JC defended him M.Sc. thesis last Monday. RY wanted to come up from Virginia to celebrate as well. Given my skiing plans this past weekend, everyone was kind enough to accommodate my schedule. RY flew up a day earlier (a good thing too, given the 25cm of snow we're expecting today) and we celebrated over dinner on Thursday.
Everything came together at the last minute. BW was suppose to take care of our dinner reservations. When I got back home after 10pm on Wednesday night, I found out that he just gave RY (in Virginia) a list of the Winterlicious restaurants. RY picked out 5 choices, but he wasn't going to call from Virginia. I ended up calling the restaurants in RY's shortlist at 11pm, not really expecting to get any reservations. As luck will have it, I managed to make reservations for a late dinner at La Maquette.
After a slight mishap at the Eaton Centre, we took a quick stroll to Nathan Philips. Unfortunately, none of the WinterCity activities were going on today, so we just huddled around the skating rink before proceeding to the restaurant.
To tell the truth, I didn't even bother looking at the Winterlicious menu beforehand. I just heard RY mention that the appetizer has Shrimp Tempura. Tempura in a French restaurant?!?
As you walk into the restaurant, you'll immediately notice the romantic atmosphere - candle lighting, fancy statues, spiral staircase and live piano music. JC was beginning to seriously worry that he wasn't dressed appropriately for the evening. Whatever. :-)
We got a nice table on the second floor, and soon found out that there was a wedding celebration with a party of about 15 people at the next table. So much for the nice quiet "romantic" atmosphere. lol. Although, it's not like we won't have ruined the atmosphere for other guests anyway.
Since it's Winterlicious, I guess I have to talk a bit about the food. I didn't have much choice for appetizer, since I HAD to try the Shrimp Tempura. It was served with Mayo Ginger and Scotch Pea Meal Pepper Sauce served with Belgium Endive. The jumbo shrimps were very good. The batter was very very thin, just adding a nice texture as the crust for the shrimps. It wasn't tempura in the japanese tempura sense - the shrimp was definitely the focal point, not the batter. However, the presentation of the appetizer was rather bland. The greens and yellows kind of just merged together on a big plate.
Main entry, I had Roasted Venison Chops served with Garlic Mashed Potatoes in a Sesame Reduction enhanced with hints of Chocolate and Crème De Menthe and fresh Marjoram. Wow, what a long description. Sesame Reduction. I recognize the terminology, but don't really remember all the details. Anyway, the chops were really tender. I did taste a bit of the mint and chocolate, but the flavours were dominated by the fresh peppers sprinkled over top of the dish.
For dessert, I settled for Banana Liqueur Crème Brule. This was my favourite dish of the entire meal. I just have a sweet spot for Crème Brule's. Served with a mint leaf and a raspberry... mmmm. A definitely A+ on the Brule.
For drinks, we got a bottle of Jackson Triggs Merlot. JC really liked it, but there wasn't much evolution or aftertaste to the wine. I found it didn't do that great of a job to cleanse my mouth of chops flavours. A so-so selection.
BW, RY and I took our hand at trying to photograph the food. The low lighting essentially made things really difficult for BW and me. We don't have 28mm f/1.4 prime lenses. >_<. I was quite a noob as I forgot to reset my exposure settings on the SB-600 flash. I was wondering why the flash output was weaker than I expected. sigh.
As usual whenever we get together, there are the diplomatic discussions on Canon vs Nikon. The waiter, whose service was only so-so during the meal, came through at the end when he mentioned he got a D40x for his nephew for Christmas. He totally redeemed himself and just earned himself a bigger tip from me and RY. lol.
Overall, the meal was probably a 3/5 stars; it was good, but not really spectacular. I might go back again, as long as there's no wedding going on.
P.S. The rest of the gang decided to bake a turkey over the weekend, just for the heck of it. I was going to miss out on all the fun! Apparently, they went, got the bird and all the miscellaneous ingredients, only to find out that BW's oven doesn't work. Chinese people rarely use ovens! lolol. The bird is still sitting in the freezer.
Several weeks back, YL suggested this restaurant known in the Korean community as the "spicy chicken" place. The joint is in this dinky little plaza on Yonge St & Glen Cameron (north of Steeles). One of those spots in town that you'd never visit unless you knew about it.
Apparently, this particular restaurant is part of a chain that became really popular in Korea two years ago. There are franchise locations every couple blocks in Seoul. Unlike most other Korean restaurants, this place does not serve any beef. It only serves chicken.
The restaurant has the darnest of names. It's called "Home of Hot - Taste". The menu's star item is "Blazing Fire Chicken". My favourite dish, a soup, is fittingly named "Egg Soup". It's actually steamed egg set in a base of chicken stock soup. Super tasty.
YL knew what to order and the food tasted super good. I'm totally not a spicy food eater, but the hotness was just perfect that I was able to enjoy it. That experience left quite a lasting impression on me to the point that I strongly recommended the restaurant as a must-visit to our food "gang".
While we usually stick with different Chinese cuisines, under my insistence, we descended upon Home of Hot Taste this past weekend. I tried to order the same things as YL did on the last visit, but added some kimchi rice and noodles.
I don't know if YL told them to make the dishes milder for my tastes before, but holy cow, Blazing Fire Chicken was really Blazing Fire this time. I could not drink enough water. Even after rinsing and dousing my mouth with water, that burning sensation was still persistent. Even YZ, who supposedly is our best spicy food eater, thought the chicken was too spicy! The servers eventually brought us TWO jugs of water. Surprisingly, the kimchi rice was super good. It had a strong flavour of seaweed, which I love. The rice didn't taste spicy at all, but that may have been due to the chicken.
In the end, everyone agreed that the food was very good. The spiciness is just one of a kind. So spicy yet so good. Definitely worth trying, but I need to check with YL to find out what happened. I guess the best way to describe our experience this time around is: 真正的貼錢買難受!!!!
We took a quick visit to the Korean supermarket next door afterwards. I saw a section stacked with BOXES of Chili powder. Man. Hardcore Hardcore. A newfound appreciation.
Some quick impressions from Edmonton.
People
One of the most surprising thing about Edmonton for me was the people. Everyone was super friendly, though half the time, they were trying to convince me to move out to Alberta. lol. Everyone I had the opportunity to speak to was quite proud of their city, but not to the point of arrogance. Definitely had a big impact on my impression of Edmonton.
Downtown
A very nice downtown core, spanning probably a dozen blocks in each direction. I didn't get to really explore it until nighttime. I did notice that the downtown core was eerily quiet after dark, with the exception of cars and the homeless. I must have just been exploring the wrong parts of town. Got to visit the City Centre Mall and the CBC Radio studios there. I noticed there was a Subway every couple blocks too.
Really liked the pyramid at Edmonton City Hall, though I wish I walked the extra half a block to the front entrance and gotten better photos of the building. Some idiot taxi cab driver told me the pyramid was a greenhouse for some exotic plants. A green house growing some exotic politicians and taxi cab drivers, I bet.
While a little out of my way, I stopped by Alberta Legislative Hall to visit the First Post survey site (something that I need to do at every Canadian capital city - I'm 2 out of 12 now). The legislative hall was quite beautiful in the night.
University of Alberta
Very beautiful campus. I love how a lot of the buildings are interconnected, either by underground tunnels or elevated walkways. My favourite places were the abbreviated buildings: SUB, CAB and HUB. Student's Union Building and Central Academic Building were student hubs with lots of food, lots of student orientated shops. Just a fun place to hang around with all the students. Human Union Building was really cool. It has a mall hallway on the "ground" level full of shops. For several stories up, there were full ceiling to floor window pods that stick out over the mall below. These were apparently accommodations for the hotel. It felt so futuristic and modern, despite being built 30 years ago.
West Edmonton Mall
The biggest mall in North America and 3rd biggest in the world. I've grown up hearing about it, so THE MALL was a must visit for me. To be frank, the actual mall wasn't that big. It just has a lot of these extensions (amusement park, water park, hotel, movie theatres, etc) that just grows the mall to it giant size.
I really wanted to play around in the Water Park. Those slides look SO fun. Gigantic wave pool. Swimming in the winter. man.
At the center of the mall, there was a skating rink. Wayne Gretzky and the Edmonton Oilers used to practice in this rink back in the glory days from 1980's.
The Sea Lion's Lagoon was quite cool, with a giant replica of the Santa Maria. There was an exhibit of real flamingos too.
There was a Segway exhibit where for $10, you get a lesson with a certified Segway trainer followed by 20 minutes of free time. Since I missed riding the Segway while at Cornell, I was really tempted to give this a try, but the line was too long.
Finally, I was most surprised by find a T&T in Chinatown part of the mall. Represent!
Miscellaneous
The Light Rail Transport (LRT) through the city was nice. It's like a streetcar that goes underground, like some of the T streetcars in Beantown. Bay station's decor was especially nice, with its full metal railing bars.
Edmonton is really really dry. I knew it was expected given their locale and the Chinook winds. I certainly felt the dryness immediately when I stepped out of the airport.
On my flight out of Edmonton, I met a media spokesperson for Transportation Safety Board of Canada. He described to me what it was like when he first heard about the Air France accident at Toronto Pearson in 2005. He was actively involved in the investigation and was sent on scene right after the accident happened. I never knew that most flight landings were done with auto-pilot. I also finally found out why planes needed a cart during "push back" from the gates.
For some unknown reason, I always get thrown in such situations. Due to some unforeseen circumstances, I was deployed to Edmonton, Alberta on one day's notice.
My task in Edmonton is to give two lectures and host a recruiting event at University of Alberta. That gave me two days to prepare for these 3 events. Fortunately, I've meet and interacted with the host professor before, so I wasn't going into UofA blind.
First talk was geared towards graduate students and professors - though more people, even some folks who've graduated in past years, showed up than expected. "Real World" Compilers. It was very well received. One professor even commented that I should remove the quotes around Real World, because some 'techniques' I discussed are used in the real world and will never be found in the 'toy research compilers'. I wasn't the one to make fun of research compilers. XD They totally found it interesting how production environment can add more constraints and challenges.
Second talk was a lecture to a 4th year Computer Engineering class. Think ECE 314/475 level. I was talking about System Z and hardware/software interactions. It was so weird seeing these young kids in the seats. I was a little rushed on time in this talk. I thought I had an hour, but apparently, I only have 50 minutes. So I had to simplify some of my explanations to keep the talk at 45 minutes with some time for questions afterwards. In the end, the people with whom I spoke really enjoyed the lecture, though it's hard to tell with some of the other members of the audience. lol. Apparently I went over some concepts that they hadn't covered yet (early in the semester still). The professor assured me it was perfectly fine, since when he does cover it, he can tell them that this stuff you guys are learning is really used in the computers out there!
After the talk, some students came up and started handing me their resumes. jeez. I haven't even hosted the recruiting session yet. A few came up and said they recognized me from some conferences in past years. I was like, wow, I totally don't remember meeting them...sigh.
My voice was starting to crack after giving the two talks in 3 hours. "Now you know what it's like to be a professor!!! I get so drained after teaching two classes that I just go home." I totally feel ya buddy.
Interesting conversations with some professors and grad students afterwards. One professor was describing his 3.5 year old child learning to skate. The kid had big ambitions - envisioning himself performing all the great hockey moves he watches on TV. This was his first time skating. As his father watched him stumble and tumble, he became worried about how his kid was feeling - probably "man, this is a lot harder than it looks!". Anyway, after the lesson, his son was super excited that he was able to stand on his skates without falling now! The professor remarked... this is so much like research! You aim high, but will settle for anything. :)
""Life is not measured by the breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away..." - Author Unknown
Saturday, snowshoed to Buzzard Lake in the Kawartha region, an hour north of Peterborough. Bear Grylls had inspired me to give snowshoeing a try, so when jeff-trex was soliciting people to go snowshoeing, I jumped at the opportunity.
Given the super warm temperatures last week, we were afraid that there won't be snow left on the ground. The snowshoeing trek might turn into a hike. Fortunately, we got a couple days of flurries and cold temperatures. Ended up with a nice 4-6 inches of snow on the ground, just enough to warrant the snowshoes.
This is my first real opportunity at snowshoeing. I had done it once back in high school during a winter camping trip, but I was just fooling around back then and never tried them a serious hike. We planned on starting at 7:30am, but the drive shaft of one of our fellow hiker's van fell off on the way, so we had to arrange a tow truck for him. Ended up moving out at 8:45am.
The weather was almost perfect for the trek. Around -5C with cloudy skies and the occasional breaks of sunshine. Best of all, there was very little wind. We had the trail log from a previous hiker, so we kind of just followed along.
At one point, we missed a side trail entrance and continued down the main trail for another 400m before realizing our mistake. We were left with two unpleasant options, either backtrack and try to cut around the top of a long lake, or continue southward to go around the bottom of the lake. Looking at our maps, we saw that at our current point, the lake was only 40m wide. Perhaps we can make a break for it and run across?
I thought that was totally insane, given that it was so warm last week, the ice must not be very thick. I was carrying TochiCam, so I cannot afford to break though the ice! We got to the edge of the lake. Greywynd was our guinea pig, since he was the biggest and fattest. After the pole jabs failed to crack the ice, Greywynd took a few timid steps. Nothing happened. A few minutes later, we were all on the lake sliding around. All my prior uneasiness vanished. It was so cool moving along the pristine surface, feeling the open exposure to the elements and seeing the trails we are leaving behind us.
The next highlight was at a point where our trail popped out onto this high ledge. We looked down and saw a fast flowing stream down below. Reminded me of that ledge halfway up McGregor. Anyway, we were all taking in the sights when TOMTEC pointed out that we needed to get to the other side. Eek. There wasn't much ice on the stream, so we won't be able to pull another repeat of the Lake trick. We decided to hike further up the ridge, to see if we can find a crossing point.
Now, I'm going to switch topics for a second and talk about one of the coolest animals in the world. The Beaver. Aside from being a national icon, trading of its fur and pelts sparked the commerce between European traders and native Americans that led to the founding of Canada. Of course, we cannot forget about the all important, super delicious beaver tails.
Back to the trek. Beavers literally saved our butts on this trip. Further up the ridge, we spotted a very well constructed beaver dam - our bridge across the stream! TOMTEC took out his hatchet and cleared some branches blocking access to the dam. I had no idea he brought an axe, but it was definitely useful!
Crossing the dam was quite the experience. Water was flowing just over the top and given the mangled mess of branches and twigs that made up the dam, you'd never sure if it'd be stable or not. After crossing, I had a new found respect for beavers. The bridge was rock solid. Quite a feat of engineering. And yes, I took a lot of dam photos too.
After crossing over a couple more lakes and climbing over and down several more ridges, we finally got to Buzzard Lake. It always sucks in these one way trips (compared to loops)because when you reach your final destination, you've only really come halfway.
On the way back, we got caught in some strong flurries briefly, spent some time huddled underneath a tree to relax and eat our lunches. Decided to cut across the first lake to take a shorter path back to the main trail. Overall, 18.8km in just over 9 hours. The following is a trail log from the hike.
Winded down and spent the night at Jeff-trex's cottage. Had a little potluck consisting of stew, sushi, pizza, scallop potatos, meatballs, beer, wine, etc. The stew had been cooking for the entire day and was really tasty after the long trek. Chatted for quite a bit until 11pm, when we all decided to retire early. The trek was draining and catching only 3 hours of sleep the previous night didn't help.
With regards to snowshoeing, it is really like walking and the clamps helped tremendously on the hills. The "expert" snowshoers in the group corrected me on how to go downhill properly, which was the only part that wasn't too intuitive. Overall, the snowshoes kept me from sinking too far into the snow, so it felt like a normal hike on a autumn day, with no snow on the ground. After 18.8 km, I just felt a little tightness in some of my muscles, nothing compared to the unbearable pains from BT Hike.
A fun, enjoyable trek overall. Regarding to the quote at the beginning, I saw it on a geocoin jeff-trex shared with me. Cannot think of a more fitting quote to describe the sights and experiences of our journey to Buzzard Lake.