Road trip day 7: Back to Montreal

The last day of our trip, we passed by some places to take rest and have some fun. At each village we stopped by, I was looking for downtown, and my boyfriend advised me to look for a church. He was right. At the center of every village, there was a church...

It was a really hot day, we were driving through a narrow road and were attracted to a coffee terrace full of people. We stepped in the coffee shop where there already was a small line up. I was falling in love with the warm color decor in this place at first sight. I had a cup of latte as if I filled my tank to go on the road.  

L'Atelier du Voiturier

L'Atelier du Voiturier was a very impressive museum. The owner, Daniel spent fifteen years to make all those exquisite masterpieces after his retirement. We didn't know if we needed to pay for the admission at first, but he said it was free, if we wanted to pay, we could donate money instead. 

After that, he started guiding us and was very kind to explain each section of the story of what those little people were doing. Despite the fact that he was speaking in French, I got a good translator, my boyfriend so I enjoyed going through the past with those cute characters. He even showed us the workshop he owns and I noticed a piece of wood that was being transformed into a horse. Daniel said that making a horse would take three days. What an incredible work. I was truly touched by his passion for his artwork and for making such an spectacular museum. Thanks a lot Daniel!!       

The happiest time was always flying fast. I experienced many things, viewed many breathtaking landscapes, ate good food (sometimes) and met different people in this seven days damn long driving trip. All these things fulfilled my spirit. That is why I travel for.    

Coffee place

La Levée du Jour

344, street Principale, Saint-Vallier, Canada G0R 4J0

Tel: 418-884-2715

Daniel's Museum

L'Atelier du Voiturier

15, rue de la Durantaye, Saint-Michel-de-Bellechasse, Canada G0R 3S0

Tel: 418-884-3644

Adresse 

Road trip day 6: Montmagny

The room was renovated so it looked better than the one I saw on their web.

There is a pool after the bridge.

My first snails in Canada.

Another long driving from Fredericton to Montmagny. It also meant I'm going back from bilingual province to French only province. I think I'm gonna miss those cities I've visited. We didn't have enough time to visit that day because we knew that we had to drive six hours to our hotel. I can only remember I hit some worms with my windscreen, saw many animals dead body on the road side and noticed many drivers didn't use the turn signal when they changed line, which really pissed me off. How did they get their driver's licence!?

Despite arriving at our hotel a bit earlier than we had planned, we didn't feel like to walk around the town. We were just too lazy to go out, and instead preferred to enjoy the facilities of the hotel such as the pool and the sauna. I even learned to swim! After that I looked in the guide book of Montmagny to find a good restaurant where to have dinner, just to find out that one of the best in town was in our hotel.

The food in the hotel was amazing. I've died for having snails since I arrived in Montreal. When I discovered they had snails on the menu, I got extremely excited. Not only this, the other food I ordered was delicious as well. Plus, the service made me feel comfortable. For all those reasons, my boyfriend and I decided to have breakfast in the hotel the day after. Overall, I got recovered from tiredness. Thanks to my boyfriend for making a such brilliant choice.

If you are interested in staying in this hotel, I suggest you to book the room near the pool which has a better view and is more convenient to go to other places in the hotel.


Hôtel L'Oiselière
105 Poirier road Montmagny, Quebec G5V 3T4
Tel: 418-248-1640

Road trip day 5 II: Fredericton

We had dinner at the palate in Fredericton. The restaurant was quite wide and each table had a proper distance from others. I ordered a risotto with some scallops and a lobster tail on the top. The lobster was much tasty and tenderer than the one I had in St-John (place check Road trip day 2: Saint-John), not to mention the price. Even though I bit a small piece of the shell from the risotto, the waitress handled very well, thus I had no complain.   

After dinner, we went to see an outdoor summer concert at Officers' Square. There was a place next to the stage where visitors could borrow a chair without paying money by pawning a personal identity card. Despite the fact that I wanted to enjoy the night life, the weather in Fredericton was so different from morning to evening that I couldn't stand being there too long. Thus, we changed our plan to venture more in the town.

Lighthouse on the Green

The Green

The Palate Restaurant

462 Queen Street, Fredericton, New Bruswick E3B 1B6 

Tel: 506-450-7911

Road trip day 5 I: King's Landing

The sawmill was closed after being destroyed by a storm. Hopefully they will repair it one day.

The groceries were sold for real.

We drove four hours from Prince Edward Island to the Kings Landing historical settlement. The place reproduces a 19th century village with houses, school, church, shops, farms and so on. Each spot had an actor who dressed in a traditional costume and introduced us to the story of the owner of the building and the families who lived there. Unfortunately, we didn't have enough time to listen to each presentation, we were rushed from this point to another and took some quick photos.

The most interesting place for kids must have been the farm. We could see piggies, ducks, horses, a flock of sheep and experience milking a cow, however, I didn't feel like to torture a poor cow, after I saw a cow's nipple become red and swollen.  

Anyway, I was happy to see this cute village which reminded me of a computer game: Dungeon Siege.


See here for more the info on Kings Landing Historical Settlement

Road trip day 4: Prince Edward Island

Art Gallery B&B

We got up from a comfy home stay room in the morning. The breakfast was starting at 8am. Before we stepped in the dining room, I started drooling by the food smell. The hosts had prepared a buffet and encouraged people to get as much food as they could eat. During the breakfast time, we got to know about P.E.I. through the owner's wonderful presentation.

From Google map

We didn't have enough time to visit the entire island, therefore, we decided to drive around the center of the island because I wanted to see "Anne of green gables". In fact, I didn't even know the story about the red hair girl. I just wanted to prove to my ex-roomie Yuki that I've been there (Don't judge me, I'll read the book after going back to Montreal!!).

Driving in this island has never been pleasing. The locals were driving as fast as the truck in the movie "Pet cemetery", which explained the animal corpses I frequently saw on the side of the road. I oftentimes had to slow down to let them pass, and if I didn't, they would stick to my ass the whole way.

The landscape was really fascinating in Prince Edward Island. The fields were like a large green carpet, on the other side was an endless ocean connected with the blue sky. Every scene I saw was more beautiful than the photos I shot, and on top of that, I was often so stunned by the view that I forgot to press the button of my camera. I could understand why my Japanese friends were crazy about this place now.


Art Gallery B&B
120 North Bedeque Summerside Prince Edward Island C1N 4J9
Tel: 902-887-2683

Road trip day 3: St-John to Prince Edward Island

After crossing the border from Quebec to New Brunswick, every road sign was bilingual, which was very visitor friendly. Otherwise, I would have had difficulty in driving in an unfamiliar town. The climate in St-John was cooler than Montreal. It might be because of the sea breeze. My boyfriend and I sauntered up and down before noon and I got tired of putting my jacket on and taking it off, thus I decided to leave and head straight to Prince Edward Island.

=========================St-John to P.E.I============================

Driving from St-John to P.E.I. took three hours and a half. When we drove through the Confederation bridge which is 12.9km long, we were attracted by a colorful village near the end of the bridge. We passed by the village and found the famous ice cream place: COWS. I ordered a chocolate cheese cake ice cream which had a very rich taste, I gave it two thumbs up.

We thought that we had to go back to the tollbooth to pay $44.25, therefore, we drove back there. Somehow the sign showed that we were going back to the beginning of the bridge. Apparently there were no way we could return so we asked the staff in the tollbooth if we could turn back to P.E.I. Anyway, we did a U-turn which was a shame.

We had dinner at Sharky's, though the restaurant looked very retro-chic. The waitress was more efficient and nicer than the one at Grannan's in St-John. The food looked simple but the taste was awesome, in my humble opinion, the potatoes were the best I've ever had.   

{College of Piping}

A nice woman who I met in a souvenir shop strongly advised me to see a show. Luckily we found the spot on our way back to the home stay. The show was starting at 7:30pm. We got there 10 minutes before the show began and we got a special price of $14 (half-price) per person. The show was fantastic. I really like the sound of the bagpipe. I was extremely satisfied with the first day in P.E.I.  

Road trip day 2: Saint-John

{ From Rivière-du-Loup to Saint- John by Google map}

After putting water proof mascara on my eyelashes I did a strong sneeze, and as anyone could imagine the mascara on my upper eyelashes were all printed on my lower eyelid. What a disaster! It took me some time to remove it in the morning. 

Before heading to our next destination, Saint- John, we had a good breakfast at Tim Hortons and went buy some snacks such as Doritos, Kitkat 70% cacao and Gammy bear. I told my boyfriend that if I were starving, I wouldn't have energy to drive, therefore, he had to feed me while I was driving. There were two local girls who were interested in me and kept staring at me. I didn't see many Asian people in this town so apparently my appearance was unusual for them. But I gave them a friendly smile and they smiled back to me which was cute.         

{Saint-John, New Brunswick}

We drove for six hours and arrived in Saint-John. According to the web, Saint-John is the first incorporated city in Canada. The city is very English style. Although we were as tired as yesterday, we wanted to visit the city before dusk. St-John is close to sea so I thought lobsters here would be cheaper than the one I had in Montreal. We found a restaurant and ordered two "lazy lobster", two fried sweet potatoes and a small battle of beer. The sweet potatoes were not as good as I expected because it was red. In my opinion, I think yellow sweet potatoes have the best taste. The lobster was a bit rubbery and I got bored in the end. We still had some remaining (two tails, two head and many legs) so we asked the waitress to pack it. We waited for very long time, the waitress finally came to tell us that her colleague threw our remaining lobsters to the trash can. She told us that if we didn't mind, she would ask the chef to prepare a new lobster for us. We waited another 15 minutes and got two plastic boxes which had only one tail in each.

I knew the restaurant was located in a tourist area. However, I was aghast by the price (see the photo below), when I saw the bill. I have to say that I learned from this time, next time if it shows "market price" on the menu, I will have to make it clear. In fact, I could get a very good French food in Montreal with lower price than those two lobster meals...
 

Road trip day 1: Riviere Du Loup

{The photo in the middle is Saint- Laurent river}

My boyfriend and I had a road trip a couple weeks ago. We wanted to have adventures thus we didn't plan where to go and just decided to go to eastern Canada. The main idea of our trip was to relax and to visit some small towns like in the movie "House of wax"... kidding, more like in "The proposal". Anyhow, our trip was fantastic, except that two unexpected things occurred (will explain to you later).

{the map from Mr. Google }

We borrowed a car from my boyfriend's brother in law and followed the road E20 to the first destination Riviere Du Loup. Besides the sightseeing, we could not do much on the free way. We tried to discover something interesting, such as checking people's car numbers or where these people came from. When we noticed the tank had only half remaining, we went to a gas station to fill it in a small town. To my surprise, the machine in the gas station was an old fashioned one which had no place to insert the credit card, which meant I had to remember the price and pay the bill in the office. It was cute and was what I wanted to see: a small town.

After driving for five hours to our hotel, both of us were exhausted like hell. We didn't even have energy to find a good restaurant, just grabbed some KFC for dinner in the end...

Fantasia 2012

There was a Taiwanese movie "Warriors of the Rainbow: Seediq Bale" which I've been keen on watching  since 2011 when I was still in Canada. Some day, I accidentally found the movie which I wanted to see. There is an international film festival called Fantasia which is taking place from July 19 to August 9. After looking for the info on the movie, I prepared myself hurry scurry and invited my boyfriend to join me.

{ The movie has four hours and a half long. I only paid 9 dollars which was a very good deal:) } 

I didn't expect that many people would be interested in this movie. However, when I arrived to the theater, there was a line up already. Not to mention the day was Sunday and the playing time of the movie was pretty early in the morning. On the other hand, I was happy to see a movie from my country getting so much attention.

{The shot from the theater}

The movie is based on the history of Taiwan when China ceded Taiwan to Japan in 1895. Because of some misunderstanding between Taiwanese natives and a Japanese police officer, a cruel war erupted (Wikipedia-Seediq Bale ). Throughout the movie, I got to know the history of Taiwan when it was dominated by Japan, the culture of Taiwanese natives and was stunned by the fantastic mountain scenes in Taiwan. The movie made me sometimes cry, sometimes laugh, sometimes horrified by the blood and guts. After the movie finished playing, I saw many in the audience stand up and applaud wholeheartedly. My feeling was the same as a foreigner's who had lived abroad for ages and who saw a soccer team from his home country win the World Cup.  

{The pamphlet of the festival} 

For more info : Fantasia film festival 
Click to watch the trailer of the movie: Warriors of the Rainbow: Seediq Bale