Peter Hoflich

Great great great – after months of hard work, I finally got to go on a really great junket… to my home town of Toronto! It’s always very hard for me to get there, considering that it’s on the other side of the world from where I live (Singapore), it’s expensive to fly there and I only have limited time off, with which I need to take into account also days lost traveling (two either way) and jet lag. It’s no picnic. So this time I was flying for a reason and flying for free and could get a few days with family at either end of my business commitment. I also took Zen along so that he could see Canada with fresh eyes (he had been nine months old the last time he was in Canada), learn about that part of his heritage (he is half-Canadian, after all), and to celebrate my dad’s birthday (we always celebrate mum’s when they visit us in Singapore every year). To see Zen’s report of the trip, click here.

Here are some then-and-now pictures:

July 31st, 2002

September 14th, 2011

Wednesday, April 14th I’d set my alarm for 4:00 AM, but I was woken up anyway at 3:40 AM when Oma and Opa called to wish Naoko a happy birthday – they miscalculated the time difference and thought that they were calling at 4:40 AM. Hang up, try again. The alarm went off at 4:00 AM, we all got up and Zen and I got ready for the flight, and Oma and Opa called back and wished Naoko a happy birthday with all three of us awake. Zen and I also wished Naoko many happy returns on her birthday;too bad we wouldn’t be there for the rest of it, but we’d had a lovely dinner the night before, with cake and everything. We got in a taxi at 5:15 AM so that we could be at the airport plenty early for our 7:05 flight to Tokyo, and its connecting flight to Toronto (both cities that start with “T” and end with “O”, ha ha…). When we were near the airport it began to rain in buckets, then huge lightning flashes filled the sky and thunder rolled. Zoo-wee mama!!!

The airport was deserted, but the check-in woman assured us that the flights probably wouldn’t be cancelled due to the weather. Check-in went well, we hung out in the airport, and then got on our flight. As we were taking off, we looked out of the window and we saw the full moon, then next to it we also saw a rainbow. It was so beautiful. The United Airlines flight was okay, Zen liked it a lot because he said that the breakfast he was served was exceptional. I watched two movies – “Midnight In Paris” and “The Hangover”, two films that have almost nothing in common except that each film has a guy in a doomed relationship with a bitchy girl he finally realises is bad for him and breaks up with at the end. I also listened to Stone Roses and Ozzy Osbourne, while reading that boring Leven Thumps book. Zen watched “Kung Fu Panda 2″. When we got near to Tokyo we looked out the window into the Pacific Ocean and we saw a large shadow on the water, we wondered what it was. A whale? A submarine? Then we approached land and the shadow followed us, and we realised that it was the shadow of our plane. D’oh!!

In Tokyo, we called Jii-chan and Baa-chan for a quick chat, then we hunted for food. I ate some pizza while Zen ate spaghetti and meatballs, while he wrote his journal. We wandered around some, we spotted a Singapore Airlines A380, then got on our long 12-hour flight. I don’t remember what I did on this long flight, but I don’t think I saw a movie. Maybe I read, maybe I listened to music, maybe I tried to sleep.

When we got to Toronto, I took a picture of Zen walking through the “Welcome to Canada” gate, and then we hit customs. I got some strange looks and some questions from the customs officials about why Zen was traveling without his mother, but it didn’t turn into a problem. We went out and met Oma and Opa, took some pictures in front of a big dinosaur display from the Royal Ontario Museum that they had in the museum, then we went outside to the car. Opa drove us away to Midland, driving along Zenway Boulevard and ZZEN Corporation and then up some country roads, past Barrie, and into Midland. Zen fell asleep midway, and we saw a beautiful sunset along the long, straight and slightly hilly road. When we got to Midland, Zen woke up and he got a tour of the house, including the basement. Then we had some food and went to sleep. Unfortunately, we only slept a few hours – I woke up at 3:00 AM, and Zen woke up at 4:00 AM. We hung out downstairs for a while until Opa woke up at 6:00, then we had breakfast around 7:30. Zen and I went out for a walk in the cold morning air, it was only around 7 degrees Celsius. Brrrr!!! That was Thursday, and after we ate breakfast, Zen went off with Oma to do some shopping at West Marine, Home Depot and Walmart, while I did some work to prepare for my conference. In the afternoon, Zen and I got a tour of Midland, from the boat in the marina all the way up the main drag and back to Walmart. We also went to another mall where Zen and I got our hair cut! Zen looked at Lego Star Wars toys and books, but didn’t buy any (in the end he did buy one Lego Star Wars toy, one Lego Star Wars book, and one Diary of a Wimpy Kid-related book).

Friday, Zen and I woke up at 4:00 and 5:00 respectively, we went for a stroll outside before sunrise, then we had breakfast and went to play catchball in a nearby park. It was Opa’s birthday, so we wished him a happy birthday. On the way home, we passed by the nearby school and had a quick chat with the principal and asked him if we could have a quick tour of the school at some point, as Zen was visiting Canada and would like to do a report of his visit, and to see how Canadian schools are different from Singapore schools. The principal asked us to come back at 2:30 for the tour, so we went home and Zen did some more homework. After a while we had our lunch, then went off to do the tour. It was very interesting. The school is called Bayview Public School. Apparently there had earlier been a Bayview Public School in Midland in another location, but in 1968 the school had been built at that spot. It was completely renovated in 2008. We first saw the library, which was quite big and open and had several computers in it (but not really very many books). Then we walked around the school, which was built in a kind of big square, with a small courtyard in the middle.  The school has 270 pupils in 13 different classes. They have nine school years (kindergarten to grade 8), and they had two special needs rooms – one for children with disabilities, and one for children with higher abilities. They also had a gym. That day the school was holding a Terry Fox run, and I was able to tell Zen a little bit about who Terry Fox was and what he did. After that we went the the library to take out some books (I took out Artemis Fowl for Zen, and Persepolis for me), then we went home and prepared for a lovely dinner with Oma and Opa for Opa’s birthday.  Happy birthday, Opa!

Saturday we woke up and went down to the boat and had a look there, then we finally went fishing. Zen was very excited, he really hoped that he could catch a fish, but he never did. After that, we went to the bowling alley to see if we could bowl – there were league games, though, and no lanes would be free that day. Zen was disappointed, but we noticed that there was a baseball game on TV, so we knew that we could see that later when we went home. We walked up and down the main street in Midland and saw a music shop, a toy shop, some pizza shops, and some other interesting shops as well. It’s a very nice little Northern Ontario town. After that we went home, Zen watched some baseball and took a nap. In the evening we were invited to dinner at the friends of my parents, which was very nice. They have a great big house with a nice garden that looks out onto the water. Zen went down to watch the baseball game before dinner, but fell asleep and missed all of the food. At the end of the evening we carried him to the car and brought him home.  Poor kid.

Sunday we headed in to Toronto, I packed up my bags and put them in the trunk and off we went to the big city, driving through the nice little towns, then the nice highways, past Barrie, along Zenway Boulevard and ZZEN Corporation. Once in Toronto, we stopped briefly at my friend John’s house on Dundas Street West, dropped off my suitcase at his place since I’d be staying there while in Toronto, and then off we went to see the city. We went to harbourfront and looked for a parking spot. There was one for $20 right next to the ferry terminal, then around the corner we found another that was only $5, so we took that and walked an extra five minutes to get to the ferry terminal than we would have if we’d parked in the $20 place – good thinking Opa! We found the foot of Yonge Street, which is the longest street in the world – it is more than 1,800 kilometers long. Wow!  The hotel down there was a Sibos hotel, so I got my badge, and then we went to the ferry terminal, got tickets, and headed out to Toronto Island. It was a beautiful day, great sun, a bit of wind, and there were boats in the harbour, airplanes flying overhead, seagulls gliding around, and lots of people young and old heading out to Toronto Island with their kids, with bicycles and strollers and all sorts of gear. We got there and headed to Olympic Island where we knew there would be picnic tables and a nice view of the Toronto skyline, and we were right. It was beautiful. Zen and I played catchball for a while and had a nice time, then off we went Centreville. First Zen and I rode on the Haunted Barrel Works and we screamed our heads off at anything. Then we rode down the Log Flume ride, which was scary. We tried out the Antique Car Ride, and finally the Swan Ride. Zen loved them all. We were out of tickets, but we’d had a great time. Then Zen saw the bumper cars!! He was fascinated, so we bought a few more tickets and off he went. It was great, I had spent a lot of time on these rides too when I had been a child. Great. We went through the Far Enough Farm, looked at the turkeys and goats, then headed up to the big Y-shaped Lake Ontario pier to enjoy the sun. It was a beautiful day, and the sun was shining brilliantly off Lake Ontario. Opa looked up in the sky and said “oh, an east wind – it’s going to rain tomorrow.”

But it was time to head back, so we went to the ferry and zoomed on back to Toronto. Mom and Dad and Zen and I got in the car, they dropped me off near the Royal York Hotel (now called the Fairmont Royal York) and I had a look around the lobby, quickly spotting people I knew from one bank who were having a reception there, then for a look at the convention centre itself, and off I went to look at Roy Thomson Hall, where I saw people I knew from another bank who were having a reception there. What a sense of nostalgia – I used to work at both the Royal York and Roy Thomson Hall! Then I headed off to the reception that I was really going to. Hung out with the people from that company, then I had a great time hanging out with my friend John, who joined me there. (Meanwhile, back in Midland, Zen was playing Monopoly with his grandparents.) After that party, we went off to the Horseshoe Tavern for more beers. There was a band playing there that were pretty good, they had a weird Black Sabbath feel to them in parts. I was telling John about my band, and how we’re inspired by Black Sabbath, then Black Sabbath came on the PA! What a coincidence.  Went back to John’s place, I did some more preparation, went to sleep at midnight… but woke up at 2:00 AM, unable to get back to sleep!  Sheesh… Might have been the power line work that was going on right outside the window, which faced Dundas West. Occasional sound of the cherry picker going up, a truck beeping as it backed up, flashing lights coming in through the window – sleep…

Monday was the first day of the event, I looked out the window and saw a beautiful Toronto sunrise with the CN Tower in the distance. It sure didn’t look like rain. I got my gear and stuff and took the TTC over to St Andrew subway station, walked into the Metro Toronto Convention Centre and started four days of conference madness. It was good fun, and I had a wonderful lunch. I noticed that it was raining outside – Opa was right! I went to an afternoon session in one of the big stuffy halls and passed out, when I woke up I realised that I had missed an important appointment.  Oops!  That evening I was off to two parties, and I met John for both of them.  The first one was in a grand ballroom in the Royal York Hotel called the Library Bar, they had a wonderful old swing jazz band playing, providing wonderful music. There were free beers for invitees, of course, and curious canapes. After that, John and I headed off to another party in a wooden pub somewhere else in the Royal York hotel, and later off to the Hockey Hall of Fame, just next door, observing on the way over there a CN Tower swaddled in clouds. John and I had a great time there too, drinking lots of beer and checking out the hockey memorabilia, and meeting drunk bankers at the hockey shot zone. John knows way more about hockey than I do, so he taught me a thing or two about the greats, whose jerseys were protected behind thick, bulletproof glass.  We met several cool Finnish and Norwegian bankers at the Wayne Gretzky pavilion who helped us take shots with those little bits that had once been part of The Great One on display, probably the closest either of us will ever get to Number 99. I got a picture of Frank Mahovlich’s sweater (but I just took the “hovlich”, since it looks like “Hoflich”),  and then one of me with Maurice Richard’s sweater, in honour of Roch Carrier’s short story “The Hockey Sweater“. Went back to John’s place, had a few more beers, did a bit of computer stuff, then went to sleep… for about three hours.

Tuesday I went a bit earlier because I had to go to a bank breakfast – I couldn’t believe how packed the TTC was so early in the morning! It was intense. The bank breakfast was also intense, and it was soooo amazing… unfortunately I couldn’t take in anything because there was so much information in the presentation that my jet-lagged brain could hardly digest it all (the food was okay too, pretty basic)! I went off to an interview, then I helped my boss record an interview with the CEO of Canada’s largest bank. Later, at noon, I helped him record an interview with the CEO of the largest ICSD, which was riveting. I did a bunch of interviews, and headed of at 6:00 for my first party, in a nearby service apartment on the penthouse floor. The party was hosted by an Indian IT company, so my super-friendly host showed me around, it was so great. He showed me the bedroom where supposedly Madonna had slept, then we checked out the balcony. Some people really know how to live. Met a bunch of cool people, had some nice food, then headed off to meet my friend Danella and her two friends Rikk and Robb, we had a ball talking all evening about stuff in their favourite Queen Street West pub and bistro, called The Beaver. I thought that we were going to a place with a jukebox, but unfortunately this was not one of them.  That’s okay, though. We talked about bands, movies (Bridesmaids!), and the Rolling Stones. And then, suddenly, the people working there realised that there was no music playing so they put on… The Rolling Stones! (They must have overheard us, or maybe Danella texted someone there to put on the Stones – could it have been a coincidence? Whatever it was, it was the second time it had happened to me in Toronto.) Took a taxi home after that, hung out with John, did some work, and then went to sleep for… about five hours.

Wednesday was a normal start, so I left a bit later… and found the TTC fairly empty.  Why would it be so packed at 8:00, like it had been on Tuesday, but be near empty around 9:00?  Makes no sense at all.  Later on I was invited to a great lunch on the 65th floor of one of the bank towers, with a great view of the hotel I used to work at, the CN Tower, the Skydome (now called the Rogers Centres, or something) where the Toronto Blue Jays play, and Toronto Island. I had some interviews, and in the evening I was invited to another party, so I went to this trendy bar for a while (big, gushing rain as I made my way over), drank some beer there, then left to check out the nearby Steve’s Music Store (closed), then went off to meet my friend John, as well as my friend Patty – both of them from my old high school, although they didn’t know each other while there, oddly enough – at a pub on Bloor. After getting lost, and then not finding Patty, who was late, and then being unable to find a seat in any of the places that we’d arranged to meet at, we eventually headed off to so me place near where John lives (and Patty happens to live out that way too, ha ha). That place had a juke box and a bunch of working stiffs hanging around, I ordered perogies and we had a bunch of beers and listened to music from the juke box.  I put in two bucks and got a bunch of Rush, Rolling Stones, and I forget what else – Journey? Got home late and slept.

Thursday was the last day of the event, and definitely the busiest. That was the day the conference had asked me to appear on their internal TV show, for which they had set up a little TV studio in the middle of the convention hall.  I did my interview, then went to watch my boss interviewing the CEO of the biggest bank in Southeast Asia onstage as one of the conference sessions, then headed out of the convention centre with my my cameras and tripod in hand, rushing off to film an interview with the CEO of the third-largest bank in Canada. Spent an hour there, then went off to interview the former mayor of Toronto. Most of the day was gone by that point, so I went off to do a few more interviews, drink a few of the beers that they were offering in the bank exhibition booths, grabbed some gourmet delicacies (oysters, scallops, shrimp, cheese, olives, pickled peppers, etc), and then off for a wander around town. (Meanwhile, Zen and Oma and Opa went cycling around Midland.) I went to Steve’s Music for a look at their left-handed guitars, but they hardly had any, and certainly not the type that I wanted. I wandered the streets, ran into a conference friend of mine who invited me for beers with his friends, then I headed off to the big conference party looking for laughs. Sadly, I hardly met anyone I knew. There were big long queues for food, so I did more drinking than eating. They had mini-buffets set up all around the hall, which was pumped with fresh disco, and they had four big stages behind the four big drink bars, each of which had some sort of crazy choreographed fashion show, meaning models dressed up as hockey players, RCMP, eskimos, etc. It was pretty weird. There was also some sort of Canadian tableau vivant, brrrrrr… Not sure what the point of that was. Left very late, took the subway home, fell asleep, had to double back, but got home eventually.

Friday I woke up around 8:00, had a quick chat with John before he went off to work, then got ready for my day. First off, I went to see John’s place of work, a rare book library in Toronto, and he gave me a tour of the place. I got to see the stacks of the library, where only staff can normally go (it’s a rare book library, so people need to request the books, which are then brought down to be read in the reading room only, upon which they need to be returned to the shelves). It’s a great place, and there are large collections of books (17th century medical books, 18th century maps, all sorts of crazy stuff). Some collectors have donated whole selections of books, and John showed me one donated collection of gay pulp fiction (oddly, there was a non-fiction book about the Rolling Stones there as well). John also showed me the manuscript works of one of Canada’s most famous authors, which included all these cool illustrations by her among all of the unpublished poems and short stories, as well as a similar collection of stuff donated by Canada’s most famous poet. Wow! We laughed our heads off as I read out loud a letter another famous (and filthy-mouthed) Canadian poet had written to him. It was nearly too much to take in, really fantastic stuff. I had so much fun there (yes, it was a library!!!). After that, I went off to Long & McQuade, Toronto’s best music store, to check out the left-handed Gibson SGs that I learned form an online search that they stock there, since I knew that I wanted one. I found a nice cherry-red left-handed Gibson SG, but I preferred a black one, which they had in their other shop; so I paid for it, and they promised that they could deliver it later that day – no matter, I could pick it up on Saturday. Then I went off to meet Danella and her fiance Scott, who were at The Beaver. I got my directions wrong, though, so instead of going in a straight line from Long & McQuade to The Beaver (i.e. going down Ossington from Bloor + Ossington, where the guitar shop is, to Queen + Ossington, where the bistro is), I instead headed in a long detour. Yes, 20/20 hindsight is usually much better than it is on the spot, ha ha ha. It took me ages to finally get there, but get there I did, and I dug into a nice burrito there too!!! I headed down Queen after that to do a bit of shopping, and another beer at the Horseshoe Tavern, then I went right back out to Queen + Ossington to meet my friends Paul and Mike for the evening. I’d grown up with Mike and Paul, and was really looking forward to seeing them, and we’d agreed to go to Stones Place, a Rolling Stones-themed night club. But no one knew when it opened up, as it didn’t say outside the pub, it also didn’t say on the website. We wanted to meet at 7:00, so that’s what we did. A waitress arrived at the place to set up, she said that they open at 9:00 (nice to finally find that out), so that meant we needed to find another place to go for a while. Fine – we went across the street to the Cadillac Lounge, getting in at 7:00 for beers before they started charging a cover. We had a bunch of drinks there, catching up and nearly pissing ourselves laughing from some of the stories that we told, and then headed over to Stones Place. We got there, paid the admission, then got the last table available in the place, a little perch with barstools that we three could just fit at; every other table in the place had been booked out weeks in advance.  Ooooohhhh!!!! The place was great, decked out in oriental rugs, big ornate sofas, and pictures of the Rolling Stones on the walls.  Wow!  Unfortunately… the music was terrible, and the young crowd was a bit immature for us (young crowd, old music – I don’t get it!?!?). We got out of the place and were super hungry, so we walked… and walked… and walked… until we were finally at Spadina!  That was a long walk!! But the sausages that we got were great. We met some German tourists there, and then we all went our separate ways. See ya next time, Paul and Mike, we have to do it again!

Saturday morning I got a call from my parents, “oh, we’re leaving Midland now to come pick you up, we’ll be there in two hours,” as planned. So John and I went out for breakfast, something I rarely get a chance to do, so off we went to eat a nice gigantic North American breakfast. Yum! After that, Oma and Opa and Zen came to meet me, we parked the car near John’s, and took the TTC in to the Royal Ontario Museum, paid our admission to the place, and checked out the new pavilion in front. We wandered through the zones, checking out a Mongol tomb, then also saw a suit of armour, then climbed up a huge staircase that had a massive West Coast totem pole in as we headed up to see the dinosaur bones! That was the whole reason we wanted to go there in the first place. We also saw some extinct ice age creatures, like the giant sloth. After that, we found a kids exploration area where Zen tried on a suit of armour, and then got to try out the whole “dusting for dinosaur bones” thing. We wandered off into the Greek and Roman pavilion, as well as the Egyptian pavilion, and Zen was reeling off the names of the gods and demi-gods portrayed there. It was pretty cool. After that we all went off and took the TTC back to John’s place, I collected my belongings, and we went off to Long & McQuade music shop, where I collected my brand new Gibson SG! Love that “new guitar smell” emanating from it. We climbed in the car and headed back to Midland, passing along Zenway Boulevard, past ZZEN Corporation, through Barrie, up the country roads, past Midland International Airport, past the Midland ski hill, and off to Oma and Opa’s home for some nice sleep.

Sunday was the day for our big sail, so we went off to the cruising club in the morning, loaded up the boat, jumped in, and off we went. Yee-haw! There wasn’t much wind, so we sailed for a while, used the motor for a while, and then sailed for another while. Zen became the captain of the boat, taking the wheel for most of the cruise over. That was so cool! We got to Beausoleil Island, where we dropped anchor, then got into the motorised dinghy and went for a little spin around the place. Dad wanted to show us a YMCA Camp, but there wasn’t anything to see, just shoreline and a sunken canoe. We saw lots of Canada geese, some cormorant, and fish in the water. The dinghy was leaking, so we got out at one point not far where there was a beach with people on it and tipped it up so that it could drain. After that, Zen and I rolled up our pant cuffs and walked along the beach for a while. It was so beautiful and peaceful. We saw a whole bunch of Inuksuk stone figures that people had built up on the beach. I taught Zen about the Canadian shield, which is the Earth’s greatest exposed area of Archaen rock (eight million square kilometers of it) and is the first part of North America to stand above the water, and we were standing at the southern edge of it, where solid rock had been scraped nearly flat by icebergs, which deposited gigantic boulders on top of the solid rock that is over 1.2 billion years old. We wandered along the beach to near where Oma and Opa’s boat was, then Opa came out and fetched us in the dinghy, and we sailed back to Midland, also motoring part of the way. It was a long day, but exhausting too. When we go to port, we helped dad with a bunch of chores, even hoisting him up the mast so that he could do some work up there.

Monday was our last day in Midland, I ran around town doing a bunch of errands in the morning, and in the afternoon the four of us went for a lovely bicycle ride on a bicycle trail that follows an abandoned train track; they’ve removed the rail and the railway ties and there we were. We didn’t see too much wild life, but we saw some birds. The weather was wonderful! We also saw the Martyrs’ Shrine from a distance, and found an old railway trolley. After that, we had a last supper, packed and went to bed. I had a bit of trouble packing my guitar, but it worked out. I was also feeling lousy because I seemed to be coming down with a cold. Oh no!

Tuesday was a short day, but not was short as Wednesday, which was the shortest day of the trip – literally! We got on a plane at 2:00 PM on Tuesday, flew for 12 hours, and when we landed it was 4:00 PM the next day! The ride to the airport was okay – we drove past country homes, Barrie, then along Zenway Boulevard, past ZZEN Corporation, and then to Pearson International Airport. We said our sad goodbyes to Oma and Opa, and then off we went to Japan and Singapore. The flight was okay – I watched 3.5 films (X-Men: First Class, Bridesmaids, The King’s Speech, and half of The Social Network). Then we spent a bit of time in Tokyo hanging out, calling Baa-chan and spotting another Singapore Airlines A380, and later we caught our flight to Singapore. Yay! We saw Naoko at the airport and took a cab back to our home again. Happy!

Thursday we slept in. I was supposed to go to work, but I was coughing and not feeling well, so off to the doctor’s I went and I got two days’ leave. Thank heaven for small comforts. What an odyssey!

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