Our friends at Haimen Middle School in China sent us an e-mail with some questions for us to answer. We tried our best to answer them in Mandarin:
Up until this point the students at Haimen haven’t been able to see any video, as China blocks YouTube. We spent a good amount of time today navigating a Chinese version of YouTube called Youku in the hopes that they will be able to watch the video below:
We will be uploading some more of our older videos to Youku so that the students at Haimen (and the surprisingly high number of other visitors we receive from China) can watch what we are up to.
We hung out and talked with the much music gang in Toronto before we left on our trip, and are really excited to keep talking to them throughout our trip!
We know that some of you (our parents) like it when we get on TV, so here is the clip of us on much:
We are also featured on the Much Music blog today, you can heck out the article here
PS. The vote closes at 8:00pm EDT tonight, tell your friends!
Posted on March 29th, 2010 in ontario by alex and luke
We have been in Ottawa for a couple of days and are busy exploring the Nation’s Capital by taking your suggestions of what to see and do. It has only been one week since we embarked on this trip, but so far this unorthodox method of unplanned travel is working out massively in our favour, and our experiences in Ottawa really highlight its success. We have not only experienced the best of the city (a lot of which we NEVER would have found on our own) but we have also met some amazing people – again, who we never would have met if we had stuck to the tourist guides.
Last night our hosts in Kanata (just outside of Ottawa) introduced us to some great people over an amazing dinner at Bombay Masala where we enjoyed a wonderful meal in such an unexpected place (a strip mall in an area of the city we never would have navigated to on our own). The onion bhaji were to die for, the rogan josh was perfection and the service was so welcoming.
After dinner we all went to Pub Italia in Little Italy. We imagine that this place is extremely popular in patio weather, but even on a cold March night it was a wonderful place to bunker down for a pint. Pub Italia is one part Italian tratoria, one part Irish pub and one part medieval kitsch – an absolutely marvelous combination that is creatively expressed through massive murals of half-naked red-haired mustached nights and a beer selection to swoon over.
It has been a week of reminiscing for Luke. His old friend Mark (aka Clipboard) from uni surprised him by showing up at the pub Saturday night and yesterday morning we met Luke’s childhood best friend Joel and his wife Aly over brunch at K S Restaurant. Luke and Joel hadn’t seen each other since Luke was 9 or 10. I think Aly would agree that it was so nice seeing these two old friends reunite. It was great hearing all of their old stories and it made us feel that even if all this experiment did was to foster a handful of reunions it would be well worth it.
Of course we have also managed to hit some of the more traditional tourist attractions in the city, including the obligatory Beaver Tails in Byward Market (we went for the cinnamon flavour – which we recommend), Parliament Hill, the Eternal Flame, and of course, the Cat Sanctuary behind the Parliament buildings. We know there are many museums in this city, and are eager to see a couple of them, which we plan to accomplish before we head out. Our stay in Ottawa has been slightly extended in order to facilitate a visit to the passport office so we will have time to stop in at a museum or two on Tuesday before we head out (typically most museums are closed Mondays, and Ottawa seems to be no exception).
We have had multiple people suggest that we eat at The Works, which looks like an amazing burger place and I’m curious to see how it stacks up next to Craft Burger (my favourite Toronto burger joint). Stay tuned to see how that turns out.
We have had so many great suggestions of things to do in North America from strangers online, but this weekend we had the chance to meet some strangers in real life, and some of their suggestions have been top notch.
Angela in Kanata suggested a great doughnut place in Portland Oregon called Voodoo Doughnuts where eccentric owners Kenneth “Cat Daddy” Pogson and Tres Shannon serve up tasty treats of the holed variety us Canadians know all too well, but with flavours we won’t find at Tim Hortons. Have you ever had a maple doughnut with bacon on top? Or a vanilla glaze with fruit loops pressed into the icing? I haven’t… but I plan to! Voodoo Doughnuts shall be my first stop once I get to Portland!
Soon after learning about the doughnuts from Angela, we met Lance. Lance told us about an even more bizarre culinary delight. And by culinary delight, I really mean horrifying Yukon tradition in the form of a cocktail with a toe in it. Thats right – I said toe. Let me explain. So according to Lance (and the Sourtoe Cocktail Club website) there has been a tradition in Dawson City Yukon since 1973 of drinking a cocktail with a severed human toe in it. Anyone who joins in on the tradition has to follow the rules – that being that the toe MUST touch your lips when you take down your drink. A few eager participants have even accidentally swallowed the toe, and now people from all over donate their severed toes to fill in for the original. Anyone who successfully completes the task of drinking the toe cocktail is awarded a membership card.
As Lance shared the toe cocktail story with the group at the table I noticed him fiddling with his wallet. Sure enough, at the end of the tale, he proudly pulled out his own Sourtoe Cocktail membership card and presented it to us to behold. Mark my words, if find myself in Dawson City on this trip, I WILL become a member of the Sourtoe Cocktail Club.
