Kitchener, ON

Kitchener and Waterloo form the twin cities of Ontario less than two hours away from Toronto. Kitchener used to be called Berlin because of the German immigrants that settled in the area. A Pioneers Tower was built to commemorate the Mennonite families that settle in 60,000 acres of land in Read more…

Almonte, ON

The Mississipi River on Canada runs through Ontario and nourishes Almonte, Carleton Place, and Innisville in Lanark County. This northern Mississippi shares the same name as the one in America but is not half as mighty. Almonte’s town hall, like the one in Carleton Place, is a heritage building as Read more…

Carleton Place, ON

Carleton Place’s town hall is one if six heritage buildings in the town. It’s named after a place in Scotland, just like the names of the counties surrounding the area. A university in Ottawa shares the same name with the town – Carleton University, though it’s unclear whether the etymology Read more…

Vilhelmina, Sweden

With only about 3000-4000 inhabitants, the town of Vilhelmina is not a major tourist destination. It was named after Queen Frederica Dorothea Wilhelmina of Sweden but despite the honour it only has a Coop and an ICA supermarket. On our way to the Arctic Circle from Stockholm, we stopped to Read more…

Georgetown, Malaysia

In the northern area of West Malaysia and near the Thai border, Georgetown is just 2 hours away from Ipoh and 4 hours from Kuala Lumpur by train to Butterworth. Georgetown has a lot of traditional southeast Asian cuisine such as glass noodles, rice noodles, honey glazed pork jerky, fried Read more…

Providence, RI

The first time I heard of Providence was when I watched snippets of the legal reality TV show “Caught in Providence”, which with a northeastern accent sounds like “Court in Providence”. I thought it was a rather clever use of accents to play on the theme of the show being Read more…

Glengarry County, ON

Glengarry County was settled by people of Scottish heritage and is rich in Scottish culture. The Glengarry Highlands Games are held every year to showcase Scottish competitiveness and attract about 20,000 people a year. It is the largest of its kind among the global Scottish diaspora. There’s enough to do Read more…

Kingston, ON

Originally built to be the capital city of Canada, Kingston’s city hall is grander than it should be because it used to house the national legislature. It’s alignment with a waterfront park and position in the centre of the city gives it an unobstructed view of Lake Ontario to augment Read more…

Montreal, QC

Toronto is big, diverse, and lively, but not much happens north of Toronto…until you reach Montreal in Quebec. French-speaking, metropolitan, and always open for business, Quebec has great food options and poutine stalls serving sodium-filled heart attacks round the clock. Here, red is red, no right turns allowed. Montreal’s metro Read more…