So two weeks ago I headed onto a train from Union station in downtown Toronto to get a ride up north to a random town called Hearst in northern Ontario. What I didn't know was.. basically everything about this job. And that's what I've been loving so far.. you really don't know what to expect here in Hearst while treeplanting :D
Don't really have too much time right now at the library on my day off so I'll just list some things that have been going on so far and hopefully talk about it a bit later.. waking up at 6, working for 10 hours straight on the piece of lang, and sleeping at around 9 has been quite a change. I know it's a good way to get me off my lazy bum during the summer but I feel like it's really testing my limits. The act of planting a tree is reallly not that hard but planting couple hundred trees in a whole day consistently is really the hard part. There are 3 things that we all look out for - 1) Tree has to be deep enough in the ground in good type of soil/sand, 2) Tree has to be straight up and tight enough, 3) All trees have to be within 7 feet (+/- 1 foot) of each other.. All the people here are great and it's been so fun just being out in the nature and take a break from the computer and city life that I've grown so used to. It's been snowing/hailing/raining for the past 4 days and we even got a snow day this week since we wouldn't be able to see the trees covered in snow! On another occasion, my boots got totally burned up in an accident but I'm starting to slowly hit 1300 trees a day, which is pretty decent considering that it's only the second week. Taking 2 hours to come out to the nearest town of Hearst is always a breath of fresh air.. the weekly showers are awesome and sleeping on a real bed cannot be taken for granted any more. The thought of traveling to Russia and Japan later on in the summer keeps me going on through the bitterly cold days and all the little comforts in life mean so much more now. Anyway, off to get a new pair of boots now!
It's been a long time coming. As the 5 years of University life comes to a close this week, I can't help but reminisce on the memories my time here has brought. Good and bad times.. oh, it's all in there. What can I say? I'm just so grateful for being privileged enough to get into my program and even more to have all the support from family and friends to keep me though the ups and downs of the past five years. Going onwards from here, I don't have any immediate plans at the moment but I believe I still need some more time to think about the road ahead. Most likely I'll stay in Canada but I'm open to any opportunities that may pop up.
As for the summer, I'll be up in north Ontario doing tree planting for two months and then off to Europe to meet up with my brother to travel on the trans-Siberian railway across Russia to the eastern side. From there on we'll probably try to go back Hokkaido, Japan, where we both grew up at and then to Hong Kong to see relatives and friends again. Having said that, if anyone's in Japan or HK during the summer, drop me an e-mail! So here we go, I can't wait to start discovering what's in store ahead.
It'll be a year to remember.. it was most certainly a good decision that has opened up my eyes to a lot of things. Maybe I would have learnt these things one way or another in Waterloo - I don't know - but it's good to see how it worked out well during this past year studying and working in Germany. Now that I'm back in Canada, another chapter of the book turns and hopefully it will also be a memorable last year here. Yeah, both parts are important... Memorable.. and LAST. we'll see :)
Metzingen is a shopper's paradise with plenty of outlet shops ranging from Adidas to Hugo Boss shops. I've never been a keen shopper.. and especially not for clothes. It may be quite obvious if one just looks at what I wear most of the time but growing up with one older brother and knowing many family friend's from the church, I've got my fair share of hand-me-down clothing from my brother and clothing also from aunties and uncles. I guess I never really cared that much about what I wore.. except only in special occasions. Now that's changed a bit this year and i've learned to feel good looking good :) That's why last weekend I went to Metzingen with Larbi, who I studied with in KA last semester, and looked around for something nice for once. Ended up with a polo shirt, jeans and a hugo boss dress shirt.. all for 70%-off prices.. not bad I suppose. But, i bet, nothing compared to the actual manufacturing prices of these things.
Das Fest is the biggest free music festival in Germany and it took place last weekend in Karlsruhe! The Beatsteaks and Die Fantastischen Vier (the fantastic four) are two of the most famous bands in Germany and while normal tickets would cost around 70 Euros for each concert, it was all free at Das Fest.. which hyped up the atmosphere even more. As a bunch of us were leaving after the last night, we stopped by a tank station to get some food since it was the only place open at 1 in the morning. Ice cream was the choice so all four of us got them and just hung around outside eating it until Steve was like, "isn't that guy one of The Fantastischen Vier?".. We had no idea but there were some clues like a festival pass and a nice mercedez-benz nearby so we just decided to ask when he came by. It turns out that he was one of the guys in the band so we all just went crazy... then we took a photo with him of course... with the ice cream :)
Just shaved my hair today after keeping it longer than usual for most of the year. Expecting some weird reactions from people soon but hey, from where I come from... it's the norm. haha. But seriously, it's really quite straightforward. It's simple and clean. That's why I keep on leaving it that way.
Only two and a bit more weeks of work left and then it'll be all over. Crazy eh. Well, three more weeks of traveling after that, so I'm not complaining at all! Life seems to be always better when you have something to look forward to.
TILAG#6 - Things I Love About Germany (and Europe!)...
Especially in Germany, the technology that affects most of our day-to-day lives is quite advanced. You can see it at train stations, with all ticket-machines being pretty sophisticated yet easy to use trains arriving punctually. Lots of new top-of-the-line electronic products can be found in media stores. There are also many well-known computer companies in Germany at the moment.
Deciding to study Computer Science and to work in Germany was a really good idea and I'm sure it'll be beneficial to my career in the upcoming future.
On Friday I took a day off from work and flew into Bilbao, Spain to meet up with Moses and Kaisa, a finnish friend from back in Japan. The next three days were seriously one of the my most insane trips ever.. and it also involved some of the most irrational decisions I've ever made! Bilbao was quite fun to walk around with plenty of parks and interesting places to see. The Guggenheim museum was a really weird-looking building but inside there were more than enough exhibits and artworks to make me wonder if there's any limit on people's creativity. Since Bilbao is near the northern coast of Spain, we checked out the beach even though the weather cooled down a bit. I can't imagine how nice it'd be to swim there if the sun was shining... hopefully there'll be a next time. We then went to the bus terminal and took the booked bus trip down to Pamplona with hundreds of people dressed in white and red for the week-long San Fermin Festival (more widely known as the Bull-run festival). Somehow we managed to forget the poles to the tent that I brought along.. so we basically slept outside in the park for both nights just like everyone else :)
The main purpose was of course to participate in the Bull-run, so we woke up at 5 to get ready to run at 8.. but to our dismay, the police basically kicked out half of all the runners from the beginning to the middle because there were just too many people. So the first day we just looked at the run from a balcony.. and that made us even more eager to run on it the next day.
I really like Spain. It's incredibly laid back and the people seem to be really open. And at a festival, it's even more so. The siestas that they have.. late lunch, dinner, and parties are all part of it. The food that were reaaaally good. Since the cities were on the northern coast touching the Atlantic, some of the local dishes included seafood. It was a breather from all the German food I've had recently. I'm not saying German food tastes bad, but a change is sometimes good.
Learning from our mistakes, we waited early at the very beginning of the 800-meter street path until 8am came. With our newspapers in our hands, we sang the San Fermin song and then started running up the street... There's three rockets that go off - first to show the bulls are out, second to say they're all out on the street, and the last to mark the end of the race. To be honest, the fear hadn't really dawned on me before the trip. Right after the second rocket went off, it was totally different. Everyone was running like it was the end of the world and pure adrenaline kicked in. As we knew the bulls were coming, we turned inside at this corner (click for pic) where we knew the bulls would crash onto the outside of the turn because of their sheer weight. Good idea but as there were too many bodies of men and women.. we fell on the ground, tripping many others on the way. It was over in three seconds and it felt so unreal.. we then went into the arena and felt a such a sense of accomplishment. It was a bit too early as minutes later, bulls were let out one at a time into the ring with hundreds of people. The bull charged at anybody in its sight and alas, with the second round, it had to run straight for me. As I stood frozen in my tracks, its head hit my bum and lifted me off the ground a meter away... but amazingly I landed on my feet and ran like crazy to the side of the ring.. oh man, I'm so glad its horn didn't move sideways at the last moment! Most people touch the bulls or try to jump over the bulls to show their courage and all but I really had no choice in this! I'm glad it all worked out and I'd dare say I'd do it again anytime :)
TILAG#5 - Things I Love About Germany (and Europe!)...
Don't know why I forgot this the last couple times but here it is this time.
Festivals. There are so many of them around Europe - whether it's for bull-running, tomato throwing, jazz, beer, or costume carnivals, visiting one of them is a must as the atmosphere is just incredible.
"It's best being a striker. If you miss five then score the winner, you're a hero. The goalkeeper can play a blinder, then let one in; and he's a villain." Ian Rush
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