MiKE: Spending Money (II)

So, the second part of this long overdue update concerns the actual spending of money. As I mentioned, Serene moved here, and to accommodate our stuff, we had to get some additional furniture. Besides the shelf, we bought a few more items to aid the organization of stuff, like plastic drawer sets, some kitchen stuff for baking (mixing bowl etc), and a desk lamp, 60W maximum, which of course I stuffed with a 29W CFL (125W incandescent brightness equivalent), making it the brightest light in the room. Not many items. Still, the largest purchase was the shelving unit, which is quite insidious - they sell the parts separately, frames, shelf, brace; individually, the items don't seem that expensive, but when it comes together, it all adds up.

The other thing we'd been spending money on was eating out. Since we had to go to the Spadina Avenue (specifically Chinatown) branch of the bank to open our accounts, we found ourselves 'conveniently' drawn to the restaurants there, and we discovered at least 2 more relatively good eating establishments, one serving Hong Kong cuisine with the obligatory HK 'tude, and another serving good Vietnamese beef pho and vermicelli. Both places were quite affordable, with roast duck noodles going at $3.75, and fried rice enough for 3 large eaters at $6.95 or so.

And, since we made at least 2 trips to Chinatown to do the banking thing, and a few more toward Queen Street and Eaton Centre to try to get a good jacket for Serene, we ended up eating out once a day for almost the whole of last week, which also adds up.

And, since we're on the topic of jackets, I'd take the opportunity to exclaim how expensive it can get to acquire a cold wear wardrobe (yes, yes, this is pretty old news). When I came here in late August, some of the mornings and evenings got quite cool, but even so, I found the jackets I brought, a fabric bomber jacket and a boardskiing shell, very adequate. As the seasons changed toward end Autumn and the temperatures got stuck at 10-15ºC, I found, and bought, a rather classic mid thigh length woolen (well, not quite. 85% wool) jacket, and was happy for about a month. Then, temperatures dipped some more, into the 5-10ºC range, and I found a synthetic fill insulated jacket from Mountain Equipment Co-op (MEC), an outdoor store which serves much of Canada, and that helped for about another month. I've been realizing that the MEC jacket is quite good for when the temperatures are above freezing, but any colder, and the jacket does not provide adequate coverage for my thighs, and no matter how much I tug the tension cords, cold air still seems to seep its way up from under the jacket.

Serene did not have it any much better: all she had in terms of warm clothes was a synthetic fill insulated jacket which we bought in Hanoi for perhaps 10% of the retail price in N. America (and which, by now, had been compressed and lost its ability to loft and trap warming air), a full length trenchcoat from a thrift store which looks a 1/2 size too big, a genuine plastic leather lookalike 3/4 length raincoat like trenchcoat, and many sweaters and vests.

So we both needed something that could help us cope with: snow, -15 to -10 ºC temperatures, and wind. Sound easy? From our (understandably limited) experience, we wanted something that had a hood (Serene wanted something with fur lining, but I was a bit worried that the fur would get into the eyes); had a sturdy and thick cotton shell for abrasion resistance and some measure of windproofness; had some sort of fill insulation; and was 3/4 length - long enough to cover the thigh, but not too long as to restrict motion or get muddy when walking in melted snow-ice.

We spent literally days walking around town, ducking into stores large and small, chain stores, department stores, entrepreneur-run places, looking at different jackets, looking at what people wore, how cold they seemed to be, and eventually, we managed to stumble upon an impressive looking jacket, whose claim to fame was that it was standard issue for the US Antarctic Program. It was expensive. We went back, did some digging around, found a $32 discount coupon (the store celebrated its 32nd anniversary this year), bought Serene's jacket on that coupon, but could not find my jacket till the 26th, boxing day, when, to great joy, there was a 15% discount! What can I say, we were both very happy! and warm!

A shot of us together along Spadina Avenue, looking east. Looks a bit overkill, yes, but you need to know what we were wearing underneath - just a long sleeve t-shirt, that's all, and the temperature that day was about 5ºC.

We figured we needed some really competent jackets because we did not want to spend winter indoors; we'd like to be able to walk outside, and sometimes at a leisurely pace, to pause and take pictures, and not have to rush from heated domicile to heated transport to heated establishment to heated transport to heated domicile. This is us, walking around on Christmas evening:
Christmas here is pretty much like CNY back in sg; there is the reunion pig out on the eve, and then, for the religious, midnight mass at the churches and cathedrals, and then Christmas day itself is much like family visit time. The slight change is that the shopping spree is done on boxing day, where there are seriously good bargains worth waking up early and braving the hangover for.
The harbourfront centre, with the pond now frozen over to serve as skating rink.

The Nathan Phillips Square outside the Parliament House also had a portion converted to skating rink:
Apparently, there is going to be a huge countdown thing happening on the eve. Still wondering if I should go. Generally, we don't like crowds, but then again, this is going to be an interesting experience.

Speaking of crowds, the one at Eaton Centre on boxing day must take the cake for density. There were queues everywhere, security only allowing people to enter once patrons left, and an incredible sense that the place was so packed that they could simply save money and not need to turn on the heating. We did not bring a camera with us that day, but two days later, the crowds were still non-trivial. The stores had expanded the event to the entire week to call it boxing week and a means of driving up sales:

And yes, with understaffed conditions and everybody digging around to find a good bargain, the inevitable result in many stores is chaos:
To be honest, many of the stores did not have really good bargains, they were taking the opportunity to clear stock, (yes yes, all retailers do that) and even at the prices that were on sale, we did not find the items good value for money, they were neither well designed nor look particularly durable. So, we did not feel bad leaving the place empty handed; and in any case, we were not big consumers inured in the shopping culture, nor was there any risk that we could be inducted.

Eaton Centre's Christmas tree had Swarovski crystal adornments, making it really glittery:

Elsewhere, it was also very crowded; here is a shot along Dundas Street West, looking eastward:
Doesn't really look like Toronto downtown, eh? First time I saw this, it occurred to me that, minus some cues, this could easily be Hanoi or Hong Kong or somewhere in the PRC.

Serene posing before a grocer. There were many such stores around Chinatown, some of them with less than glowing hygiene standards.

Another shot looking down Dundas Street. I was trying to draw attention to the signboards, but I think the lighting conditions are not ideal:

And the last one for this (long) post. We'd like to think that snow is all beautiful and clean and pretty and white. But the reality of it is that that's probably true, for the first few hours after it falls. Very quickly, especially in cities, dirt takes over, and snow quickly becomes a place where one avoids (especially since that day I saw this guy spit at the snow pile...):


Not too good a way to finish off a post eh? Too bad, all the pretty pictures were used already.

MiKE: Spending Money

So, Serene moved here. She's got a job offer and will have the details worked out soon. Which meant that she and all her stuff needed to be accommodated here. Which meant we needed more horizontal surfaces upon which to put stuff on. Which meant that we needed to get to a cheap-ish furniture shop to get stuff. Which meant Ikea, especially since I had in mind the Ivar shelving unit, being pretty wide, tall, sturdy, deep enough to be useful, but not so deep that it gets in the way. But more of that later.

Her flight was actually cancelled the day it was supposed to fly due to the heavy snowstorm here. She arrived the next day, on a Monday, when snow was still piled really high at the traffic junctions, so there was an interesting obstacle course of sorts to clear. Other pedestrians before us had somewhat cleared a small footpath by stomping down the snow, but that was not wide enough for the suitcase, so we had to carry the bags up and above the snow. Fortunately, it was only across one or two crossings that we had to do this. Even after only a day, the snow was getting quite filthy at some areas, especially those that were highly trafficked. Which made me wonder - where does all this dirt go to normally?

You can see the high contrast between the snow that was just ploughed off the street overnight, and the stuff that the vehicles drive over. Not pretty:

A shot of Serene, 'for scale'... :

Seems like this guy is not about to get his bike out from the snow anytime soon...

I found the little mounds of snow on the steps of the sculpture pretty interesting:

This were the kinds of pavements we had to walk on to get around. This day, we were on our way to the Whole Foods Market, to get coffee (they roast their coffees there daily!) and some other stuff.

Serene came with one large suitcase, one large duffel bag, one laptop bag, and one small duffel bag. At St. Louis, she had a friend help her bring the stuff to the airport; she could not have coped without the help; and then, all that stuff was to be incorporated into the bachelor apartment that I was renting. Amazingly, among the stuff she managed to bring across were a 'memory foam' pillow, and a body pillow; the body pillow as large as two ordinary pillows end-to-end. These were compressed with the aid of gigantic ziploc bags and a vacuum cleaner. Most impressive and voluminous was the comforter that she somehow also managed to squeeze into the suitcase. We spent much of the first day and a half unpacking and arranging stuff in the apartment, straining the limits of whatever storage space that was available in the apartment, watching and hoping that the weak looking shelf in the wardrobe could hold the suitcases that we filled loosely with stuff like the backpacks and some other summer clothing that we would not be using for a while. After managing to squeeze all that stuff into the place, the image that became stuck in my head was that of a anaconda, swallowing a baby hippo whole, and then slowly digesting the hippo till it was no more. We both felt somewhat nostalgic/romantic; the situation reminded us of hostel living again, everything in one room, prompting us to nickname the place hostel room on steroids.

So, on the third day after she came, after a failed second attempt to open a bank account for her (first, we wanted a joint account, and initially wanted to modify mine, but the avenue road branch said we could only do it at the spadina avenue branch where I opened my account; second time, I forgot to bring two acceptable forms of ID), we decided to go to Ikea, which involved taking a long ride to the outskirts of downtown Toronto (Kipling station from Spadina, which is like Jurong West from City Hall), and then taking a free shuttle service to Ikea. When we got there, it was dark (the sun had set at 5), so we were looking around, trying to find the location of the free shuttle pickup location. Kipling station is designed as a bus/train interchange, with the subway tracks at the basement level, and the buses on the ground level. We were thinking at first that the Ikea bus could be at the same bus bays as the other buses, and then realized that it was unlikely, as the TTC (Toronto Transit Commission) would probably not share facilities like this, and we could not find any bus bay labelled for the Ikea bus. We tried our luck with the staff at the variety store (which sold sweets, drinks, snacks, magazines, and was stereotypically, run by an Indian family), and got a curt response to 'go down two floors', thought they were joking, as we could not imagine a level below the subway level for buses, but went there anyway, found an exit to a carpark, no sign of a waiting area, went back to the station master, and got a more courteous response to wait at the carpark for the bus.

And we did. In 0ºC weather. With occasional breezes that really got us freezing, and making up our minds to buy more competent gear. There was still no signpost of any sort to indicate that we were at the right place, just 5 or 6 other people waiting at the same place. In my mind I pictured a bright cheery yellow and contrasting blue bus, but when it came, it was a nondescript shuttle that did not even bother to put up a sign to say "Ikea" or something. We boarded, asked the driver if he was indeed driving us to Ikea, got an affirmative, then sat down to defrost.

Ikea Etobicoke, the closest Ikea to downtown Toronto, was surprisingly similar to the one at Alexandra Road, Singapore. Huge blue building, with attached warehouse, two floors, and parking in the basement, the restaurant on the left of the entrance which is, as in Singapore, on the second floor, right next to the kids room department, and the staircase downstairs to the kitchen department. I don't know how much of it is coincidence, but it sure seemed like this was the default template for Ikeas around the world. And on the menu? Meatballs, Salmon, Gravad Lax, and some local food (which in Toronto means stuff like quiche). The food trays were even similar, if not identical, and also the food ordering and payment queue layout. Perhaps the only major difference was that of space. Looking out of Ikea Alexandra's restaurant, one sees Anchorpoint a short distance away. At Etobicoke, one sees the huge parking lot, and beyond it, a very major highway. At the ground floor, where in sg you'd have a small warehouse section where you pick your own boxed furniture, here the warehouse sprawled out at least 3-5 times in floorspace, and had a ceiling about 4 stories tall, and shelving racks meant for forklifts.

We got our stuff, paid up, then lugged the Ivar shelf frame and 5 shelves up the shuttle bus, and through the TTC subway all the way back to our apartment. Setting it up, I had it all almost complete when I realizd that the cross brace was the wrong size; we had to go back and get it changed. The next day, we went there again, and this time, we remembered to bring a camera. Pictures:

A shot of Ikea from within the bus. The front façade looks remarkably clean of snow.

... because it had been shoveled and piled onto a huge mound at the back of the building:

Us having lunch, at the restaurant which cannot help but invoke deja vu:

The landscape outside the station is quite ugly, with electricity pylons and overhead cables everywhere. Still, the colors of the setting sun do manage to rescue the scenery somewhat:

Phew. Long post. This is a result of procrastinating, I guess.

MiKE: So distracting...

So, I'm sitting here, trying to finish my last paper so that I can finally take a break. And I've spent so much time looking out the window; perhaps because it is bright outside, with daylight, even through the thick clouds. But mostly because there is a huge snowstorm going on outside. And it is really interesting to watch. Yes, part of the attraction is due to my having not seen a snowstorm before, but I think the other is that the snowfall is so interesting. It'd be wispy powder one moment, falling gently as if someone were dusting icing sugar from the roof, then I'd hear the whistle of the wind in the tiny gap I left in the window to cool the room down somewhat, and then I'd look out and see the wind whip the snow till the trails fall almost horizontally. Then, the flakes falling would suddenly change size to huge almost pellet-sized chunks, and fall at the speed where one would expect rain to fall. There would be gusts, and amid the large flakes that fall, one would see the snow dust being swept up in vortices accompanying the large flakes, appearing as if there were multiple turbulent air streams outside my window. Suddenly, the wind will stop, and the flakes would all hang in midair, wondering what to do before remembering, cartoon character style, that it was supposed to fall down. All in all, mesmerizing.

And not to mention almost human drama of seeing cars stuck by the side of the road. There was this one car, that parked for a while by the kerb. When he wanted to set off, all he could do was to make his front wheel spin aimlessly in the snow-ice. He kept trying and trying, coming out, desperately pushing the snow away from under the front tyre with his shoes, and some small implement which was evidently unsuitable for the job, until someone offered to lend him a snow shovel, and I watched him clear the snow from in front of the car, pausing once in a while to stuff his frozen fingers into his jacket pockets, then continuing to shovel furiously, pausing to go back into the car to try again, failing to gain traction, shoveling again, and then finally managing to move his car out.

The snowstorm is really heavy, starting yesterday around noon, it was on and off, and got really heavy this morning. Apparently, even Environment Canada has issued warnings, predicting up to 40cm snowfalls over the weekend, windspeed during gusts at up to 90 km/h, and suggestions that it could be the worst storm in this region for 60 years. No kidding; I woke up this morning to see snow lodged between the inner and outer sliding windows, and they had been closed overnight(!):


Looking out, during the heavier snowfall period, it's clear visibility has been seriously obscured:


If i manage to shoot a picture of severe whiteout conditions, I'll post it up here.

The Environment Canada Warning:

Warnings

City of Toronto
11:15 AM EST Sunday 16 December 2007
Winter storm warning for
City of Toronto continued

A major winter storm with heavy snow and blowing snow occurring over all of southern and eastern Ontario.

This is a warning that dangerous winter weather conditions are imminent or occurring in these regions. Monitor weather conditions..Listen for updated statements.



At mid morning a massive winter storm was giving snow and blowing snow to all of southern and eastern Ontario. Some places such as Toronto were also reporting thunder and lightning.

The low responsible for the storm now lies over Lake Erie. It will track slowly eastward across New York state today then accelerate off the northeast tonight.

The snow associated with the storm is forecast to end over the Windsor area this evening, most of southern Ontario during the night, and early Monday morning over extreme eastern Ontario.

Further amounts of 10 to 15 centimetres are expected over most of southern Ontario but with higher amounts likely over portions of Niagara where winds off Lake Ontario will enhance the snowfall.

Over eastern Ontario further amounts of 20 to 30 centimetres are expected.

In the wake of the main storm northwesterly squalls will develop off Lake Huron this evening then continue into Monday morning before weakening. This will delay the end of the stormy conditions over areas to the southeast of Lake Huron until Monday.

MiKE: White Night

This is what happens when it snows at night, there are few vehicles and therefore the snow plough does not need to clear the snow off the road. The road, that is normally black, is now white. Sure, there is dirt, it's a bit brown/black at parts, but it is very interesting to see the normally dark night lit up by the street lamps, and to top it off, have the roads reflect the light so the entire place looks so much brighter and somewhat more cheerful. I know, it is really hard to think that way, because of the cold weather. But right here, in my warm heated apartment, it does feel very comfortable, and the scenery, beautiful:

MiKE: TED videos.

I've been watching these videos for the past day and today. Very interesting. Gives one hope for the future, and alternative ways of considering the world that we live in; different from the world that mass media would like to scare us to be. TED is the Technology, Entertainment and Design conference, which, brings together some of the best minds in the world for an idea exchange.

Here are some of the ones that I liked, including this, with special relevance to education, which I think should be required viewing for all educators:

MiKE: Sushi, or, what to do when you're lazy and hungry

So I've been lazy. My groceries ran out on Friday, so I could not really cook 'proper' meals; at least, I am out of vegetables. But it's not as if I've not left the apartment at all; I have been to the AC on Friday and this morning. But, I did not feel like tasting my cooking for some time, at least, not the same stuff I've been preparing.

So I've been having Papa Ceo's Pizza, which comes in slices so large, they are enough for 1.5 meals. And at $4, they are quite decently priced too. I've written about their pizzas in a previous post.

Anyway, after the second half of the slice today, I still felt hungry. I had two more bags of chips in my cabinet, but I did not want to have that as I did not want that salty taste in the mouth for the rest of the evening. So I procrastinated, and got more hungry, and then got a brainwave. I still had rice, and nori, and eggs.

So I prepared Tamago rolls! And I stuffed myself on them. Pretty hearty meal, if a bit boring. I think I might buy some fresh salmon or tuna the next time I get to the Whole Foods Market... Here they look:

MiKE: Winter is not always grey

So I went to OISE yesterday. Nothing unusual, except that classes had ended; I still have papers to submit, but I went for a social event (read: free food and entertainment). Woke up yesterday to a bright blue sky, perfectly cloudless, and yet, cold. Like, -2˚C kind of cold. The sun did not help much. I think the maximum temperature was not more than 5˚C or so.

I walked to OISE along the usual route, this time armed with a camera that I told myself quite many times already that I should carry, because there had been previous days where it had been pretty. Like yesterday. So, as I've said, there has been snow, lots of it. And as you can see, this is what happens to it: it gets ploughed off the road, and sidewalks, and forms a untidy little mound that separates the sidewalk from the road, such that crossing the street is only practical at designated crossings. Also, you can see that, yes, perhaps the first snow may be clean, white and 'pure' (with what's in the air, one cannot be too sure these days), but quickly, within a week, the snow becomes filthy. See the following picture. No, it's not soil, it's all snow, albeit with much muck:


Walking past this mound, I come across again, this sculpture, the one I encounter everyday. I really wonder what the name of it is, and what the person is trying to do...


Another shot of the mound of snow that separates the road and sidewalk. If you're observant, the street I'm along is actually Bloor West, the perpendicular one is St. George; I'm standing right outside the Bata Shoe Museum, and OISE is the overexposed building in the background:


A shot of the university marker, with the Robarts library in the distance, on the right corner of the frame:


The Varsity Blues, the stadium, where a game was going on in -2˚C weather. It was barely 8 minutes or so, but by this time, standing outside the OISE building and looking east, my right hand had been frozen; it was so cold. For those who know, you can see the Michael Lee-Chin crystal addition to the Royal Ontario Museum, and of course, everyone can appreciate the brilliant azure sky:


This is a shot, looking westward, from the 10th floor (out of 12) of OISE building, in a room where we usually have our classes. Once again, a beautiful sunset, this one at 5:00 pm.

Forgive the blurring; these were the artifacts from shooting out a pretty dirty window.

MiKE: Overnight snowfall

Last night, or rather, this early morning, the snow fell again. Since the last snow I reported about slightly more than a week ago, the snow had been receding and melting. With this week's forecast temperatures not exceeding 5˚C, I think it is safe to say that the snow that fell will stick around for a while. Take a look:


Once again, this is looking out my window, east across Spadina Avenue, with the concrete tunnel for the streetcars. One thing that I'd bring attention to, is the depth of snow - as you can see from the cars that have been parked overnight, the snow is at least 5cm deep, and at that side of Spadina Avenue, somehow, the pavement has not been cleared. Think about it this way: the cars you see are parked along a road. There is now no distinction between road and pavement; the snow is at least as deep as the height of the curb. Interestingly enough, Spadina Avenue, a medium density North-South road for downtown Toronto, is very quiet this morning; car density has dropped from the usual 5 cars per minute (or so) at this time I'm writing (11am) to about 1 car every 5 minutes (or so) (okay I may be exaggerating somewhat, but the density is really low, ok!). And they are driving very.slowly. I saw a car drive out of the side road (along the street where the cars were parked), and it was moving so slowly. I guess it has to be so for safety's sake - at one point I think I noticed the drive wheel spin when it lost grip on snow.

Interesting.

And oh yes am I glad that I went to Sanko yesterday and not procrastinated till today or even later.

MiKE: Shopping at Sanko

Sanko Supermarket is a Japanese grocer with pretty decent Japanese stuff that one would expect to find in any Japanese city (Having seen a few in Hokkaido and Tohoku, I'd think my judgment's right on this). Nothing particularly special, I guess, if one were to be in Japan. Sanko is located at 730 Queen Street West. It is along a semi busy street together with a motorcycle leather specialty shop (think Harley Davidson), and a place called Miss Demeanor, where, on my way back, I was about to comment to myself that the lingerie clad mannequins in the window looked surprisingly real. Until they started to move..

Well, back to my story. So, I am now convinced that I must go out everyday and brave the cold and get some exercise; even if it is to the conventional grocers just round the corner on Bloor West. And I had been noticing that my soy sauce was diminishing quite quickly. So I thought to go and get some, from Sanko, because I tried one particular soy sauce in sg (this one from Meidi-Ya, Liang Court) - some Usukuchi Soy Sauce, and I liked it. Very light and versatile. The interesting digression I have here is that we found out about Meidi-Ya onboard the CX flight back to singapore from Tokyo - there was a Japanese program informing visitors of places to visit; and it was mentioned).

But then, I had just paid my credit card bill, and it would take at least a couple of days before the credit line was reinstated. So I thought to sleep on it. After the nap, I awoke to see the last rays of the sun setting, and I resolved to go out before the sun fully set. Donning on the layers, I looked forward to a walking workout to keep the blood flowing and to help the sore muscles from yesterday's workout, and of course, mentally created my shopping list, and worked out that I probably could pay a bit of cash and the rest by Visa, calculating that I could spend about $40.

On the way there, I was struck by just how cold it was, and how useless plain old wool was against cold and wind. It seemed like the cold air just passed through the fibers as if it were a sieve. I guess the button down front did not help. By the time I got to Sanko, my nose was dripping (anybody know why it does that?) and my cheeks were numb. Went in, was glad to defrost but was apprehensive about going back, laden with stuff. For the moment, I ignored the cold, reveled in the goods laid out before me, and found the bottle of sauce that I was looking for - the exact same one that I got in sg! I must have gotten a bit carried away; between two sizes, it was cheaper to get the larger size; in many cases it was a dollar more (out of base price $3-4 for double the amount). Picked up what I thought I could carry in the bag alone (No way was I going to be carrying plastic bags even with gloved hands), and then went to the counter to pay. The bill came up to $55.17

I tried $20 cash + Visa; the transaction was not approved. $40 + visa, not approved. Sighing, and sheepish that I was holding back the queue, I handed over my last $20 bill, got change and then left. Walked home, at as fast a pace as I could, reached back in about 35 minutes, and was tired and glad that I made it, once more with a cold, dripping nose, and numb cheeks. Just for the record, Google maps counts the distance as about 3km one way, so I got in about 6km of a pretty fast walk today, all in 0˚C weather. I am so pleased with myself. And to top it off; here is my haul:

Back row: Japanese mayonnaise, Wasabe, Bulldog sauce, Usukuchi soy sauce, Japanese rice toppings, seaweed mat (*50 sheets!*)
Front: Yaki soba noodles, frozen edamame, shelled and in pod, and gummy sweets.

Ahhh, life's little luxuries.