September 14th, 2011
Today was the big day, my father and I were going to Canada to visit my grandparents for two weeks. I woke with a start, I ate breakfast, took a shower, changed into my clothes, brushed my teeth and combed my hair and hopped in a taxi. The taxi driver was fast and in no time we were at the airport. From the taxi, we saw a huge flash of something in the sky, can you guess what it was? When we were taking off from Changi Airport, I looked out the window and saw a rainbow floating in the sky, and also the full moon, pretty isn’t it? The breakfast was very yummy for an airplane, what I had was a German sausage which was very good and a few mini pancakes. In the airplane, I was watching Kung Fu Panda 2 two times and watched the Simpsons. Around 2:30 PM, when we were close to Japan, I looked out the window and I saw a shadow on the water, at first I thought it was a whale coming up. We watched it for a long time, and it didn’t come up. Papa suggested that it was a submarine, but when we passed over land me and Papa finally realised that it was the shadow of our airplane. A few minutes later we landed safely, we got out of the airplane and called my grandparents in Japan. Shortly after we arrived in Narita International Airport we ate some lunch, I had a meatball sauce pasta while papa had pizza. One hour later, we boarded the plane, when I looked on the right hand side I saw a humongous Singapore Airlines A380. At first I thought it was just a normal plane with one deck, but as I looked closely I saw that it was fat and long and tall and the wings were gigantic and it had two decks. The span of the whole wing must have been longer than the whole plane itself, and I saw two big turbo engines, so I said wow. In the plane, the food wasn’t yummy. I watched Diary of a Wimpy Kid 2 and looked at the map. When we arrived in Canada, it was warm… in the airport, but it was cold outside, only 10 degrees Celsius. In the airport, we saw two dinosaur models made of bones, it was exciting. Papa and I hopped into my grandparents’ car and drove off to my grandparents house, on the way we saw farms and lakes. We finally arrived at my grandparents’ house, they showed me the whole house and the basement, which was cool.
September 15th, 2011
We went shopping today. First we went to West Marine boat shop, then Home Depot, the name says it all, then Walmart. After lunch we went to another shopping centre. After that I went to see the harbour, which was awesome. I saw my grandparents’ sailboat. I got a haircut and went to a bookstore and a toy shop. I saw Lego Star Wars and I saw a Lego Star Wars book. After that I came back home and ate pizza dinner and went to bed.
September 16th, 2011
Today I went to do catch ball, studying and made a nice birthday card for my grandfather. I also went to a Canadian school and met the principal of the school, he gave us a tour. First we went to the library, they had about six computers and even more books. After that we went to the gym, they had floor hockey, which is something like floorball. They also had soccer, baseball, football (American), basketball and netball. We went to several classrooms, each classroom had 20 children and at least two computers. We went to a room called the snoezelen room, children who have autism go to this room where nothing will bother them. There are nine grades in all: kindergarten, the six primary school classes and two grades for secondary. The school has 370 students and 13 classes, there are about 20-25 kids in each class. The school also has one portable outside, but it was not in use. On the day that we were there they had a Terry Fox Run, to raise money for cancer research. After that we went to the Martyrs’ Shrine, which is a big church. This place is big and the church had many beautiful stained glass windows inside. Outside, there was a beautiful garden with a souvenir shop and many statues. On the top of the hill there was a lookout tower, we could see Georgian Bay and the forests and the town.
Now I’m going to tell you the story about Terry Fox and the Terry Fox Run. Terry Fox was a great athlete who had cancer in his leg. The doctor cut off his leg and gave him an artificial leg. Still, he had pity to the other people who had died of cancer and wanted to raise money for cancer research. Cancer is a disease that an be very harmful if it spreads, it can cause death, lung disease, heart disease and several other diseases. So he began a voyage to run from one end of Canada to the other end of Canada. In order to do this he ran 41 kilometres every day, that’s a full marathon. When he was running he had lots of support from politicians, businessmen and athletes and the common people as well. But after 143 days, when he had run 5,373 kilometres, the cancer spread again into his lungs and he was forced to go to the hospital. He died nine months later. Now, the Terry Fox Run is held worldwide and is an international legacy to honour him and to raise money for cancer research. There is also a Terry Fox Run every year in Singapore, and 59 other countries in the world (it could be more).
September 17th, 2011
Today we did catchball, then we went to try fishing. We saw the downtown part of my grandparents’ town, which is called Midland. Then we went to see the bowling alley, but it was small and all of the lanes were full, so we couldn’t book any. We went to a book store and I bought a wook. We watched major league baseball (the Toronto Blue Jays versus the New York Yankees) and went to my grandparents’ friends’ house and had dinner. After a wonderful night we went back home and I slept.
PS – fishing is exciting.
September 18th, 2011
I woke up with a start. Today we took a trip to Toronto (by the way, we are not leaving Canada yet, so don’t ask me a question like that – it was just a one-day visit to Toronto). We drove in my grandparents’ car for approximately two hours and 30 minutes to get to Toronto. In Toronto, we passed by the starting point of Yonge Street, which is the longest road in the whole wide world, it is 1,896 kilometres long. Then we went to Toronto Island, to get there we had to take a ferry boat. On Toronto Island we ate lunch and did catchball, which is my favourite thing to do. We saw lots of Canada geese, whose main hobby is to poo a lot. Then I went to an amusement park, I rode the haunted barrel works, the bumper car, the log flume, the swan ride and the antique car ride. The haunted barrel works was a haunted house, the log flume was one were you ride on a boat that is shaped like a log, and there was a hill and you come rushing down into some water. SPLASH!! The bumper car is used to bump everybody, I think everyone knows what it is. The swan ride is a ride where you go around a part of a lake. The antique car ride was one where you can control the car. An hour later, we came back to he mainland. Oh yeah the lake has an island, Toronto Island, which is in Lake Ontario, one of the five Great Lakes. We said goodbye to papa, because he had some business to attend to in Toronto for five days, and I went home to Midland with my grandparents. Again, we passed by farms and went back home and I slept for 12 hours.
September 19th, 2011
Today was a boring day, it was raining all day and I couldn’t do anything outside, so I did homework, watched TV, did computer games and played Monopoly for the rest of the day with my grandmother.
September 20th, 2011
Today I went to Zeller’s and bought a Lego Star Wars snow trooper battle pack. I came back, did my homework and watched TV until dinnertime. Then I slept.
PS – we did Monopoly again.
September 21st, 2011
Today I went to my grandparents’ sailboat to go sailing with them, although the weather report said it would rain at 4:00 PM. The boat has a cabin, a cockpit, a sail and a mast, it was about 12 metres long. I got onto the boat, but I didn’t go inside the cabin so much because Oma (a name for my grandmother, it is German) told me that if I go in there too long I will get seasick, which is disgusting. We went sailing to one of the nearby islands, the island we were heading to is called Beausoleil, it is a national park. On the way, we saw a building that had a painting on it that was at least 50 metres tall and 50 metres wide. It was a Native American talking to a European. It was very beautiful. We got to the island and dropped an anchor, which was cool. We stayed there for three hours. First we ate lunch, the lunch was bread, cheese, smoked bacon, salami and a sausage, I did fishing a couple of times but had no luck. Then my grandfather launched a dingy. Then Opa (a German name for my grandpa) went real fast, the boat must gone up 45° when Opa used the fastest speed. After that Oma and I went to the dinghy boat and we rowed (oh yeah we had to pull up the motor) to the island and walked along the beach. But it was about to rain, so we only stayed there for three minutes and then we went back fast. A normal trip between Midland town and Beausoleil Island takes about two hours, but we used the motor and went back in 30 minutes. We reached the dock at 4:00 PM exactly, that’s when it started to rain. The weatherman was correct and he predicted the most accurate time too. I came back, had dinner, ate a piece of cake for dessert and went to bed.
September 22nd, 2011
Today we went bicycle riding. We biked for one and a half hour. We ate a picnic lunch while we were there. On our way back, I saw a snake and four chipmunks. I saw a large field. At first, I thought it was a baseball field, but as I got closer I saw that it was a parking lot – silly me! On the way back, I saw two trucks with two trailers behind them. The trucks used the trailers to pull boats out of the water. We asked one of the guys how many horsepower the boats had, as they were both motorboats (horsepower is a measure of a motor’s power). Oma suggested that one of them had 150 horsepower, but I asked the sailor how many horsepower it had, and he said it had 350 horsepower. Lots of power for a boat, isn’t it? Imagine 350 horses pulling a boat like that. We went back home. In the evening I slept.
September 24th, 2011
Today we went to Toronto again, but this time we went to pick up papa. On the way, we stopped at a donut shop and gas station where we got fuel and doughnuts. There, I saw several antique cars, which was cool. I think those cars were probably about 80 years old. I also saw my name on a road, Zenway Boulevard, and also a company called ZZEN. In Toronto I saw a streetcar, I hope I can ride something like that next time I go to Toronto. After we picked up papa we went to the Royal Ontario Museum. We ate a picnic lunch there, then I saw dinosaur bones, especially the Tyrannosaurus rex, but also Greek stuff, Egyptian stuff and Roman stuff. We went to the gift shop and bought a present for mama. We then went back to the car and then went to a guitar shop, picked up my father’s new guitar and went off back to Midland. On the way home, we stopped at a train crossing because there was a long train passing by. It was not a passenger train, it was a cargo train. I don’t know where it came from, but it was very long. It had approximately 100 carriages, maybe more. Long train, huh? I wonder if that kind of train tipped over before. We also saw the Midland airport, it is not an international airport because it is a small town. My parents know one guy who has a plane that he keeps at that airport. He must be really rich.
PS – I can show you the visitor’s guide to the museum.
September 25th, 2011
Today we went sailing again. The weather was very beautiful. This time I steered the big sailboat by myself. It felt cool, I felt like I was the skipper or captain of a big cargo ship. Opa showed me how to sail and how to use the computer map and how to read the status of the ship, like how deep the water is beneath the keel, and other things. We anchored at Beausoleil Island again, I wish we went to a different island like Snake Island or Present Island, which were a bit closer. We ate lunch, then went dinghy riding, we also walked on the beach for 20 minutes since the weather didn’t look so bad. When we were there we saw inuksusk, a traditional native American statue made out of stone that helps people to understand where they are when there are no other landmarks. Inuksuk were used by Inuit (these people are also called Eskimo), a clan of native Americans who live in the Arctic, but it is popular in other parts of Canada now too. We also saw huge smooth rocks, which are part of the Canadian Shield. The Canadian Shield is a giant rock that was there from over 540 million years, and it is 8 million square kilometers large and covers most of Canada. After that we went off home. When we got back to the harbour in Midland, we still had some work to do. Opa had to climb up to the top of the boat’s mast, and we had to help pull him up with ropes. It was very tiring. I don’t want to do that ever again in my entire life. After that we went home and had dinner, we were very tired so we slept early.
September 26th, 2011
Today we went to the bicycle trail again because papa wanted to go there, this time we drove the car for a while and started our biking from another place. This time we didn’t see any snakes or chipmunks, but we saw squirrels. We also saw an old piece of train track, an old train trolley, and an old telegraph wire post.
September 27th and 28th, 2011
Today we drove to the airport again because it was time to return home to Singapore. We said goodbye to Oma and Opa and went to the check-in counter. We got our flight tickets, checked in and we went onto the plane. I did homework and watched Kid vs Kat, a Canadian cartoon, I also watched the movie Rio, which was nice and cool. I couldn’t find any other things to watch. We finally arrived in Tokyo Narita airport after 12 hours, and we saw another A380. Then we boarded the second plane and went to Singapore. In the second plane, I watched X-Men: First Class and slept for four hours. We finally arrived in Singapore and we said hello again to mama, we went home and I slept from 4:00 AM to 9:00 AM.
PS. On this trip we made many jokes. We are going to tell them to you now:
– How many ants can you describe, I bet you don’t even know one type of ant, so I will describe them to you now. You all know what are the basic ants, there is a fire ant, which is poisonous, there are black ants, red ants, army ants, sand ants, and p-ants… PANTS!
– We sang the song “Tonight’s Gonna Be A Good Night”, except we changed the lyrics to “tonight’s gonna be a good night, tonight’s gonna be a good good good good good good good good good good good good good good nighhhhht.”
– In Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Fregley calls pee “juice”, so we said that a toilet is a “juice station”. We also said that poo is “fruit”, so if someone has to do both poo and pee, we say “fruit juice”…
– Papa saw a sign that says “No Wake”. That means that boats shouldn’t use the engine at a high power that will produce waves that will bounce the boats, but papa pronounced “wake” as if were a Japanese word – no wa-ke.
Welcome to Canada/Bienvenue au Canada
This is me entering Canada for the second time in my whole life.
A dinosaur at the airport
YIKES!! This is a dinosaur skeleton with my father, at the airport.
Digging for worms
Looking for worms.
Midland Martyrs' Shrine
Martyrs’ Shrine – beautiful, isn’t it?
Fishing in Midland Bay
Trying fishing.
Trumpeter swan monument with seagull
A trumpeter swan with a seagull on top of it.
Downtown Midland
Downtown Midland.
At the foot of Yonge Street, the longest street in the world.
Hooray for Yonge Street
Toronto skyline, with light plane in the sky.
Beautiful view of the CN Tower and Toronto.
Coming out of the Haunted Barrel Works ride at Centreville on Toronto Island
Scared emotion.
Zooming down the Log Flume ride at Centreville on Toronto Island - SPLASH!!
Say SCREAM!!!
Driving an antique car at Centreville on Toronto Island.
Antique car ride
Driving an bumper car at Centreville on Toronto Island.
Fun on the bumper cars.
Lake Ontario seen from Toronto Island.
Beautiful weather.
Cycle boy.
Nice day, isn’t it?
Canada geese are nice to look at...
The Poop Squad.
...but what they leave behind isn't nice to see!
Someone left something behind.
Canada geese swimming (and pooping) in the lake.
A bigger version of the Poop Squad.
This truck was removing a boat from the water with its trailer.
Are you kidding me? 350 horsepower, dude!
We saw some classic cars too!
Antique cars are awesome.
This ZZEN company is on Zenway Boulevard
Double Zen.
Zen and a TTC streetcar (aka a "red rocket")
The streetcar.
The very interesting Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto
Crazy structure.
Stork and turtle
“Hey, what are you doing on my back?”
Suit of armour at the ROM
War armour from the 1500s.
Tyrannosaurus Rex at the ROM
Oh my GOD!!!
Trying on a suit of medieval armour.
Armour for the Greek warriors.
My papa bought a guitar in Toronto, this is the guitar shop.
Nice guitar!
Opa let me pilot his boat for a long time.
On the trail.
My papa and on on the deck of the boat.
Beausoleil Island, here we come!
A light plane in the sky.
Why, a sea plane!
My opa took me on an exciting dingy ride.
Good job, Opa.
I met an Inuksuk in Canada.
Ancient statues.
These are lichen, they can grow on a rock surfaces and can live up to 4,500 years!.
Lichen growing on a rock.
We helped Opa climb to the top of his mast.
You look like a monkey, Opa.
I went cycling a second time, and discovered this old train line traveller.
Old time train trolley.