Thoughts on Singapore

   Having spent four days in Singapore on the way to Australia back in December, I'd like to share my thoughts on it as much as possible for such a brief stay. Singapore was a very exciting city/state to visit, especially considering that the only previous experience I had had with Asia was southern Turkey, which is of course a lot more like Europe than the Far East.
   Singapore is very modern and innovative, as well as very clean (largely thanks to their strict laws and 200$ fines for littering). The modern architecture, which often feels more like futuristic architecture rather than modern, was simply incredible and mind blowing. Everywhere you walk on the streets, you're sure to run into some amazing buildings. The Marina Bay Sands hotel (the famous three skyscrapers connected by a swimming pool on top) is one of the finest examples, along with the Gardens by the Bay right next to it.
   The Gardens by the Bay include a Malay, Chinese, Indian, colonial and palm garden among others (all of them simply beautiful), two futuristic conservatories, seen here on the right,  and also iconic artificial trees. An artificial tree sounds like a pretty awful and useless idea, but these trees looked unlike real trees and instead made you feel like you're somewhere on another planet in an Avatar-like sci-fi film (instead of making the gardens look like an ugly plastic amusement park). These tree structures also support real plants to live on them, making them very useful. This entire area along with the esplanade made me feel like I had been teleported into the year 2038 or something like that, and in a good utopian kind of way.
   The esplanade includes a lotus shaped ArtScience museum, a sports stadium floating on water, the famous Merlion statue and a durian shaped performing arts centre. A durian is a popular fruit that is banned in most places in Singapore because of its foul smell, which Wikipedia claims "has been described variously as almonds, rotten onions, turpentine, raw sewage, and smelly socks". Another 200$ fine for bringing one to the hotel.
   Often times modern architecture has been criticized for making different places around the globe look a lot more similar to each other, which is a serious problem in my eyes. However, the modern architecture in Singapore somehow just felt unique. I was standing there between the Marina Bay Sands hotel and the Gardens thinking that there's no way you could see or experience anything remotely like this in Europe or America. Checking out panorama photos of downtown Singapore, you might feel that it doesn't look very unique, however it is completely different and a lot more powerful up close.
   Singapore also has a rich multicultural heritage, with a fleshed out Chinatown and Little India among other places (72% of the population of Singapore is of Chinese and around 10% of Indian descent, with 13% being of Malay heritage). These areas are very atmospheric and different from each other. Of course the food is delicious. Hawker centres provide you with cheap, but extremely tasty stall food. The Clarke Quay is a riverside area with tons of restaurants, ranging from Thai and Korean to Russian and Cuban.
   Another nice thing about Singapore is that between its highrises and in densely built areas there is still a lot of nature. The streets are very green, having a lot of exotic trees on them. This often creates the feeling (at least for me) that Singapore is a city in a rainforest and not a city that has replaced the rainforest. Despite it being one of the most densely populated countries in the world, there is still room for nature reserves. The Bukit Timah reserve was a really nice and relaxing rainforest 12 kilometres from downtown. It was easy to forget that civilization was everywhere around.
   The climate was very unusual for someone like me. Basically there are two seasons, the dry one and the rainy one. There aren't any significant temperature changes over the year (always a pleasant 20 or 30 something degrees Celsius). In fact, I checked that the coldest temperature ever measured there is 19.4 degrees, with the warmest being 36 degrees (pretty mild considering that it was pushing 50 degrees in Adelaide when we were there). We happened to be in Singapore during the rainy season, which was a unique experience. It would usually rain once a day, not for too long, and everyone would have their umbrellas ready. It would also dry off pretty fast after the rain.
   One interesting thing is that despite its success, people have limited political freedom in Singapore. In 2009, for example, it was ranked 133rd out of 175 nations in the Worldwide Press Freedom Index. Singapore has been ruled by a single political party (the People's Action Party) since its independence from the UK in 1959. They have often oppressed opposing parties and opinions, and yet they have managed to guide the country to a huge economic success.
   Singapore was for me a very exciting place to visit, very global and yet very unique, with a lot packed into a relatively small area. It's changing rapidly (I'm looking forward to the planned second and third phases of the Gardens by the Bay), with a lot of the esplanade having been
completed in the last few years. Anyway, it was difficult to write this, because I had so many chaotic ideas and things to say about Singapore that were hard to convey and there's still a lot to be said. Singapore has so much: fantastic traditional areas like the very colourful Little India, wild nature reserves, monkeys playing on rooftops, innovative architecture, a huge variety of people from all over the world, the night safari, famous cuisine, world-class shopping, beaches and so much more. Definitely worth visiting, whatever kind of traveler you are.

Lazy

Okay, I haven't posted in a while, as usual. In short, after Crescent City we went to San Fransisco where we spent a day, then we went to Yosemite National Park and we stayed in a hotel in Mammoth Lakes (a Californian ski resort, where in some places there was still snow). Next day we went to Death Valley, a really rad place, and spent the night, plus the whole next day, in Las Vegas, which is crazy as hell. Then we shot off to Utah, more specifically Zion Canyon, stayed in a little town called Springdale, another full day there. Then we went to Bryce Canyon and after that to Grand Canyon, which was grand. Then we went down South to the true Arizona and spent a night in Sedona. Airplane in Phoenix on the next day to Tampa, Florida. A relaxing and really warm week in Florida, including Don Pedro Island (dolphins, manatees, pelicans, turtles there), Orlando with Universal Studios (The Hulk was a fun ride http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVdZROJf9Ag) and Daytona Beach. Then back to Toronto, where I tried Ethiopian food, really tasty, and I've been back in Europe for two months already.
I want to post some pictures soon, but I'm pretty busy right now.
Last week I was in Vienna, Austria for five days with the German class and next week I'll be in Belgium again for a week.

Vancouver and more

So, I'm in Portland, Oregon right now. Pretty fun.
I'll just kick off where I ended last time. Vancouver, July 20th, probably. After taking care of the car, Aarne's family took us to the Vancouver Aquarium, in Stanley Park. The recreated natural environments such as the rainforest are always rad. And the 4D cinema, with the wind, back-poking things and such stuff, of course. Dolphins, colourful frogs, sea cucumbers and belugas were among the creatures living in the aquarium. We had dinner in Gastown later, it's a more historic part of town.
On Thursday it was time to visit Vancouver Island, one of my dad's high school friend named Peter Wiles. The island is pretty big, I don't know how many hours it would take to ride from one end to the other. It's also supposed to be quite dangerous in the nature there, with many cougars and bears. Anyway, Pete lives in a cozy house in a village called Cumberland, near Courtenay, if that means anything to you. It used to be a mining town, and it's pretty run-down now. It even had a Chinatown back in the end of the 19. century. They stopped the mining in the 60's.
We visited a mountain there, which still had snow on it. Didn't sadly visit the top, because it was really cloudy there. We also went to a seaside restaurant/pub on that day, where you could see seals looking out of the water. Pete took us to Cathedral Grove on the next day, with really tall trees. One of the highlights in my opinion was a river with some waterfalls, I don't recall its name.
We returned to Vancouver by ferry on Sunday. A grill with the other Tork family and three games of croquet with Aarne and Anne's daughters Annika and Aliina. On Monday I woke up around 5:10 AM to go walk around in town before leaving for Portland. Aarne's work started at 6, so he took me to the SkyTrain station near the airport where he works. The SkyTrain is kind of like a subway, but the rails are often above the ground. I went to downtown and then to North Vancouver via the Seabus. It's a pleasant area (or city, as it officially is, part of the Greater Vancouver) on the edge of a mountain, so it's on a slope.
Later Anne took us over the border to Bellingham airport in Washington, where we rented a car. In the evening we arrived in Portland, which is said to be one of the most environmentally friendly cities in the world. My dad has a friend there too, Erik Teose, and we stayed at his place. We (+Erik's family) went to a Mongolian restaurant where you basically stuffed your bowls full of food and they cooked it, really good place with an interesting system. Next day (yesterday) we went out of town to see a few waterfalls. It took a while to walk up to them, but the view was great.
Today we left Portland and I am now in Crescent City, California (I started writing this blog post yesterday, didn't have much time, though). We saw a bit of Redwood National Park which has even bigger trees than Cathedral Grove on Vancouver Island. It's also the park where they filmed the Ewok planet for Star Wars. Anyway, I'm done for now.

Back in Canada

I woke up 40-50 minutes ago here in Vancouver hearing that two of my uncle Arne's car wheels had been stolen. Well, that's that.
Anyway, I left Estonia with my family on the 14. July. The flight from Helsinki to Toronto was pretty uncomfortable, as I wasn't sleepy, and there wasn't really a lot to do on the plane. But it was good to be back in Toronto. The day after arrival we went to downtown, kind of obviously, and I showed some places to my brother, now that I felt less like a newcomer. Eaton Center, the side of Lake Ontario, the Toronto University grounds and so on. Later Tiina took us to a free outdoors cinema, where they showed "How To Train Your Dragon". They had loads of technical issues but after an hour or so, they finally got it going.
On the 16. I walked to Danforth Avenue from our base on Burnham Road. There was a South-East Asian Festival somewhere around there and later at Woodbine Park down south I saw the Jazz Festival, same one as last year, there were some good performers. I liked a band called Left Foot Yellow, who played, and I assume composed, some instrumental rock songs.
The 17. was our last full day in Toronto, we're going back soon though. Soon we will start our little road trip in the States, and then we'll shoot off to Florida from Phoenix and then we will return to Toronto. Anyway, on the 17. I decided to walk around and explore (something I've become obsessed with recently) by myself. I went North, to a rich neighborhood. From there I went into a park, the one that's connected to Sunnybrook Park. It felt like it would never end. It was a great park, but in the end I wanted to find a way out and which ever way I went, there were just more plains, baseball fields, horse stables and so on. Eventually I did get out, obviously. It was through a campus of York University. Ten I went to Eglinton, and after an hour or two I was back home. We then went to Chinatown with my family, with many classic products in the smelly supermarkets, such as bean flavored ice lollies.
So, we had a flight to Vancouver two days ago. Staying at my uncle Arne's and his family's place around South Surrey, which I think is about an hour's drive from downtown. I've never been this far west before, until now the most west place was probably Florida, but I visited that in 1995, when I was a 1 year old.
It was a nice flight, loads of space. In the evening we all went to White Rock, a little town near Surrey, and there actually was a white rock there, on the beach.
What I like about Vancouver is that there's a lot of water here:

We went to Granville Island, which is in downtown. Filled with places like a food court, broom shop, some art shops and a brewery. There was also a show where some guy who called himself Dynamike, rode on a 3 metres (maybe) high unicycle while juggling machetes. Later I walked around by myself on the North coast of downtown, Stanley park and some other bits there. Pleasant area.
I'm not exactly sure what's gonna happen today, currently they've been dealing with the car, so I've had time to write here in my blog. Oh, and I'll try get some photos soon.

More Norway..

Okay, the next day, Saturday, was the best day of the trip. We went through the snowy mountains and across a fjord on a ferry, eventually our bus arrived somewhere between the mountains, where the vegetation was a lot lighter and richer than elsewhere.

There was a path leading to a glacier, it was a few kilometres to walk.




The road went uphill and there was a rocky river close by so I went off track and went on next to the river. Anyway, at some point the vegetation ceases to exist, instead you get this grey dry rocky land, with a single tone greenish lake. That was one hell of a place, it blew my mind away. Here:


That was the view from the glacier,which I decided to climb:


That was truly the highlight of the trip..

That was the view from the rocks, glacier's on the left:


Well, that place was really amazing. It felt so unlike Europe, so unlike the rest of Norway. That's a place I MUST visit again.
A little town who-knows-where:



Another old Norwegian church:

We spent a second night in the same hostel. During the rainy evening there were dozens of us watching Eurovision, which included so many cheesy tunes (Ireland's song was especially horrific). Well, that's the way Eurovision is, but everybody still watches it....(including me).
After a bad night's sleep we headed back off to Oslo. It was mostly rainy there sadly. Visited some museums, had some free time, went back to the hostel, after which I explored the suburbs alone.
Next morning, we started going back, popped through a cave painting museum in Sweden and arrived in the port of Stockholm in the evening. I visited the buffet on the ship, that was the first proper dinner I had had on the trip. After a sleepless night, we were once again in Turku. No time to look around this time, we continued to Helsinki, a two hour ride which felt like 15 minutes. Ship, arrived back in Tallinn. The first thing I had to do after returning was visit the supermarket, because Estonian prices felt really heavenly compared to Scandinavia's ones.
It was a nice trip, better than the Russian trip back in September (though that was fun too).

Norway

Okay, another science class trip which I decided to join. 1 week, with around 50 people. Ship to Helsinki, the first stop was a limestone mine in Finland.

After that, we headed off to Turku which, along with Tallinn, is the European capital of culture 2011. It seemed like a sleepy little town by nature. We spent the night on the Turku-Stockholm ship, ships are always fun.
We were gonna spend a lot of time in the bus during the trip. Main activities: chat, half-sleep, eat cheap food, watch movies on the TV of the bus (such as Fight Club, Into The Wild, The Hangover, The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button and Die Hard 4), listen to music and enjoy the scenery. It was around 7 hours to Oslo from Stockholm. We passed Fahlun and its copper mine. Apparently, in the 19. century some guy died somewhere in the mines and his body was found 42 years later, unchanged.
We spent the night in a hostel in the suburbs of Oslo, the whole area was surprisingly pleasant. I think that if I had to move to Scandinavia, I'd move to Oslo.
On Friday we went up North. We visited another mine, this time a silver mine. We had to stuff ourselves into minecarts, which took us into the mountain. We had to wear earplugs, the train was quite noisy. This mine seemed to be built more organized. Fun, like all three, that we visited.
Anyway, we went on with the bus (loads of hours spent there every day, kind of lost track of time there. For example, I fell half-asleep and when I woke up, I felt like two hours had passed, while it was only some fifteen minutes actually. Sometimes my thoughts started acting independantly, I kind of saw some stranger outside and I decided that he was an adventurer and a bird watcher, for no apparent reason. Half-sleeping can be pretty interesting) and soon there were a lot of mountains and waterfalls, as well as several fjords around us. We visited stave churches, nice and mystical, Viking-like, as seen here.
Time passed, the vegetation went darker, and there were now many patches of snow everywhere.
We spent the night in a hostel in a little town (in Norway any settlement with over 200 people is a town) in the mountains. I'll put more photos in another post.

Russia (Cont.) & Belgium

I kind of left that Russian trip unfinished and dangling around, so here's a brief and happy ending: We visited the Solovetski islands during the next day and came all the way back to Helsinki by bus, we had to spend the night there, so I went walking around (for a while) with some friends. I remember that I fell asleep in one of the bars of the ship, after some Finnish guy came, somehow pinched me behind my ear and said that I'm not allowed to use that area as my sleeping space. That's that.
I should say a few words about visiting my dad in Brussels too. In fact, scratch "Les Contamines, France" which I had already put as the title of this post. This deserves to be a separate post, so I'm gonna call it "Russia (Cont.) & Belgium". I prefer neutral names here to make it easier to navigate.
Anyway, it was in the end of October, one week. Whole family. My dad lives there because of his work (Galileo project). Nice humble place, Brussels is. We took a car and saw the countryside and villages of Southern Belgium too. Quiet and really relaxing area. Belgium seemed somewhat lazy.. We popped through Luxembourg also, where I hadn't ever been to before. While walking around in the downtown, I happened to see one of my schoolmates, it felt pretty weird seeing his face there..
The nature was great, sadly I didn't have much time to experience and explore it (which I love doing) because of my parents.. Well, I'm going back tomorrow.

Back

I haven't written anything here in ages, been abroad twice since September. Actually I don't know why I decided to write this blog in English.. But, well, I'm not gonna change anything now. I haven't written anything in a while because sometimes I don't feel like it, sometimes I forget, sometimes I don't have time etc. Raw ending.

Finland (for the 3rd proper time this year) & Russia (for the first time ever)

I haven't posted anything in a while, even though I've been abroad twice this Autumn. I guess I don't have that much time right now, with all these different school things and my days often ending around 17:30-19:00. Well, I'll try to give a short description of the first trip right now..
I had a school trip to Northern Russia 16.-20. September this year, now that I'm in high school. It's the first time I was in Russia, and I've never been outside of Helsinki in Finland before.
We got to Helsinki by ship (there were around 50 of us) and went off to Askola to see some typical (and beautiful, I like how rocky it is there) Finnish nature. The next stop was the Loviisa nuclear power plant and the one after that was Kotka Maretarium. After a few more stops (in Langinkoski and Imatra) we went to our shelter for the night, a hostel in Nurmes. Played cards for some time....
In the morning we started heading towards the Russian border. We spent 2 hours at the border, our passports and visas were checked three times, and our bus was searched through by a very cheerful dog. Basically Russia was very different from Finland, it looked cheap in several ways. We visited a school in some town (I only remember that it had a long name) and started heading off North. We had a long drive through the countryside, that was really pleasant. A road (sometimes it resembled a highway, sometimes it was very bumpy and didn't have any asphalt at all), in the middle of nowhere (under nowhere I mean trees, sand and dirt, not a single building in the 300 kilometres we passed). We only saw a handful of cars on the road. Kem (our destination) is about 300 km away from the border, but it took us some 9-10 hours to get there. Some of the road conditions were really bad, in these cases the bus had to move really slowly. Everyone was happy when the teacher announced that we had only 2 hours left to ride. However, I really enjoyed the bus ride, having so much time. It was relaxing, reading "2001: A Space Oddity", watching some movies like "Gran Torino" and "Invictus", talking to people I wouldn't maybe otherwise talk to and attempting to sleep, which wasn't easy.
Our double-decker.
A typical area on our route.
Kem was a surprise. We slept in a local school, it felt really strange, yet somehow so typically Russian. For example, the bland food was served on plates and bowls of different shapes and sizes. Nearly every knife and fork differed from each other, and some were completely bent. The toilets were shocking, as shown below (luckily we had an alternative). There was one room which seemed out of context was the computer room, where they had brand new computers with Windows 7. But overall, I really prefered this school to any comfortable hotel (not that there were any in Kem anyway).
Awful
The school corridor
The bedroom
I'm sleepy, I'll continue later..

Finland & U2

Of course, this one-day trip to Finland was nothing compared to Canada, but I'll mention it anyway.
Me, my parents and a few family friends went to Helsinki to see U2 live, at the Olympic Stadium, as part of their 360° tour. U2 is among my favorite bands, so it was exciting to see them live.
We left with the ferry around 12:05 in the afternoon. In Helsinki we were given a tour by my father's friend Georg. After eating at a tasty Chinese restaurant, we started walking towards the Stadium.
The opening act was a English-Swedish band called Razorlight. I hadn't heard of them before, but they have quite a known song named "America", which I recognized there.

This is the highly creative stage they had there (this photo isn't from Finland though). The point of the 360° stage is that the audience can be all around the stage. The band members would move around on it a lot.

U2 arrived a bit after 21:00. They played 5 songs from their newest album, No Line On The Horizon. I really liked the concert, as did the rest of the people I was with. You could see the band pretty well, where ever you were, the place wasn't overcrowded and the selection of songs was great (even though I don't know a single song by them which I don't like).
At the end of the concert it started raining, and we were soaking wet when we returned to the ship. The sea was slightly wild and wavy on our ride back, I really liked it, soothing.
I'll probably be abroad in September again.

Leaving

Well, I'm back in Estonia. Feels sad in several ways.
On the 17. August I visited High Park, the largest park, which is fully in Toronto. There were a lot of dogs. The residential area west of High Park is very relaxing and it has really good architecture. Then I started walking along the coast, and ended up at the Waterfront Condos, which are beautiful, the whole area is completely different from the rest of Toronto that I've seen. In the evening I joined a garden party at the Müllerbeck's house (where their relatives, the Undusks were staying). There were a lot of people who recognized me and a lot of people who I didn't recognize. Anyway, it was fun, and I got to say goodbye to everyone.

High Park.

A view to the most recognizable area of Toronto.

The Waterfront Condos.

A small animal I saw on the coast.

My lunch: 3 donuts from Tim Hortons and and a sour apple ice drink.

A very friendly cat I saw near High Park.
On the 18. my flight was going to leave at 10:50 PM, so luckily I had all day to spend in Canada. I bought a few things from shops and visited Little India. They sold exotic things there, like sugar cane juice, which I tried. I felt quite bitter during the whole day, knowing that I was going to leave in a few hours. So, after 8 PM Viive and Rob took me to the airport, the flight wasn't such a luxury as the one which took me to New York in the beginning of the trip. Nobody had their own personal TV screen, there were a several on the plane though, so you could watch whatever they decided to play there.
Now that I'm back in Estonia, everything seems so small. It seems like a simple thing to walk from one end of Tallinn to the other.

Biking, The Islands & Haunted Houses

On Friday the 13. I visited Toronto University with Henno, his mother and one of his friends, we were given a tour of the place. I've still sadly got at least 3 years until I can go to university, but right now I feel that I want to come to Canada to university. It was good to get a brief overview and idea of this place. In the evening Viive had to go to Hamilton, because she's designing a clothes store there, so I and Robert dropped her off and went to Niagara again. It feels very different in the night, in the day it's very sleepy and lazy compared to this. There were rock star/movie star wax museums, a Ferris Wheel, loads of haunted house attractions, a Ripley's Believe It Or Not museum, karaoke bars, souvenir shops and more. There was a fireworks display, which was quite impressive, I guess... We visited one of the haunted houses. It was pretty scary at times. Something was slithering against my back, I ran a few metres forward and it followed me. It was fun. Our car was parked next to a karaoke bar. All of the people (except for one) who decided to come up and sing something were great. However, there was one person who couldn't sing at all. He wanted to try again later, but for some strange reasons, he couldn't. Later we returned to Hamilton and eventually Toronto.
Saturday (14. August 2010) wasn't very eventful for me. In the morning I went biking by myself for some time. It was nice and relaxing to ride down the hiking tracks and slightly less relaxing to get back up, especially because it's still so warm here. After that I had sunglasses ordered for me. My uncle Aarne and his family came to Toronto (Aarne had arrived from Vancouver on the previous day, he joined his family at Joekaaru camp), we had dinner eventually, consisting of meat, corn, President's Choice chips, olives, cucumber, cheese, tomatoes, crackers and more. Then I went for a small (1 hour) walk in the neighborhood. We had dessert (muffins, cake, mango flavored ice tea) at Kristiina's home, she wanted to see Aarne's family too.
It was Sunday now. Aarne's family wanted to do something here before they returned to Vancouver, in the evening. They decided on visiting the islands (Centre, Algonquin and Snake islands), of course I went with them. I had wanted to visit them eventually. I really like these island. They are calm, relaxing, fun, you can see a great view of the city and you can see very interesting private houses and beaches there. We ate Pizza Pizza's pizza. Apparently my dad used to eat it a lot. In the evening we (+Tiina and Viive) went dining at Astoria, a Greek restaurant in Little Greece. The food was excellent. I had chicken souvlaki with rice and potatoes, a Greek salad for a starter and Pepsi (with as many free refills as I want!). Aarne, Aliina, Annika and Anne had to leave to the airport soon after that. It was nice seeing them again, the last time being in Estonia several days before my sudden trip to this place.
Today I visited the York Dale Centre again and bought some items there. I had Chinese food with Viive at the Food Court there. I also drank root beer for the first time on this trip, it had a very familiar taste. It was already nearly 7 in the evening when we left the Centre (or center, if you're American). After that I went biking again, Robert showed me a trail that led to Lake Ontario. It was after 9 that we arrived at Cherry Beach there. It was a different, more industrial side of Toronto, it seemed. In the night Viive did a strange allergy test to me, according to that I have allergies against chocolate, chili peppers, hay, latex and several other things. However, this was a very nonscientific test, so I'm not expecting it to be very accurate.
By the way, I wrote this post backwards, starting with today and finishing four days ago.
I'm leaving on the day after tomorrow (sadly), so I'm not sure if I'll post anything to this blog, while I'm still in Canada.

Another Three Days Have Gone By

My vacation will end 6 days from now. It's a shame, I'd like to stay here for a lot longer, I really like Canada. But I've still got nearly a week, so there's no point in crying yet.
Anyway, to give a brief overview of my actions lately, I'll start with the 10. August. Tiina decided to go to the cinema with a friend, and asked if I want to join them. I had no other plans, so I accepted. We went to watch Despicable Me, it's an animated movie and it was surprisingly funny. The medium sized popcorn is really big in these cinemas, a lot bigger than the large one in Estonia. Another difference is that here you don't have a one certain seat where you have to sit, you have more freedom. After returning home, I went biking with Robert. We went to the beautiful Mount Pleasant Cemetery, where I saw a hawk (apparently I was lucky to see one) and a raccoon, who seemed to be searching for food. It climbed to the top of a tree eventually. Of course I also saw several squirrels, because they're everywhere. In the evening a neighbor and family friend Henno took me over to his place. There we mostly played video games (for those who are interested, Forza Motorsport and a Call Of Duty, for the Xbox 360).
On the day after that I went on the bus tour of Toronto, immediately followed by the boat tour to the islands. It was a double-decker, I was one of the last people to get a seat upstairs. The tours gave a nice little (3 hours all together) overview of the downtown. When the tour ended, I slowly went to the Eaton Centre (at first I wasn't sure where I wanted to go), I ate noodles in the Food Court (it's an indoor plaza or common area within a facility that is contiguous with the counters of multiple food vendors and provides a common area for self-serve dining, I took that description from Wikipedia, as I don't feel like explaining it with my own words) and then Viive took me to the Art Gallery of Ontario, where Kristiina (my uncle's ex-wife, but I guess I'll just call her my aunt) showed me around and later took me to a Gelateria (an Italian ice cream place). It was nice.
Today I went to Chinatown with a small group of people. The Mullerbecks had relatives coming over from Estonia, one of them is a teacher at my school VHK, one of her daughters is a student there, and there were 4 other family members, I think. So I joined some of them. We ate dumplings at a restaurant there, and I bought lychee flavored hard candy (having all ready tried lychee juice, ice cream and, of course, fresh lychees themselves) at a supermarket where they mostly sold Chinese products. After a few hours there and at some of their relatives home, Viive and Rob took me to Beaches (a neighborhood in Toronto) and Scarborough Bluffs, you can see a part of it on this photo (it's not my photo, by the time we went there, it was dark), quite unique nature there.
Well, I'm finishing for now, it's 3:03 AM. It's usually around 1,2 or 3 AM that I finish my posts, even though below it says something like Posted by Hendrik Andres Tork at 22:21. Mysterious.

The Niagara Falls

Yesterday I visited the Niagara Falls with the whole family (Maarika, Robert, Tiina and Viive) after Anne, Annika and Aliina had left to Joekaaru. The Falls were, of course, mighty for me. First of all went on to one of those so-called 4D cinemas, where we had quite some water, wind and even snow pouring out from somewhere. After that we went under the Niagara Falls, and even later we went on the little boat tour, which went pretty near to the Falls. We wore raincoats on all of the three attractions, because the water tried to get us whenever it could, there was really a lot of it in the air. It was nice there. It took us quite a while to get back to Toronto, we went through Guelph (a small university town) to drop Maarika there (she lives there), there was some trouble finding the town.
Today I visited the York Dale Centre somewhere relatively in the edge of the city, I think. I've gotten quite used to navigating around with the subway, it was easy to get there (I went there by myself). I went to the cinema there, to watch Inception. I'd say it was an excellent film, with a very complicated plot and stunning, exciting, thrilling scenes, as well as a lot of great acting. Yeah, otherwise I just looked around in the centre, the shops and also the parking lot, which, for some reason, I was very interested in. Hours later I watched another movie, The Cove, at home with Robert. It's a documentary about dolphins, people trying to save them and a Japanese town, where 23000 dolphins are slaughtered in a year. It felt really barbaric and primitive that people would do such a thing. But I liked the movie..

The past few days

After arriving from New York at about 6:30 AM on the 3. August, I decided to walk around in Toronto again. I was slightly sleepy, but I thought that such a situation where I'm awake and active at such an early time should not be wasted. I moved around by the lake, and later walked home slowly through Yonge Street (I tried some tasty maple syrup donuts at Tim Horton's on the way). It was after 12:15 that I was back home, so I walked for nearly 6 hours. At 4 in the afternoon I went for another walk, because I wanted to get out of the house, this time into some of the trails and nature in Toronto. Now I was away for 2 hours.
On the next day I visited the CN Tower with Tiina, who hadn't been there for years. The glass floor is still the most thrilling part of the tower, where you can see right down from a 342 metre high place. We visited the Sky Pod in the tower, which is 447 metres high. It was great to be in the CN Tower after so many years (I still remember the last time I stood on the glass floor, at least 7 years ago). After coming down to Earth again, we went on a motion theater ride called Himalamazon, that was pretty interesting, made me want to go onto a roller coaster. Later Viive and I went to an ice cream parlor, a few pet shops and the supermarket. I ate cotton candy and Rocky Road (chocolate with marshmallow bits and nuts) ice cream. We saw some funny and some gorgeous parrots, hamsters, fish, dogs, cats and so on. Viive seemed to especially like one certain parrot, who seemed to be nearly communicating with her.
On the day after that I visited the Ontario Science Centre, which had a lot in it. I didn't see too much, it was big, most of the exhibits were fascinating and time consuming. At 17:00 I went to their IMAX cinema to watch a movie about the Hubble Space Telescope. I've never been in an IMAX cinema before, it was an incredible experience. In the evening I visited Greektown with Viive, the streets had been closed because of a small festival. I bought some green calcite from a shop called Gifts From The Earth, it sells minerals, rocks, crystals, I really liked all that stuff.
Today I went to Joekaaru with Robert. For those who don't know, it's a countryside area built by and originally meant for Estonians, it's about an hours drive from Toronto. I did some work there, cut down a few branches and unwanted little trees, dragged and threw bits of trees into the fire, things like that. I also saw the summer camp there. Hours later when we were back in Toronto, my uncle's wife Anne and their children Annika and Aliina arrived here from Vancouver. I saw them only once when they visited Estonia several weeks ago, because of my sudden departure to this great place.
Well, tomorrow I'm going to the Niagara Falls. I guess I'll write about that soon.

New York

Hello, I'm back in Toronto. I came back from the USA yesterday morning.
I don't know if I have anything original to say about my destination, New York. It was (and I bet it still is) huge. There were many interesting places. There was a lot more nature than I expected, and I'm not only talking about Central Park. When I was on the boat cruise around Manhattan, I saw a lot of trees and green.
We (me and my cousin Maarika, she invited me to join her on this trip) arrived after 12 in the afternoon, even though we were supposed to make it to NYC by 7:30, so we had a 5 hour delay, mostly at the border. We went on the 3 hour boat cruise, where I took a lot of photos, 200 maybe. I don't have access to them yet. We were invited by some of Kristiina's (my aunt, kind of) relatives (Andy and Laura) to spend the night in Connecticut. They had a huge house there, with a library, a billiards table, many many bathrooms, a swimming pool in the garden and much more. My bedroom was big, it had a separate bathroom and a plasma TV. It was very comfortable, different and nice there.
Next day we walked around in town and also saw a Broadway show, called Lend Me A Tenor, which was funny, and it was very different from any theater show that I've ever seen before, more detailed and professional. I haven't seen a lot of them anyway. In the evening we went to a strange jazz place. They basically composed everything on the spot, improvised, they only decided what instruments to play before they started playing (some of these things weren't instruments at all, they used all kinds of objects to make sounds). The songs weren't always very melodic, but overall I quite liked this concert.
On the 3rd day we did quite a lot. We went to the Empire State Building soon after it was opened (it opens at 8 in the morning). Luckily, there were hardly any people there, so it didn't take long until we were at the top. The view was amazing, of course. It seems strange to me that such a tall building was built already 80 years ago and in only 410 days. It's still the tallest building in New York, although the planned One World Trade Center will be about a 100 meters taller. Anyway, later we walked in the southern part of Manhattan, with a relative called Peter, who has lived nearly all of his life in this city. He told many things about all these places we visited, so I got a better overview of the city. In the evening Maarika and I went to Central Park. The bodies of water had interesting names there, like The Pond, The Lake and The Pool. Someone had just broken a Guinness World Record in the park, too bad we missed it. It was a record related to ballet, don't remember exactly.
On the last day we visited 2 museums, the Guggenheim and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The Met was very big, I tried to see everything except for the European sections. I really liked some of the Far East and African parts, as well as most of the modern art section. The Guggenheim was a lot easier to navigate through. Unless you try not to, you'll probably see everything they have on display. I liked them both.

More details...

Yesterday, on the 29. July, I.. didn't do a lot really. I spent 5 hours walking around in town by myself. It was very easy to move around thanks to the map I had. I went up to Eglinton Avenue, looked around. Yeah, I like to walk, explore places for myself, where ever I am.
I'm pretty used to the time difference now. A few days ago I got sleepy already at 22 or 23:00 and woke up at nine or ten in the morning. Could have lasted longer.
Today I'm heading off to New York with my cousin Maarika. The bus will leave sometime after 9 in the evening, I think. We will arrive in the morning. Sounds fun. Gonna spend a few days there. I'm looking forward to the trip. I've been to the USA once, but that was back in 1995. I was a one year old, so I don't really remember a lot. I went to Florida.
Okay, I probably won't post anything during my trip, which is 4 days long, or something like that.

Visiting the Zoo and the ROM.

On the day after returning to Toronto, the 27. July, I went to the Toronto Zoo with Tiina. It was huge, I'd say. Took a lot of time to see all these different animals and other organisms, I think we were there for 6 hours. Both I and Tiina thought that the monkeys were the most interesting animals there. They were all so nice and funny. I also liked the polar bears, one of them only swam in circles, often on it's back. I really liked the way the zoo was organized, having Eurasian creatures in one area and African animals in another.
On the 28. August I went to a Chinese restaurant in downtown with Tiina and a family friend Andres Mullerbeck. Later I went to the Royal Ontario Museum (often shortened to ROM) with Andres. It is free from 15:00 to 18:00 on Wednesdays, so there were a lot of people visiting. There were several interesting exhibits, my favorites being the country specific ones, maybe. I liked the Egyptian one, the whole design of the exhibit was Ancient Egyptian, so it felt kind of comfortable. Later we walked around in downtown for a while, I bought an ice cappuccino from Tim Horton's, it was supposed to be really good, and it was. On the way back it started raining, and by the time we arrived home, we were very wet. And because there was nobody home and I didn't have any keys, Andres took me to his place. There I basically ate dinner and played PS3 (LittleBigPlanet, to be more exact, it's a fun game) until it was night.
Again, I don't currently have any photos to add, I'll do that some other time.


The first raccoon I saw in Canada (in the zoo)

Toronto & Parry Sound

Hello,
In this post I'm going to mention what I did until a few days after my arrival. On the day after I came to Canada (23. July), I basically walked around in downtown Toronto with my cousin Tiina. I went to Chinatown, which was really interesting. I bought some bubble tea there, I don't see any obvious reason why it's called tea, sure doesn't taste like it. It's some kind of cold drink with pieces of jelly sitting in it. I ate lunch at the Eaton centre, at KFC, because I missed that place. I didn't do much in town, just walked around, I also saw a lot of squirrels in parks. Later on I went to the Beaches Jazz Festival with my other cousin Maarika and my aunt Viive. There were different bands playing on the streets, some of them were quite good.
On the next day I went to Parry Sound (with Tiina and Robert), a district north of Toronto, it was about a two and a half hour drive there. I stayed in a cottage belonging to Robert's mother and brother. It was next to a lake, and I guess it was that lake which was the star of my stay there. I got to ride on a motorboat, and drive both a canoe and a Sea-Doo. I tried water skiing for the first time in my life. Apparently I did well for a first time. It was kind of fun, but I kept swallowing water every time I fell. Another fun activity was water tubing. It's similar to water skiing, but instead of skis you have an inflatable tube. You have to just hold on tight. I did that a lot, it was really exciting. At times it felt like I was being dragged by a car on a highway, because at a certain speed the water seemed nearly solid.
On the second day in Parry Sound I visited a little town of the same name. I think I got a good overview of the place (only 6000 people live there), it was a quiet and humble town.
Anyway, I left Parry Sound and came back to Toronto on the evening of the 26. July. Robert and me canoeing.

The lake (fake ducks, by the way)
Me and Tiina by the coast of the Georgian Bay
It was very rocky there
I got to drive this thing (the Sea-Doo)
On a motorboat

Canada

Hi,
I'm in Canada (Toronto) right now and I'm very, very happy about it. Even though I'm a Canadian citizen, I haven't been here since 2003. That's a very long time for me, I was 9 when I last came here. Anyway, I've been dreaming about this constantly for a year now. I arrived in Canada on the 22. July, and I'm leaving on the 18. August.
I flew through Helsinki and New York to get here, the flights were very comfortable, especially the one going over the Atlantic ocean. There was a lot to do on the plane, like watch movies or TV shows, play games and listen to music, I'm not really used to that. I got to spend the last 30 minutes of the flight in Business Class (because I was in transit, the crew wanted me to be able to get off the plane faster than the others). It was pretty strange, but very comfortable there.
After arriving, I couldn't stop smiling for hours (even though my smile tends to be kind of faint). My aunt Viive and her husband Robert showed me some of the areas of Toronto. I had some interesting vegetarian (Greek salad) pizza in a place called Scallywags, I think.
I will inform you, whoever you are, of the rest of the things I've done, soon. I don't currently have any photos to add, but I will send some eventually, probably.....