Canada

Photo of the Week: Notre Dame

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IMG_4331Montreal, Quebec

As you know, last week we took a family road trip to Quebec for Thanksgiving.  If you’ve ever been in a car  with 6 people plus countless luggage for an  eight hour drive, you’ll know it’s an effective torture method.  Aside from the  fact that my body was contorted into many weird positions, the trip was a success.  We had a little too much food, but that’s to be expected on a Nguyen get-together.  We also got to visit a few nice churches a long the way.

Notre-Dame is the famous basilica located in the heart of Old Montreal. The interior is filled with intricate wood carvings that would rival any European church.  The altar is back lit with a deep blue light, creating contrast and drama to the elaborate design.  The only drawback is that there is an admission fee of $5 to get in, which makes this feel less like a holy site and more like a tourist stop. 

Every week, I’ll share a photo with you from my adventures around the world and at home.  Most of my photos have little or no post processing.  If you would like to see more, please click the Follow button.

Toronto: Nuit Blanche

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Every year Toronto closes down streets in the downtown core area and artists from all over the world set up installations. Nuit Blanche is a contemporary public art project that happens one night a year in different cities around the world. From sunset to sunrise, the dark Toronto streets get lit up and transformed into a weird and whimsical world. The theatrical carnival of light, sound, and kept the population entertained. This year, even though the weather was chilly, people still came out in droves and the streets were flooded with pedestrians.

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Toronto: Graffiti

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Graffiti Alley in Toronto

If you’ve been reading this blog for awhile (thanks for following!), you’ll see me periodically post pictures of graffiti art.  I’ve always liked art, but my love affair with street art didn’t start until I moved to New York.  To me, urban art is unexpected and sometimes quite beautiful.  On my short trip to Toronto, I made it a point to visit the widely known Graffiti Alley in the hip Queens Street West neighborhood.   In Toronto, programs such as Street ART Toronto encourage and promote street arts as a way to add character and pizzazz to the neighborhood. Continue reading →

Eating in Toronto

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As you all know, I am from Canada and a few times a year I come home for a few weeks to visit friends and family. Usually my visit to Canada consists of me being whisked off to Brantford straight from the airport, where I spent a blissful week in my childhood home stuffing my face with my mom’s homemade noodle soup.  My recent visit up North a few weeks ago was a little different because this time we came back for our good friends Ahmed and Jihan’s wedding (Yay, SUPER happy for them!) and we stayed in Toronto for 3 days.  The longer stay in the city was the perfect opportunity to try all the food Toronto has to offer.  Here are highlights of the food we ate:

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Going Home

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There are just a few more days until I go home for 2 weeks!  Even though I have a home of my own now, it’s hard to not think of my childhood hometown as “home” as well. A few times a year, I get to leave New York and go back to my small town roots. I am from a rural town in Canada (hint: Wayne Gretzky and I have this in common). Come to think of it, this town has grown over the years and probably is not even considered a town anymore but rather a city. Nevertheless, I am excited to leave the concrete jungle and enjoy some open space, or at least a place with a backyard. It’s been awhile since my last trip, so I am starting to get restless. Almost every day I look at the calendar and count down in my head.

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