Richmond Hill Times Square Summer Carnival

Once a year, Richmond Hill will organize a summer carnival at Times Square.  This is just a small carnival and you can finished seeing everything in about 5-10 minutes.  There are local vendors selling trendy stuff and food vendors selling all sorts of Chinese snacks.  This festival only last from August 26~28.

 This summer carnival is located at the corner of Hwy 7 E. and Leslie St.

 Diana Seafood always  participate in these street festivals.

 That's all the vendors in this carnival, you can finish seeing everything in about 5-10 minutes.

 Stinky tofu (didn't have a chance to get any close shots of the food in this festival...)

 Food doesn't seems appealing though...

 Retail vendor selling goldfish, turtle and other aquatic stuff.

 Cross play.  I heard that they had a competition about cross play costumes earlier in the day.

 This booth is selling honey.

 He has even bought his real bees.

 Another two young girl dressing in costume.

 Here is another one playing goldfish game.

 BBQ lamb and chicken skewer.

 They stage.

 This booth just started grilling the skewers.

 Grilling octopus ball, sausage and stuff.

 Here is a closer shot.

 Another booth selling the same thing.

 It's a hot day and I bet you wearing costumes like this is not easy.

 Freshly made pineapple and watermelon juice.

 This cameraman was doing a video shoot at this booth...

 And I was taking this chance to take a picture as well.

 Of all the goldfish in this tank, there are two lyretail balloon molly that I really want, but too bad it's white in color and I want something different.

 The guy in the red checkered shirt is a local DJ and the guy in the black shirt is an actor from ATV in Hong Kong...

 Here is another shot of the carnival.

 Some sort of Malaysian food that looks delicious...

 I guess this guy is just warming up the wrap.

 This thing is call Murthabak.

 That's the end~~

 Mom saw these tiny apples (??) from an apple tree nearly and I just take some shots of it.

Here is another tiny apple.  PS, don't think we can eat it...

Aug 26 (Friday) - Last Day of Work

After working in this company for 7 years, yesterday was my last day.  My boss is an Italian and he is a very nice guy, I really enjoyed working with him.  Yet, with all downfalls in the company, he wanted me to work between 12pm-8pm, taking full charge of the reception position in addition to the other two positions that I'm already handling, with no wage increase!!  Neh!!  Not gonna accomplish this and I leave!  In return, he needs to get 3 people to do my job: his wife, his brother in law, and a new receptionist to be hired!!

Last working day, I was training his brother in law to do bank reconciliation since he said he wanted more practise.  Just a general account that he was doing (approx. 4 pgs bank statement), takes him 5.5 hours!!  No joke!! And mind you, my company has 3 accounts in total to be reconciled!!  Anyway...what past is past. 

 The wife (which is a nice Italian lady, but hard to train) asked me where I wanna go eat on my last day, I said I'd prefer ordering some sushi/sashimi party trays and eat in the office 'coz the receptionist loves eating Jap food too...  But it turned out the boss brought me out for lunch together with his wife and his brother in law (I hate him!  He absorbs nothing that I've taught him!) at Miyabi, a very nice restaurant located in the plaza at Hwy 7 E./West Beaver Creek Rd.  Operated by Japanese, their food quality was guaranteed!  I had this sashimi bento box.  Which as you can see, only 12 pieces of sashimi served.  It comes with some salad, 3 pieces of California roll, some picked veggie and a soup...

 Here is a closer shot of the sashimi.  Honestly, I was still starved after finished everything here...  Tuna was good, it was fresh and chunky, same for the octopus chunk.  Salmon was sliced too thin, and that hamachi or red snapper piece was thinly sliced too!!  1 piece of surf clam...which unlike the  surf clam served in other AYCE places, this piece of surf clam was soft and tender!!  Mackerel, well it displayed nicely but it didn't taste as good as the one I had in other place.  I was lucky at least I got a chance to snap a shot of the picture!  =)

 My boss said he once told Miyabi to serve him dessert other than green tea ice-cream, so they specially made this egg pudding for him.  He likes it so much and he started to order this dessert everytime he visited this place and Miyabi decided to add this item to their menu.  Well....I've tried this specialty....it's just toooooo sweet!!!  It tasted pretty ordinary to me except the pudding was richer in flavor, but at the same time the syrup was extremely sweet too...  Maybe that's the Italian style?  They like really sweet stuff?!

We spent a good 1.5 hours in the restaurant eating and chatting, and afterwards he drove us all back to the office.  The car here is not his car, this is just a courtesy car (his wife had a car accident and the car is in the body shop).  But what I'm trying to show here is his typical way of parking...yes!!  You see it!!  The car is not align to the parking spot and he parked right in the middle!!  LOL!!  His wife parks just a little better than him that's it, Italian style I guess...  Well, I'm done with this company!!  And I can start my life with a new page!  =)

Mirvish Village, Toronto

You might not know where this 'Mirvish Village' place is but if I say Bathurst / Bloor St., or College / Spadina, I'm sure you will have a clue.  I was having fun with my family and I took some pictures of the streets.  This is like another part of Toronto with different cultures and stuff.  It's nice to escape from the up-town life and come here once in a while to enjoy the street atmosphere and do a little window shopping.  =) 

 Honest Eds, a landmark discount store located at the corner of Bathurst St. and Bloor St.

 I don't even know if I can take pictures here in the store....just give it a try!

 It has all sorts of actor/actresses poster from the 50's and 60's.  Too bad....I recognize none...

 These shopping bags are old too....

 You can get tones of different items from Honest Eds, souvenir is one of them.

 Beans and chick peas, only selling at $.50 per can.  PS, nice hand writings.

 Mom asked me to take a picture of this:  A piece of honeycomb place inside a honey jar.

 Guess what this is!  LOL!  It's the glass ball hang underneath a wind chime.

 Pencils specifically designed for architects...why do their shapes need to be that special?!

 This is some sort of toys for kids.  I've seen it somewhere, it's just I don't know what exactly it is.

 Marbles!

 Gosh, I can't believe marbles have become so fancy nowadays!  They even have different 'themes' and 'series' now.... Eg, insect series, animal series, galaxy series...etc!

 Tooth paste for only $.99 each....and they have a whole skid with different brands!

 Pigeons having lunch at a street corner.  =)

 You can see all sorts of weird stuff in downtown Toronto.  Bicycle like this one is one of them.

 These houses here in the downtown area are over 50 years old... Never think these houses are cheap, each one might cost over half a million dollar!!

 Greens cover the whole wall of a house...  They all died during the winter time and grow again next year.

 'Bathurst Street Theatre', it looks more like a church to me...

 This building looks even more old...70 years perhaps?!

 Green apples!!  I saw it at the backyard of a local resident.  You can't pick any unless you have a ladder... =(

 See....Toronto has all kinds of weird things...who would stick a feather in a broken tree?!

 Tomatoes??  No!!  Cherries?!  No!!  ...I don't even know what this is....an ugly plants got cute fruits like this and I bet you, it's not eatable!

 Fresh Chinese bottle gourds!!  I wonder if there is any special technique the local farmer used to plant the gourd in this shape!

 You don't find these in local supermarkets....you may find several sell by local street vendors, but beware, these local street vendors are rude sometimes!  You can take picture of their goods only if you are buying from them!!  This granny was yelling at me when I took picture of her gourds...

Nimbus clouds coming from the north out of a sudden....not looking good....

In less than 5 minutes, it was all dark....gosh...

 ...and it started to pour for 15 minutes...

 Life returned to normal after the heavy rain.  These are peppers, it's almost Fall now and I guess it's the season for peppers, but I don't know if these are eatable or not...

 This is another type of pepper, looks like a tomato to me.  =)

 Here is a closer shot of the peppers.  It's 'pointing the sky', so I will assume it's pretty spicy at some points.

 I like plants with 'curves', so I took a picture of this...  =)

 ...I don't know what this is...it looks like a plant to me more than something that's eatable...

 This looks like a bunch of grass to me, but the granny said this is pumpkin leaf & flower.  Just cut these into small pieces and stir fry with anything, it should taste good she said...

A look at the local vendors, I took the shot while Mom was busy chatting with one of them.

 Jumbo humongous fuzzy melon!!  You won't believe how big these melons are 'til you see them!!  I had a chance to took this pic 'coz Mom was chatting with the seller!  LOL!

 Mom was driving fast and I figured it will be neat if I can snap shot Yonge St...   It turned out everything was fuzzy except for that silver car in the middle!  Interesting!

 On my way home going on DVP...  Traffic jam...that's not a surprise...

After the rain, the sky turns out blue with nice altostratus clouds.