Spent the past weekend skiing at Whiteface resort, near Lake Placid, NY, the site of the 1932 and 1980 Olympic Games. TL convinced YW, AR and me to join along, as the Chinese skiing group that she's really active in was planning the trip. Plans called for a drive out Friday evening, skiing for two days, followed by the return drive on Sunday night.
The forecast for Friday was in one word, horrible. The biggest storm of the year so far was expected to dump 20-25cm of snow in GTA. The system was coming from Tennessee, travelling on a course due east, which essentially covered our entire driving route.
Some people cancelled the trip due to weather, but we were determined to go. After all, what can beat skiing in the fresh snow after a storm? Given the CO experience, I made sure I brought water, flashlight, blankets, sleeping bag and a pillow, just in case if we get stranded. lol.
AR and YW picked up our rental car from the airport, as that was the only location that can provide ski racks. As YW was driving back on 401, he heard a large thump on the roof of the car. Looking out of the side window, he noticed a dislodged hook from the front ski rack! He quickly got off the highway at the next exit. When he came to a stop at the traffic lights, the entire ski rack slid down the front of the car. Good thing it didn't come off on the highway. >_<. He went to the nearby rental car dealer and promptly got an upgrade to a minivan. The minivan ended up being more comfortable than the original car.
We left Toronto in the late afternoon. The conditions were quite poor, but since it was a Friday and schools were cancelled, many people just stayed home. The roads were not too packed. We were quite happy to be travelling at 60km/h (which also means our drive will take 10+ hours).
Ran into other carpools at various service stations along the way. TL manage to toss one of our walkie-talkies into the garbage and had to rummage through the garbage to find the walkie-talkie.
Cross the border at Prescott. We were joking that AR (the only white guy) would have a much easier time crossing the border if he wasn't travelling with three Chinese dudes. The DHS agent asked YW and TL a couple questions, like where they were born, etc. Then he went on to grill AR. Asked him when was the last time he was in the USA, where he went, what he did, how long he was there for, etc. WTF. Ironically, the agent didn't ask me a single question. After a few minutes of questioning, we were allowed into the USA.
Since the snow had stopped, we had a nice drive through the Adirondacks. We saw 5 deers along the way and at one point, stopped the car to shine a BFL at a deer. The other cars following us were quite puzzled at what we were up to. lol.
Got to our cottage at around 1am. We were the second car out of 7 to arrive from Toronto. The cottage was a little wooden hut with 2 bedrooms plus a living room and a nice fireplace. We quickly hit the sack to save up energy for the next day.
Got to Whiteface at 9am the next morning. The day was cloudy with a couple breaks of sunshine. While we were getting our group tickets, I snuck out to take some photos of the Ausable River.
The gondola was not running today, so we took the Facelift chair up to middle of the mountain. The top of Facelift connects to another chair to the summit. We decided to hold off and do a quick run down the mountain as warm-up. As we started heading down, YW took an awful tumble. I arrived a little late to the scene and all I saw was (in order from closest to furthest) a ski, a ski pole, a hat, a pair of goggles, a pair of glasses and a spawned out YW. This portion of the trail was quite flat, almost like a green slope. The fall was so bad that YW cracked the inner lens of his goggles. YW had no idea what happened.
YW took a break at the mid-lodge, while TL, AR and I decided to head down the mountain and take the summit express to the top of Big Whiteface. When we returned on Facelift, we found, to our dismay, that the Summit Express was shut down due to high winds. >_<.
The winds today was very strong, though not as bad as Vail. It was 35mph at the base and much stronger at the top. The slightly warmer temperature and no blowing snow made the difference. The winds were strong enough though to make skiing a lot more difficult. With Summit Express closed, we were stuck on little Whiteface (the other peak at the resort), which consisted of a couple black diamonds.
The black diamonds were quite icy, probably because of a combination of the wind and all the skiers being forced onto the same handful of trails. I had such a hard time handling these blacks. To make things worse, there were clumps of sticky snow at the bottom of the hill. During one of the runs, I came out of a black with a lot of speed and promptly hit one of these clumps. It felt like someone just took my feet out and my body continued flying forward. I lost one of my skis and during the fall, as my body was turning around, I saw out of the corner of my eye that my face was landing right onto of the edge of my detached ski. The left side of my face was throbbing in pain after the fall. I earned scrapes on my cheekbone and near my temple. >_<.
We went to attack some of the other blue trails, where I could practice some of my techniques. TL had brought a bunch of skiing training videos that we watched during the drive to Lake Placid. I tried a couple of the pole planting techniques.
Well, some of you know, one of my poles got bent at Vail. I haven't replaced them yet. During the run, I had forgotten that about the defect and held the pole bent inwards. One of my skis ended up going over the basket of my pole. As I tried to pull my pole out, I ended up in a big tangle and promptly wiped out again. Sigh. I need new poles.
After lunch, YW and I decided that we shouldn't risk our lives on the blacks. YW had brought his dSLR on the trip as well (so nice to have another photographer on the trip!), and he suggested we bring the cameras up to the mountain for some photos. I was a little hesitant at first, but I knew I could handle the blue trails quite fine. So that afternoon, TochiCam rode its first chairlift and skied its first mountain. :-)
Not being photographers, AR and TL split off to attack the other trails by themselves. It was quite fun shooting skiers with TochiCam.
Being cloudy and foggy, a lot of the landscape photos didn't turn out too well. The snow was white, the sky was white.
The scenery was quite beautiful though, as all the coniferous were covered in snow.
At one point, as I was photographing some snow making gear, this girl came up to me to ask if I had lost a lens. I was like, WTFBBQ? I'm holding my lens. Apparently, she had found a lens cap and thought it might be mine. I verified that I still had my lens cap. For some reason, my brain didn't register that the lens cap could have been YW's. The girl continued on the trail and when YW caught up to me, I found out that the len cap was indeed his. He never got it back. >_<.
It ended up being quite a relaxing and enjoyable afternoon. My body got a much needed respite from the ordeals of the morning.
Had dinner in Lake Placid. Had fun listening to all the other stories from fellow skiers / snowboarders. Went around exploring Lake Placid for a bit afterwards, visiting some of the Olympic venues and the shops along the main street. Took a quiet hike on the ice covered Lake Placid. Retired back at the cottage later that night.
The next morning, we returned to Whiteface. The day was even cloudier, but the wind had calmed down. The gondola was finally running! During one of our rides up, we met a ski patrol guy named Chris. He told us one time the Summit lift was stopped with a full load of people due to high winds. The cable had came off a pulley at one of the towers, which tripped some sensors. As a result, they couldn't restart the lift. They were forced to use ropes strung from the cable and belay people down in harnesses. TL and my first reaction was "OMG! We want to try!!!" lol.
Today, the snow was so much better. The trails were groomed, so it wasn't as icy as yesterday. All of a sudden, I could handle all the black trails without any problems. :-) We just went trail after trail until lunch. During one of the runs, TL wiped out. YW thought he saw her walkie-talkie fly out. YW and I searched around in the snow, until TL called us from her walkie-talkie further down the hill asking what we were up to. lol.
Had a Clam Chowder in Bread Boulle for lunch. Best lunch I've ever had at a ski resort. I had a humourous disagreement with the server lady on how exactly to pronounce "Boulle". She kept on saying it's pronouced like BOWL. In the end, I conceded... just give me my food, damnit.
In the afternoon session, one member of our group wanted to take videos of us skiing. We ended up doing a quick run from the summit of Big Whiteface and took some videos at a blue section of the trail. This is the first time I've seen myself ski in a video. I, along wiht everyone else, was paranoid about falling during the run. lol.
I had no idea that the videos were going to be distributed and our techniques critiqued later. I would have tried harder if I knew. Anyway, it was cool that I got some advice from experts on what to improve on next time. Can't wait to tackle the ski hills again to try them out.
Our last run of the day, we went back up to Big Whiteface summit. It was getting a lot colder and icier. There was only one more black diamond trial that we haven't tried. The visibility dropped to ~10m and at this point in the day, I was not sure if I could tackle another black diamond. YW started going down and soon decided that it wasn't worth it. So TL, YW and I went off to take the blue trail down. AR, the best of our group, bravely took on that black diamond.
Near the bottom of the mountain, we saw that a group of ski patrol had sealed off a portion of the trail. Seeing the toboggans out, we knew there was a serious accident. As I skied past the scene, I saw a chubby guy laying face first in the snow. He wasn't moving. As I moved passed, I heard on the walkie-talkie that the guy was from our group! A bunch of us gathered around just down the hill. Apparently, he was nailed from behind by a snowboarder and injured his back. The dude was taken to hospital, but soon released. He's going to be okay. We were quite unnerved by the accident.
One of the coolest stop is in Saranac Lake, where they had built a giant ice castle with a maze. There was a little tunnel that little kids can crawl through. It was quite a sight.
We continued our way to Canada and stopped briefly at the duty free shop. We got out our government issued ID's in preparation for the border crossing. It was now that TL noticed her wallet was missing. She checked her bags and pockets, but couldn't find it. Then she started freaking out wondering whether the thing YW thought was a walkie-talkie during her fall earlier was really her wallet. Fortunately, after a few minutes of searching, we located her wallet in her laptop bag. Whew.
The Canadian border crossing was rather simple. The border agent didn't even check our passports.
Agent: Hi, are you all Canadians?
Us: Yup.
Agent: What were you doing in the USA?
Us: Skiing for 2 days at Whiteface.
Agent: Are you bringing anything back?
Us: Only two cases of beer from duty-free shop.
Agent: Alrighty, welcome home!
For some reason, it feels so nice when the agent says "Welcome home!". Makes you feel good to be back.
We got back into Toronto around midnight, much later than expected. TL and AR blamed it on our photography stops. lol. We saw that one coming. Overall, it was a really fun trip. My skiing ability definitely improved on this trip. Cannot wait till the next one.
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. :)