Edmonton Mall

Good day everyone! Jon and I woke up early to drive to Edmonton to meet up with Jon’s grandpa’s uncle (great uncle) and his family for dim sum. They were all so nice and welcoming. There were two little boys, one was 4 and the other was 1. They were so cute. The 4 year old would hide under the table and gently rub my leg which of course would startle me. We went to Jumbo dim sum restaurant. It was quite good. Jon really liked the beef rice rolls.

Jon and I then went to West Edmonton Mall. We walked through Galaxyland which is their theme park. They had a few good roller coasters. Of course, we’re too cheap to go on. We then went to the guest services desk and redeemed our coupon for a West Edmonton Mall coupon book. We found the coupon in a BCAA travel guide. The lady working there gave us a coupon book without taking our coupon because the coupon book was going to expire on August 31st.

Inside the book, there was a free $5 slots coupon. We went to the casino to redeem it and played blackjack. Jon won $7.50. We cashed it out and bought Purdy’s ice-cream. We shared a dark chocolate dipped ice-cream bar with almond. It was tasty.

Since we still had our coupon for a free coupon book, Jon tried to get another West Edmonton Mall (WEM) coupon book so we can get an extra $5 slots coupon. He did get the WEM coupon book but the person working there took our coupon. We lost the entire $5 coupon to blackjack.

In the mall, there is an NHL -size ice rink, a theme park, a water park, a pitch n putt, and a big pirate ship where they have sea lion shows. We watched the sea lion show. They were so cute. One of the sea lions were dancing to the tune of the music and another one gave a little girl a kiss on the cheek.

I didn’t buy anything at the mall because the stores they had were very similar to those at home. They did have Abercrombie but there wasn’t anything there. After we finished shopping, we went to T and T, my favourite supermarket, to buy a cake for Jon’s great uncle and his family for letting us stay with them.

During dinner, we realized that Jon’s grandpa’s brother is his great uncle. It’s weird saying it but I think it’s funny and his great uncle laughs when we call him that so I’m sure he enjoys it. Jon’s great aunt made a delicious dinner. We had stir-fry with noodles, Asian salad, grilled meat and rice. It was nice eating a home cooked meal. Tomorrow, we’ll be having Filipino food. It’s my first time so I’m excited.

Tomorrow, we’ll be going to Fort Edmonton with Jon’s aunt and her son. I shall look for coupons tonight.

Good night everyone!

Manitou Beach, Saskatoon, North Battleford, Cut Knife, Vegreville

Good day everyone! Jon and I drove to Manitou Beach first thing this afternoon. Manitou Beach is 3 times saltier than the ocean and allows swimmer to float effortlessly. Jon and I had the intention of going in the water but as we were driving by, the water looked dirty and there was white foam floating on the surface which the children at the beach were playing with. This scared us a little so we only dipped our feet in the water. We were also wearing flip flops at the time and we did notice that our flip flops felt more buoyant than normal. We also ate a smokie for lunch. There was also a dance floor that was built on top of horse hair. We couldn’t see the horsehair because carpet and hardwood floor

I drove for 45 minutes from Manitou Beach to Saskatoon. It was nice being able to drive again. We arrive in Saskatoon and dropped off a gift for Jon’s grandpa’s friend. Then we went to Pizza Hut for a second lunch. I thought that the pizza was a little sweeter than normal but Jon didn’t think so. An hour later, Jon and I felt sick. AIYAH!

As we were waiting for our pizza, I picked up a joke pamphlet. Our favourite joke from the pamphlet went as follows: “Don’t swallow these pills,” the doctor said, handing the overweight patient a bottle of pills. “Instead, spill them on the floor three times a day and pick them up one by one.”

We drove to Spadina Crescent to partake in a Ukrainian festival. It was bumping. We saw a Ukrainian pop star who was trying to get the crowd to clap their hands but to no avail. They had craft tables and a face painting station for kids. They also sold crafts too. Jon wanted perogies but were too expensive. We then walked on 2nd avenue. There were quite a few stores there as well as a shopping centre. As we were walking, we saw 3 parking ticket officers. They were out in full force today. Saskatoon was larger than we imagined. However, Saskatoon berry pies were not as abundant as the travel book made it seem.

We were going to take a picture of a big rack by Allan’s Landscaping Store but it was on the other side of the highway. We tried twice to get to that side but couldn’t. So we had no choice but to take a picture from afar.

Jon saw a porcupine but it was sleeping on the side of the road with spilt cranberry juice around it. It makes me sad but luckily, we haven’t hit anything larger than a dragonfly yet.

We drove to North Battleford to take a picture of a mountie and bison statue. The highway that we’re on had construction. So in order to slow down our car we like to roll down the windows and stick out our hand for added friction. However, when Jon stuck out his hand, he managed to hit a bug at 100km/h. There were bits of the bug still on his hand. It was quite gross but not as gross as the one I accidentally squished while taking our mountie picture. I forgot how many bugs there are in the prairies. I have at least 8 mosquito bites. Jon has at least 5.

We then drove by Cut Knife to take a picture of a big Tomahawk. We’re in Alberta now. We’ll be staying at Vegreville which has a large Easter egg. Tomorrow, we’ll be seeing Jon’s grandpa’s brother and his family for dim sum.

Have a good night!

Riding Mountain National Park, Russel, Churchbridge, Esterhazy, Yorkton

Good day everyone! Jon and I woke up to several mosquito bites. UGH! Anyways, we drove to Neepawa, the Lily Capital, and stopped by the gas station to buy a calling card. Our previous calling card ran out of money because we would use it on pay phones. So we bought a “Cin Cin” one and used the gas station’s pay phone. We were calling Alberta from Manitoba. I guess they charge more for calling different provinces while using the pay phone because we talked no more than 10 minutes and we only had a $1.50 left on a $5 calling card. It would have been cheaper to use our cell phones.

Anyways, we drove up to Riding Mountain National Park to see a herd of bison. We first drove to Wasagaming to visit their tourist centre. There were little stores along the main road as well as a nice beach. We drove about 60km to get to the Bison Enclosure. The enclosure was fenced off and as we approached, there was a sign that told us to stay in our cars because the bison are wild animals. We drove to the Bison Exhibit. Jon was afraid to leave the car because he wasn’t sure if bison were there.

We were quite lucky because as we were driving to the bison site, the bison were near the road and were about to cross it. We parked so close to the bison that we could hear the bison grunt, burp and possible fart. We weren’t quite sure what the noises were. One bison even crossed right in front of our car.

We took a nap in the parking lot in Wasagaming then went on our way to Russel. We thought that there would be a large bear but instead we found a large, quite disturbing bull. It looked like it has mad cow disease.

As we were driving, we were listening to Mariah Carey’s cd. For those who don’t know, she can sign 5 octaves. Jon bet me one dollar that he can sing 5 octaves too. Of course, I knew he was up to no good but I wanted to see what he would do. He then proceeded, in a baritone voice, to sing “fiveeeee octavesss”. Ha ha. He’s so silly. I still owe him $1.

We have crossed into Saskatchewan. We visited Churchbridge where we saw the loonie for Canada’s 125th anniversary. The designer of the image lived in Churchbridge. We then drove to Esterhazy to take a picture of Potage Pete. He wasn’t as big as we thought he would be. Then we drove to Yorkton to get dinner.

It was our first time going to Wendy’s. I ordered a Jr Cheeseburger, baked potato with sour cream and chives and root beer. Jon ordered chicken nuggets, fries and coke. Jon didn’t mind his food. I thought it was okay too but when I lifted the lid of my potato, there wasn’t any sour cream. All I got was a potato. It was not appetizing. The only way I could eat it was to imagine it was a PEI potato. It could have been from PEI because Wendy looks like Anne of Green Gables. Ha ha.

We are staying in Watson where there is a big Santa. We’ll be going to Saskatoon tomorrow. Good night!

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!