Andrew and Alex

A grand total of six relatives from China visited our home in Richmond Hill and seeing these old faces again made me meander in my memories. All my relatives from my father's side were here, my grandfather, grandmother, my two aunts and my two cousins, Richard and Bao Bao. Richard was nine years old and Bao Bao was a fifteen year old girl.

My grandparents would cook for us everyday and so we enjoyed meals that were so good that is was inexplicable. They also helped out a lot with household chores so the only work i had to do was wash the car and mow the lawn.

Bao Bao loves to draw and read all day, and isn't very fond of going outside and participating in activities. Richard, on the other hand loves games and doing activities. I feel I have taught Richard some English and my brother Alex has learned some Chinese.

Since a total of ten people lived in our house, lots of hubbub was always present in our household. Richard enjoyed watching Naruto with my little brother and also playing the game on the PS2.

Our big family visited many tourist attractions in Ontario. One of our visits was the CN Tower, the tallest tower in the world. I have already went to the CN Tower once years ago, and nothing has changed. As we slowly increased in elevation in the elevator, my brother was very excited. The view from the top was the tower was ingenious, we could see an array of buildings such as the Rogers Centre, the busy streets in the city of Toronto and also a private airport not too far away. We visited the CN Tower on a long weekend, hence the tourist attraction was ubiquitous with people. We decided to buy the photo of our whole family flying in mid-air with the CN Tower in the background, but there were technical difficulties and it was postponed an hour.

Next up was a world famous splash of fun, Niagara Falls. The drive there was really intermittent as traffic was very ubuquitous. I've also been here once before, and I didn't find it any more interesting than last time. I don't really like watching waterfalls, but i guess it's big enough for some entertainment. My brother learned to love taking pictures with a camera in Niagara Falls, but the bad thing is, he takes pictures of everything, which is an encumbrance to relatives who want to look at more attractions. We had a fast food meal right beside the Falls of pizza and chicken wings, which was scrumptious thanks to our laggard journey there fraught with hunger.

The longest trip was which a bit of a disappointment to everyone was to Bruce Peninsula. I guess it was because my hopes were too high, but here's the story. The trip to Bruce Peninsula was the longest, and the drive took the longest too. The drive to Habourside Motel took about three hours, and the GPS we borrowed from a friend provided much help. I enjoyed navigating with the GPS, and the kids loved that it would speak about directions in a stilted manner. We met up with a family who we have knew for years now and we got comfortable in the motel. At night, the room was very torrid and I could not fall asleep. We tried turning on the air conditioning but it's so loud that i would rather leave it hot. That was the first thing that made me annoyed on the trip. In the morning, we decided to leave this motel since it was just impossible to fall asleep.

The next morning we went on a cruise aboard the Blue Heron V. It had a glass floor smaller than the CN Tower's, but the view of sunken ships so close to land was enough to make someone voluble stay quiet. The ship stopped at a nationally protected park, Flowerpot Island. We hiked through the island

Ending the summer was the trip to Lindsay, a town we visited once. A spot in the river close to a dam was once fraught and overwhelmed with fish, and if you put your fishing pole down a fish instantly would pop up. It was so easy that it got boring eventually, but for kids it seemed to be doted. The family that came to Lindsay with us brought their monstrous dog. Its name was Sarnia and it would bark at the sight of any unknown human. But, if you just talk to the owner for a few seconds, Sarnia would stop barking and regconize you as a friendly target.

The plan was to go to the dam spot and let the kids have some fun, then fish in a nearby river where we could rest, have some snacks and fish for bigger prey. After taking a good look at the old dam fishing spot, we decided to leave. Once fraught with fish and fishermen, no one was even trying to catch a fish there, and the fish population seemed to have decreased dramatically. The water lvl seemed to have decreased as well, and we were severely disappointed. So, we moved to the river and tested our luck there. My brother and Richard were very eager to fish and so I showed them to how cast with the rod and they learned quickly. In no time,everyone started to catch little sunfish and yellow perch. My brother seemed to get the hang of it easily, and enjoyed going for such small prey. I felt it was no fun to catch these fish, so I took the job of watching over all our paraphernalia. After what felt like an eternity, we decided to leave with a net full of sunfish, rock bass and perch. It was time for lunch, and we headed to a great picnic spot right beside a trail. After a short lunch, we set up our 6-person tent for us to relax in. I just brought my laptop and let the kids play Naruto Fighter, while I tried to sleep. The adults went to another fishing spot under a bridge nearby, obviously not satisfied. As I grew tired of the hot weather, the girls were eager to head outside for a walk, so i decided to sit outside for a while. A call finally came from the adults, and they came back to drive us to the bridge spot.

Dinner was to be portable hot pot, and we ate in the town on two picnic tables. Lamb slices,

By Alex: today i went on the maid of the mist