EntriesCanon EOS 50D
Christmas is just around the corner but it showed up early this year! New to the house is the Canon EOS 50D Digital SLR Camera. This will replace the Canon EOS 300D which bit the dust last month. It may be salvageable but we’ll see about that. Paired with the new 50D is a Tamron AF 18-270 F/3.5-6.3 XR. It’s a pretty good one-stop shop lens.
Total price for the camera body, Tamron lens and a UV filter was 1988 + taxes. Not a bad deal and I’m looking forward to putting the camera to good use!
. 20 Dec 08 | Photography | Comments (2)
Dessert at Amuse Bouche
I first heard of Amuse Bouche in NOW Magazine’s Best of Toronto. They apparently had the best dessert in Toronto – a 7 course tasting menu for $40.
I had made reservations at Amuse Bouche with Karen to celebrate an our anniversary a few weeks early.
The original plan was to grab a quick bite of sushi before coming to Amuse Bouche for just dessert, but we were running late and decided to skip sushi all together. So instead, we went for appetizers and what dessert. I ordered the “Ontario rabbit poutine ‘inside-out’: confit, Monforte Dairy ‘Indiscretion’, sweet summer pickle” and 7 course dessert. Karen went for the “Summer Ontario zucchini gazpacho, the flower stuffed with Dungeness crab and monforte dairy ricotta, lemon balm creme fraiche sorbet” and opted for the 5 course dessert.
After the appetizer, they brought out our dessert which was laid on top of two wooden sticks, the dessert plate didn’t actually touch the table cloth. This was a bit bizarre to me. I was also hoping that they would serve each dessert individually as I thought it was a tasting menu and not a dessert platter. Irregardless, the dessert was delicious with certain pieces better than others. I don’t know if there’s a dessert etiquette that requires you to finish one before moving on to another but if there was I definitely didn’t follow it.
The above photo is a picture of my dessert. It really turned out to be 9 piece setting and Karen’s ended up being a 6 piece dessert. I can’t quite remember everything I had, but the tall glasses a blueberry jam under a bland yogurt. There was a chocolate brownie with ice cream on top, damn delicious I might add, a creme brulee with plums, a mini berry tart, strawberry mousse over chocolate cake, pear tart, peach slices over some kind of custard, and a pudding with a fruit and toffee overtop. There’s really too much to remember, so sorry for forgetting all the details.
Total bill with wine, tax and tip was just under $160. Money well spent for a special night.
Tags: anniversary, dessert
Niagara Falls (Ontario)
For those who live in the golden horseshoe area, the Niagara region is one you’ve heard of many times. From Toronto, you can drive to Niagara Falls in about 1.5 hours. From the US, it’s more or less considered Buffalo. To those who have no idea what I’m talking about, the Niagara Falls are massive waterfalls from the Niagara River. This river divides Canada from the United States and while there are technically 3 falls, the Canadian side is clearly the best. All three falls were created from glaciers during the last ice age. The Canadian Horseshoe falls drop a total of 157 feet (52m) and is 2600 feet wide (792m). It is an impressive sight to see as six million cubic feet of water flows over the falls every minute. It’s anticipated that 28 million visitors will visit the falls in 2009 and this year there has been 20 million. It’s an amazing sight to see during the day and you should stick around for the evening light show if it’s your first visit.
Here’s a panoramic I made on my last visit.
You can find lots of information about the falls on wikipedia or Niagara Park Fun Fact’s page.
Tags: Niagara Falls, panoramic, photos, Travel
A Sparkly Present For Her
I celebrated an early anniversary with Karen last weekend; our official 5 year going out anniversary is Oct 31st. As a gift I picked up a set of diamond earrings on 18k white gold. The earrings were 0.25ct total weight from Bluenile. The diamonds are rated as color grade I with a minimum clarity of SI2. The cut is rated as a good and done in a princess cut shape. To top it off, they use a screw back instead of the butterfly.
This is my first diamond purchase and the earrings look fantastic. Needless to say, Karen loved them.
I’ll share some pictures of the dessert we had a dinner once I get the pictures.
Tags: anniversary, dating, diamond, gold
Cottage Trip Aug 15th to 17th
It’s been a little while since I’ve posted anything mainly because I’ve been pre-occupied. I won’t say too much in this post but will share a few pictures. Two weekends ago I was invited to my friend’s fiancés cottage near Minden, Ontario. It’s about a 2.5 hour north-east drive from central Toronto. In total there were 15 people up at the cottage and it was an amazing weekend. Lounging around by the lake, drinking, bonfire and lots and lots of water sports.
Here’s the view from the dock, breathtaking is all I will add.
Here’s a picture of the cottage with a few people on the docks. This was taken around noon on Saturday. There were a few of us on the boat and a couple more somewhere else doing something else.
Kevin and I riding “Bob”. Basically you sit and hold on while the driver does sharp turns and tries to throw you off.
Usually you end up in the water….
After dinner on Saturday, we headed into town for ice cream. If you ever pass by a Kawartha Dairy, stop in to get some ice cream. They give you massive scoops for next to nothing. Way cheaper than Ben & Jerry’s or Baskin Robbins and much better in taste.
After ice cream, we had a bonfire by the cabin until the wee hours of the day. Nothing like some good cold beer and s’mores!
Sunday was departure day but the weather was too nice to leave right away. So instead everyone went back into the water. “Tubing” sounds like a leisure sport….
but when you hit those waves at a good pace, the water stings! Regardless, it was a ton of fun!
I can’t wait for the next time we all go back up!
Tags: cottage, ice cream, kawartha dairy, Minden
Europe Trip 2008 Photo Collection
Here’s a handy little post with a list of all the photo albums I’ve uploaded for my 2008 Europe Trip.
Panoroama – Self Stitched
Panoroama – Adobe Photoshop Photomerge
London
Vence
Milan
Florence
Pisa
Rome
Paris
Tags: Europe 2008, Florence, London, Milan, Paris, Pisa, Rome, Venice
Paris Travel Pictures
It’s almost been two months since I’ve returned from my Europe Trip and I’m finally at the last travel picture post! After leaving Rome, the next 12 nights were spent in Paris before flying back to Toronto.
The first six nights were spent at IBIS and the last six in an apartment. Both had their advantages but I preferred the apartment living style over the hotel. That said, the hotel does have nicer perks than an apartment.
On our first full day in Paris we participated in a walking tour with New Europe. Our guide was an American who decided to stay in Paris after his running gig went south. We started at St. Michel’s square and visit the top sites of Paris.
The walking tour also covered the famous Pont Neuf. If you look at each sculpture on the bridge, they are all different. The story is that King Louis XIV got all his friends drunk and hired someone to sculptures to cast onto the bridge. It was his way of saying Thanks.
After a 5 hour walking tour, of which we stopped taking photos since we were going to revisit all the sites, we went to the Louvre. It’s free on Friday evenings from 6PM to 10PM for those under the age of 29.
Not to far from the IBIS hotel is a park were we had a couple of picnics before starting our day. It was pretty relaxing and quite the thing to do in Paris. Each day there were bigger and bigger crowds of people having a picnic. I think the largest was in the order of 30 people.
We didn’t visit too many bars or clubs during our trip but while in Paris we meet up with a couple UofT Engineers and we embarked in a Paris pub crawl which included free screwdriver shots.
By the end of the night (3 hrs), I think I had something in the range of 5 shots, a beer and two glasses of wine.
The true way to drink in Paris of course in style. On one night my dad treated Karen and I on a cruise down river Seine. We got to wine and dine while seeing all the Parisian sites. It was quite nice and definitely worth doing. I believe it was 120 Euros for the two of us. Champagne was the started and we also had a bottle wine to drink. To eat, I had a foie gras appetizers, seared perch and a fruit crepe. Karen had a seafood casserole, steak and fresh fruit in a raspberry milkshake. Delicious is the only was to state that meal.
From our cruise, we got a great view of the Eiffel Tower and the mini Statue of Liberty.
After the tour, we made our first visit to the Eiffel Tower. It was around 9PM and the sky was overcast. It was actually overcast for most of our stay in Paris. We had good weather on the last two days and the odd period.
Another major site in Paris is the Notre Dame, everyone has heard of the Hunchback of Notre Dame and it was that story that kept this church from being taken down.
We had to make two trips to the Air and Space Museum because it was closed the first day we went. So if you ever want to visit the Air and Space Museum, don’t go on a Monday! However, once we did get to go, it was definitely neat to walk around and check out some of the old planes, including a 747, concord and a few fighter jets.
A less popular site is Sacre Coeur which is a church at the just north of the downtown area. The church is situated on a large hill which allows visitors to get a great view of the city. It’s also free to go to which is perfect for the budget traveler.
Speaking of great views, there’s the obvious in Paris: the view from the Eiffel Tower. It is indeed spectacular. We arrived at the top just before sunset and got to watch the sky light up red.
In addition to the Louvre, we visited the military museum that holds Napoleon’s Tomb. The story is that Hitler once came to visit the Tomb but because Napoleon was buried in such a manner you have to bow down to him to actually see his tomb. Hitler of course did not want to bow down to Napolean so he ordered his troops to set up an array of mirrors for him to look at. Upon Hitler’s arrival, the mirrors were out of place which prevented him from seeing Napoleon’s tomb. While backup to leave, Hitler bumped into one of his troops and knocked his hat off his head. In bending down to pick up his hat, he was said to have bowed to Napoleon.
His tomb is under the gold dome in the picture above. Another muesume we visited was Museum D’Orsay.
One of my favourite gardens/parks in Paris was the Gardens of Versailles. This park is absolutely gigantic. It stretches about 4 kilometers, There are fountains scattered throughout the main park area. Something in the range of 3600 cubic meters of water is used during the water festival which we attended.
Given the option to just visit the garden for the day, visit the chateau or both, I would have just visit the garden. You can easily spend a day wandering through it all.
Taking the advice from another couple on the boat cruise, we went for a walk along River Seine towards the Eiffel Tower to get a really nice picture of the tower. On the way we also passed by Princess Diana’s memorial.
In Parisian style, we had one night picnic by the Eiffel Tower with champagne and dessert.
On our final day, we wandered around visiting the Paris Pantheon and watched the sunset by Notre Dame while enjoying a Parisian favourite: the crepe.
On June 10th 2008, our trip came to an end as we boarded our Air Canada flight back to Toronto.
Those who say a grad trip is an eye opening experience is definitely correct. The trip went by so fast and every second was memorable. If you have the opportunity, I definitely recommend you take a few weeks off and travel Europe. You can bet I’ll be back, maybe not soon but I’ll definitely be returning!
Tags: Air Canada, Champagne, Chateau of Versailles, EIffel Tower, Europe 2008, Gardens of Versailles, Grad Trip, Hitler, IBIS, Louvre, Museum D'Orsay, Napoleon, Napoleon's Tomb, Notre Dame, Pantheon, Paris, Princess Diana, River Seine, Rome, Sacre Coeur, Statue of Liberty
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