Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Toronto Islands in October





After a good brunch with the folks from Francophonique, we decided to have our Sunday hike on one of the closest nature spots to our home: Toronto Islands. It only takes a short ten minutes ferry trip over from Toronto harbour. We enjoyed the great weather, even if it was chilly though and we took advantage of the quiet and pieceful setting with the city as horizon to breathe the fresh sea (lake) air....
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Life at home


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Happy Diwali



Last week-end was Diwali, a holiday comparable to Christmas for the Hindu community. We returned to the Swaminarayan Mandir temple to see the decoration and learn more about the Hindu culture. These pictures were taken outside just after the visit.
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At the Farmer's Market






Sunday, October 18, 2009

Whitchurch Conservation area and Icook's Japanese buffet






On Sunday we thought we should really enjoy the great weather and go on a hike... what we finally did. Whitchurch's conservation area was not easy to find, but very a quite wild and lost place.
It is situated about 10 miles North of Markham, the "Asian" suburb of Toronto. As hiking made us really hungry, we decided to look out for some Asian restaurant over there and we ended up in a strange place we'd never seen before. The Japanese "Icook" principle is to cook all kinds of Seafood, Meat, Vegetables, Tofu, dumplings and things you don't know what it is in several kinds of broths. Great fun, we ate until the waiter brought the check... We have to say for their excuse that the place was crowded with a huge line up at the door, so famous and truly tasty it is!

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Chudleigh's Apple Picking Farm






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One sunny Saturday afternoon Jean Marie brought up the idea to go Apple Picking at Chudleigh's with a bunch of friends. We were not so convinced that we'd really need apples (you know we have a big apple tree in the backyard) but we nevertheless thought it could be fun to see how a professional apple picking farm is managed. And it was ! We had a trip on the hay wagon, a typical Canadian lunch: corn on the cob, hot dogs and we ate a lots of apples.... apples for a week, trying out all the differents kinds they offered (about 8 different varieties). And as the world is small, we even met a clleague over there (Thomas, his wife Christine and the little Emma).