Mont Tremblant, Toronto, Niagara Falls

Following the work trip in Montreal, I extended the trip for 4 days for personal travel. I would love to stay longer, but I have already planned for a house warming party for my new house before I knew about the trip.

The original plan was this - I would join my colleague at Mont Tremblant for two days of skiing, followed by two days at Niagara Falls on my own. After I booked my flights, I found that the train schedules couldn't match up. So the plan changed to 2 days of skiing, 1 day at Toronto and 1 day at Niagara Falls - which turned out to be nicer.

Mont Tremblant
First day early in the morning, we had a good McDonalds breakfast, did some grocery shopping at IGA (a Canadian supermarket) and off we went for our first ski lesson at the ski resort!

Summary: I had fun skiing. At the end of the morning I had a bad fall and was immobilized for 1.5 days. Poor me. However I had good home-cooked food every meal.If you are interested to know the details, click here (Warning: Highly verbose).

I regretted not buying a ski pants in Singapore, I checked it out and the price was quite reasonable then. Ended up I had to pay more than half that price to rent a pair. I signed up for a morning lesson and full day ski equipments rental - includes shoes, skis, ski poles, helmet and baggage drop (prepare own gloves!). My colleague did snowboarding instead.

The ski shoes was supposed to be very tight. I took some time to get used to walking in those stiff shoes. I was assigned to a ski instructor, Yvon, with another girl from Philippines. The plan was that he would take us down the bunny slope one at a time, and we should be going down on our own after the fourth round.

I volunteered to go first. The main instructions are these: knees wide like you're sitting on a horse, toes inward for a big V to control speed, shin against the shoes. The instructor would ski backwards in front of me to slow me down or correct my posture. It was FUN!

After the third round, my instructor said I'm ready to go on my own slowly, while he continues to lead the other girl. The first time I went down alone, I was yelling and shouting before I fall. Same for the next and the next and the next rounds. My main problem was that my right knee tends to bend inwards such that I steer towards the left and then I lose control. My instructor said all I needed was just to gain that milage to go down again and again until I'm comfortable. I asked him what else should I improve on, he said don't yell too much, LOL.

It was not very painful to fall on snow, so I was not that scared to go again and again. The difficult part was just getting up - I usually need help. I would have preferred a bit more attention from the instructor. I was getting much less than half the attention because the other girl wasn't ready to go on her own after several rounds. My colleague was luckier as he got one-on-one attention though he paid the same price (in fact less than me because he didn't have to rent the ski pants!).

After the lesson ended, I continued to ski on my own. Sometimes I try to yell at the person in front of me if I know I can't get pass. But on this particular ride, the girl in front didn't move an inch despite me shouting at her from afar. As a result I crashed into her with my ski hooked onto hers and had a bad fall. I sprained my knee and it hurt so much I couldn't come up for a long while. On hindsight, I should have deliberately fell on my own before I crashed, but everything happened too fast for me to use my brain at that moment.

They got the ski patrol for me. In summary, it was pretty useless. He just said I need to go to the doctor, because he is not one. After a while he found that the doctor was not in, so I need to go to a hospital which is 45 min drive away. I felt fine at the moment and my colleague was waiting for me, so I decided to sign the refusal form and take a rest at home. I was actually quite annoyed with that ski patrol's attitude. But it seems like the medics I've met are all like this. The previous time some people called an ambulance when I was in pain in Singapore, the medic also said something like if I don't go hospital, anything happen to me then not their business. What a way to speak to someone in pain!

After the adrenaline faded off, the pain intensity grew. I couldn't ski anymore :'( , could only lie on the bed like a piece of useless human meat.

I spent most of my time in and out a slumber at Mont Tremblant, icing my knee when I'm not asleep.. The salvaging thing was the good food I ate every meal. My colleague cooked really well, thanks to overseas education maybe. Meantime, a lot of friends showed concern and gave me pretty good suggestions, grateful for that. I got a knee brace and a voltaren cream from a drugstore in town and that helped a lot.

I have to ski again some day. I was just getting the hang!

 

My ski instructor

Me after a fall..

The ski resort was quite a beautiful place. The cabin ride up and down the mountain was quite fun. After I was injured, I took it up and down for no reason because I had nothing better to do.

 

Mont Tremblant Ski Resort

View from cabin ride

Toronto (15 dec)
Third day after my fall, I was finally feeling better. At least I could hobble around without the excruciating pain. My colleague kindly drove me to Montreal airport in the early morning, where i flew to Toronto. That's the start of my first solo adventure!

I didn't had a plan, I was googling on the move and planned according to where I was. My route planning geared towards efficient walking, as every step took some effort due to my injury. Prior to my injury at Montreal, my route planning favoured detours to cover more roads and sights. Here's a summary of what I did:

• Visited Lake Ontario, saw some beautiful swans and birds. Nice morning sky too.
• Visited Toronto Chinatown, which claimed to be the biggest Chinatown in North America. 
• Had dim sum at Sky Dragon restaurant. Had porridge and xiaolongbao, but the xiaolongbao was not what i expected. The waitresses speak Cantonese, some spoke basic English. It was cheap though.
• Walked to Eaton Center.
• Cab to Distillery District for Christmas Market.
• Walked back to St Lawrence Market.
• Grocery shopping at metro supermarket.
• Home and KO.

 

 

 

Niagara Falls (16 dec)
My only plan at the Niagara Falls was to look at the Niagara Falls. But I found enough things to do to keep me busy there.

• Went to Toronto Union Station in the early morning, didn't managed to catch breakfast provided at the hostel as it only started at 7.30 am.
• Took a romantic solo train ride towards Niagara Falls.
• Took a cab to hotel. Friendly driver who gave useless advices XD .. He told me I could just go up the big hotels to catch a free view of Niagara Falls, so I don't have to pay for Skylon Tower observatory. I did that, but the view was only visible from the rooms, not along the corridor. 
• Went to look at falls. Purchased a Niagara Wonder Pass which covered the following 3 attractions:
• Niagara Fury: it's not good, not worth going if it's not free. More suitable for kids.
• Journey Behind the Falls: you get to go up close to the falls and behind the falls and see the pouring water. The tunnel was filled with snippets of facts related to Niagara Falls.
• Butterfly Conservatory: it was good! You get to go up close to the butterflies. One of them even climbed up my hands and take a selfie with me, so ticklish! It was better than the Behind the Scene tour I went at the Singapore Zoo Fragile Forest. 
• Took a bus and alighted at the wrong stop. Decided to cross the rainbow bridge to the U.S. side since I'm there.
• Went to the Maid of the Mist observatory deck and snapped photos like nobody's business.
• Walked the rainbow bridge back to Canada, the custom guy had the exact same birthday as me, even the year! 
• Went back home to rest before going out for Tim Houten dinner.
• Went to Skylon Tower for the view. Regretted it. It was way too windy and the view was not good at night. I should have went up earlier in the day.

 

 

 

 

 

New York Revisited!