went to our good friend, Tim Horton’s, and bought 2 cheese bagels with herb and garlic cream cheese, a medium ice capp and 10 timbits. I normally get 12 grain but they ran out. They had strawberry and blueberry powdered timbit (mini donuts) which Jon liked.

We drove by White River which is “where it all began” for Winnie the Pooh. I thought the display was quite cute.

Jon would like me to tell you that his hair looks like David Beckham’s, the British soccer player. You may notice it in the pictures. It is a result of him sleeping funny.

We drove to Marathon to get two papa burgers from A and W because Jon had been craving them since yesterday. We’ll be staying at Thunder Bay tonight. As we were driving in, we saw the Terry Fox monument which is 12km west of where he stopped running. He is facing westward in the direction of his goal. We’ll be heading to Winnipeg tomorrow.

Have a good night!

Ottawa, Sudbury

Good day everyone! Jon and I had a good morning. We drove to Rideau Hall which is where her Excellency, the governor general, Michaelle Jean (sounds like Michael Jon) resides. Jon’s middle name is Michael. So the whole day, he’s been referring to himself as his Excellency, Jean Michaelle Wong. Ha ha.

Before we went on our tour, we saw the changing of the guards. The guards were lead by a bagpiper. It was quite neat. I wanted to see it at La Citadelle in Quebec but it was raining that day. Outside of Rideau Hall, there is a hope fountain in memory of Terry Fox.

The building looked quite mismatched. There is a tent room with bright pink stripe walls. This room used to be a tent which served as a dining room but also a tennis court. Most of the rooms were filled with Canadian art. There is a mini art gallery as well. I really liked the grand ballroom. It had lots of intricate details. In the main entrance, there were portraits of past Canadian governor generals. The first Canadian governor general was selected in 1952. Before this, the governor generals were British. I think it was in 1948 that Canada got its own citizenship.

We drove most of the day. Jon was not too pleased with the roads today because there was lots of construction. He did enjoy listening to Mariah Carey however. Mariah Carey can/could sing 5 octaves. Jon thought a funny joke which he wants me to share with you. He said, “Mariah is missing an octave.” Then I asked,” which one? Then he said, “The good one.”

We drove by Sudbury where we saw the big nickel. As we were driving to Sault Ste. Marie, we saw fog. There was quite a bit of it and it had an ominous feeling. It doesn’t help that we were talking about ghost beforehand.

We’ll be staying at Sault Ste. Marie this evening. Have a good night!

Ottawa

Good day everyone! Jon and I had a good day. We walked to the Parliament Hill to get a tour of the Parliament Building. We got tour tickets for 2 hours later. So we walked around Sparks Street Pedestrian Mall. Many of the stores were closed today. The stores that we went to were mainly souvenir stores. We went to this very interesting store that sold lots of aboriginal art and crafts.

At the end of the mall strip, there is the Currency Museum of the Bank of Canada. It opened at 1pm so we waited till then. It was quite overwhelming to see the history of currency from different nations. Some things I learned were that the word “dollar” was derived from a Dutch word, hong kong made the smallest denomination of money ever minted in history, and the reason why you see holes in the middle of some coins are so that you can carry it. There used to be a really large coin made of limestone. People would only be able to carry it by sticking a rod through the hole. It was quite interesting. I wish we had more time there but you see so many coins that they all start looking the same. I thought it was funny that in the past, some European countries took coins from spain and would break up the coin to form smaller bits or counterstamp the coin with their emblem so you may see the English monarch on top of a Spanish monarch.

Afterwards, we went to the Parliament building for our tour. We had to go through a security check before entering. The building has lots of intricate details. It was such a pretty sight. We went to the house of commons room, senate room and the library. The library survived a fire because the doors were made of iron. Also, the painting of Queen Victoria survived 3 fires so far.

After the tour, we took the elevator to the top of Peace Tower which overlooks the city. The elevator ride showed us the different bells in the tower. On the weekdays, there is a person that plays the bells in the afternoon.

We then walked around Parliament Hill and took pictures of Lester Pearson, Sir John A Macdonald, the peace tower and the centennial flame.

Afterwards, we walked to Rideau Canal and saw the Rideau locks. We even saw a boat trying to pass through the locks. It’s quite interesting. There are several gates that stop water from flowing. The amount of water in between each gate varies. When a boat comes, they fill the water in the first gate to the same height as the second gate then opens the gate to let the boat go through. Subsequently, they will then fill the second gate to the same height as the third gate, etc. It was quite neat.

We then walked to Byward Market which is a farmer’s market. They had lots of produce stands as well as maple syrup stands. In that area, there are also many restaurants and shops. We bought an apple strudel from a bakery. It was not bad. Then we bought a butter, garlic and cheese beaver tail at Beavertails. It sounded good when we bought it. We didn’t want to have 2 sweet things in a row but after eating it, our tummy were not feeling good. We walked around a bit more then decided to head back to our accommodations.

On our way back, we walked by Hi Ottawa Hostel which also used to be a county jail. Jon thought it didn’t look like a jail from the outside but it did have iron bars over the windows. We returned to our accommodations and decided to wash our clothes. To do so, you have to put a minimum of $10 into a smartcard to recharge the card. Jon and I only wanted to do $3.50 worth of laundry. So the person at the desk let us find old smartcards to make enough for $3.50. How nice! We now have clean clothes for the next few days.

While we were waiting for our laundry and our tummies to settle, we watched more Anne of Green Gables. It’s very addicting.

At 8:20pm, we decided to drive to Chinatown to get Chinese food. At Parliament Hill, they have this light show called Mosaika which start at 9:30pm. So we didn’t have much time to eat. We order Yang Chow Fried Rice and Shanghai Noodles to go. We arrived at Parliament Hill with 30 minutes to spare but because the weather was so mucky, they cancelled the show.

We drove back to our accommodations and watched Mosaika on Youtube. It looks really good. We were upset that we missed it. However, our sadness was appeased when we watched Anne of Green Gables. We managed to finish the second miniseries, “the sequel”. It was very good and it ended well. We’re not going to watch “the continuing story” because it’s loosely based off the book and it only got about 6 stars out of 10 on imdb.

We’ll be heading to Sault Ste. Marie tomorrow so we’ll sleep early. Good night y’all!

Driving to Ottawa

Good day everyone! Jon and I are in Ottawa now. We’ll be staying here for 2 possibly 3 nights. Today was mainly a driving day. We drove around 800km and spent around $9000 so far. We didn’t see much. We passed through Trois Riviere, Montreal and other cities.

We’re staying the University of Ottawa. When we got our room, we found that our room was dirty and there were Chinese food containers. We had to get our room changed.

After we brought our things to our room, we went out for food. We saw this restaurant called “Johnny’s Pizza” and decided to go there because we didn’t mind pizza. When we got there, we read their menu which had bubble tea, pho (meat ball in soup) and poutine as well as pizza. We decided to get pho there. It wasn’t bad but there were lots of onions.

We’ll try to sleep early. Of course, we’ll slip in at least 30 minutes of Anne of Green Gables: the sequel.

A funny story I remembered was when we were staying at University of New Brunswick in Saint John, Jon woke up in the middle of the night to go to the washroom. He couldn’t find the room key so he told me to open the door for him. I don’t recall any of this probably because I was very tired. So he told me that he was knocking on the door for a minute before I let him in. He had already planned on sleeping outside by then. ha ha.

Have a good night!

St. John, Fredericton, Maine

Good day everyone! Jon and I are in Maine, USA. We accidentally booked a motel in the states because it was cheaper. We didn’t even think twice about it. We’re staying in Madawaska which is really close to the Canada/USA border.

This morning, I made peanut butter and nutela sandwiches for breakfast and lunch. We also had an apple for breakfast. Jon’s tummy was feeling bad after eating it. We weren’t sure if it was the sandwich or the apple. The apple was not a good tasting apple.

We drove to Reversing Falls to see the river in the opposite direction. However, when we went there at 11:30am, it was still going the same way it did yesterday when we saw it. So we drove down to downtown St John which was where we went yesterday. We walked around the Saint John city Market. It was similar to our Richmond Public Market. There were produce stands, gift shops and fish markets. It was quite neat. Afterwards, we walked pass Brunswick Square into Market Square. We thought there would be a beach party but I think it will happen later tonight.
Unfortunately, we won’t be there for it. We then walked to Barbour’s General Store. I thought it was a 19th century shop but it was a museum. We then walked to King’s square which is a nice park with assorted statues.

Then, we drove back to reversing falls to see the river. It had reversed. It was quite cool.

We then drove to Fredericton. We walked along Queen Street. There were shops there.
At City Hall, there was a gathering of army personnel and the mayor. I think the army raised money for a foundation by biking and was presenting it there. We asked the information desk but they weren’t of much help.

We walked through Garrison District. There were old buildings with military barracks. At this point, Jon ate another sandwich to confirm the cause of his stomach ache. Indeed, it was the sandwich as I have a stomach ache too.

Afterwards, we drove to Beaverbrook Art Gallery because they had a Salvador Dali painting. We’re aware of his work because we saw a short film by Disney and Salvador Dali called Destino. Unfortunately, the piece was out on load at another museum so we never got to see it. Jon was disappointed. Anyways, the museum had nice pieces. Although, Jon thought the security guard was following him.

We drove by Nackawic and saw the world’s largest axe. It was quite impressive.

We arrived at the border around 6:20pm. They stopped us there and searched our car for 20 minutes. It was annoying but understandable. We are at our motel now which is 3 minutes from the border. We’ll be heading towards Ottawa tomorrow. We’re not sure if we’ll make it all the way.

Have a good night!