I’m travelling Ontario based on the Reader’s Digest Canadian Book of the Road. I should also make it clear that I got the 1991 edition for free from a garage giveaway so some of the information isn’t current. I arrived in Pembroke looking for Ontario’s largest totem pole at its Read more…
I had a quick run through Renfrew. There, I said the pun. The downtown area of Renfrew is actually very pretty. The traffic is calm, people are kind, and local businesses stay local. There aren’t too many chain stores apart from fast food restaurants that populate the streets. The blocks Read more…
Gatineau sounds like gâteaux, which is the word for cake in French. My relationship with Gatineau is also very gastronomical. It is right across the river from Ottawa, in Québec, where alcohol is sold inside supermarket and discounts are abundant for quality European foodstuffs. Once a week, I would cross Read more…
Waterloo and Kitchener are the twin cities of Ontario. Even though they have grown to connect into one urban agglomeration, they are still separate cities. The logo of the city is actually the tower of the old town hall that now stands in Waterloo Park. The new City Hall, like Read more…
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…
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’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…
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…
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…
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…