Autumn Views in Longwoods Conservation Area, Ontario

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Old Photos 3 --- Pea Princess

12/15/2001,  my daughter and I had been in Canada for almost 1 year. In the play, my daughter was the princess, I am the queen, the guy who acted as the king was from Yugoslavia, and the boy was from Bulgaria. The instructor of the play was an English professor who worked at the Dalhousie University. She was also an English tutor in YMCA. YMCA organized this event before Christmas. This was the only play during the event, there were still many other activities. The gym was full of people including new immigrants, friendly people in the society and even reporters from television channels.

After the play, a few friends gave me thumbs up. One of the hosts told me that I was the best one in the play. I was thinking of the lines and what to do next, and I forgot about being nervous. So this is one of the benefits of forgetfulness:) The king was nervous; he looked ok, except when I passed the pea to him, he took it with a trembling hand.:)))

Autumn Colors

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Old Photos 2---In the Halifax Farmer's Market

 

I had been a vendor at this old historic Keith’s Brewery Building downtown Halifax, selling framed hand-made paper cuts and then hand made jewelries for 1.5 years before I had my own store. I enjoyed  being there every Saturday from 6am to 1pm.

There were vendors almost everywhere inside and outside of the building . The farmers, food makers, handicraftmen, and artists were all neighbours. Mostly those hand made commodity, handcrafts, art works were displayed here and there among foods, vegetables, flowers...upstairs and downstairs...after all in the farmer's market they are not  mainstream:). But let me say that without them, this market wouldn't be so attractive. Particularly, there were always a few groups of music players that played at certain places. No matter where you are, you could taste the different flavors of music from different kinds of instruments...there was even a piano sitting in the main hall. I didn't know who put it there. It seemed that different musicians could play it.

When I was in Halifax, I didn't know how good this market was even though I enjoyed selling and walking around there a lot. After I left Halifax, I had visited different farmer's markets in Canada and the US. I'd like to say that no one could match what I saw in Halifax. I felt mostly that was because these markets didn't have that special building and that heavily-artistic atmosphere that showed in the farmer's market in Halifax.

(I took these pics by a small camera randomly. If I were there now, I am sure I would take more pictures, I missed most of them. )

Old photos 1----"it is nearly impossible for you to unite them"

My daughter had often made fun of our big cat, but you know she loves him a lot:). They still see each other on webcam sometimes...I wrote an assay about our cat, it was popular on the biggest Chinese website in North America and was reposted to other website also...too lazy to translate it into English. Maybe someday I will do it when my English writing gets better and better and I feel more comfortable to do so.

In the Sunset

 

 

Tornado passed by, this world is still beautiful...people still sit in this chair watching, reading, talking, kissing, laughing...

Recall of 2003 Hurricane in Halifax After Viewing Goderich Town's Damage by Tornado

The picture is not mine, I got it from internet. I had taken quite a few pics right after the storm, but I don't know where they are now....

At the time, my ex was attending conferences in Hawaii, my daughter and I were at home, I got a call from my ex's friend. When we were talking, I heard some loud noises, I thought they came from people who were doing something outside of our building. later the noises got more frequent, my heart start to tremble, I couldn't concentrate on talking, I couldn't help to say: "oh my, what's wrong, I don't know what is happening outside..." the guy asked me if I were okay, I said: "yes, I am ok." Then we said good bye. The call was from Ottawa, so the guy didn't know why I made a fuss at the time I guess.

It is very dark outside, I couldn't really see what was going on, but I soon realized this was a storm. After a short period of time, rain started to get into our rooms through 2 layers of windows. Suddenly power was cut off, and it came dark everywhere...I start to looking for candles...fortunately I touched some small birthday candles and our lighter. My daughter was in her room at the time, didn't move. In darkness, I tried to talk to her calmly, she was ok too. I told her go to sleep, then she went to bed.

I couldn't sleep, cus our floor had already flooded. I remember that till 5 o'clock in the next morning, all I could do was absorbing the rainwater by mop. I finished using those small candles much earlier. My eyes adapted the dark environment gradually, I could go back and forth to bathroom to pour the rainwater out of that small bucket...

Amazing thing was my daughter had slept very well that night:)

There were no open stores or electricity for cooking for a week. fortunately our fridge was not empty. I am still very proud of that I found a way to cook. We had one and half bottle of 75%-concentrate alcohol at home. I poured it in a small stainless bowl to about 1/3 of the bowl's volume, put a steaming rock around the bowl, and then put cookware on the top. Shakily, I managed to light a fire.Wow,  it had worked well... the food cooked! When I had finished using that alcohol, I replaced it with Chinese cooking wine, it had almost the same effect! My ex was in Hawaii during the entire time. I just told him we had hurricane and no power and I made my own fire to cook ...

I remember that some of the broken trees in my pics were much thicker than those ones. The number of trees
in the Halifax public garden were reduced by a lot after that storm.There were storms during later years, but it seems that I haven't felt anything like I had experienced in 2003 again.

Tornado Made(in Goderich town, ON.)

 

 

 

 

 

From Different Streets