Jernie's Hub

I realized it’s been some time now that I haven’t posted. We had been busy during the Christmas holiday and the New Year. Thereafter, I put a hold to my usual sight-seeing trips here in the downtown because of the shopping frenzy I was caught-up with.

Just a recap on my whereabouts…

Christmas Holiday:
The pre-Christmas holiday shopping was really an experience. Apart from the fancy decorations we saw, the huge crowd was really overwhelming. Sale & Promotions are everywhere, “buy now and don’t pay until March 2008 or 2009` (I forgot the exact phrase on the shield). What’s that? I buy now and pay 6 months, 1 year or 2 years later? Wow! That’s just new to me, very interesting. Anyways, we managed to get everything we need on time. It was really fun wrapping gifts, setting-up our Christmas tree and decorating our flat. We didn’t do much though as we will just be leaving our things behind. Well, just enough to have that Christmas spirit.

On December 22, we drove to Niagara-on-the-Lake to spend Christmas there with Herbert’s cousins, nephew and nieces. We had to do the exchange of gifts earlier as the cousins will be spending the Christmas with their families respectively. As soon as we arrived in the afternoon, we were greeted by Herbert’s cousin and the family. With the kids around, we were so happy and enjoyed doing things together.

While Aunt Rosie was busy preparing for dinner, we kept ourselves busy building the Ginger Bread house. I haven’t done it before so I was so curious what it is all about. Then we started with the kids, step by step building it and showcased everyone’s creativity to decorate it. I find it a very important family tradition for Christmas. I would love to do it at home with my kids (in the near future). We took some pictures as the nephew would make a scrapbook with it.





When the house has gone quiet, we decided to pull-out our karaoke (karaoke) microphone. We orchestrated the activity, I was then pretty sure that the kids will love it. So we all had taken our part, it was really fun. Later on, we dress-up for the dinner. I was looking forward to try the roast Turkey. I had always wanted to see how to prepare it and of course taste it.



After dinner, we convened at the living room to sing the carol songs lead by Aunt Rosie, a family moment. While we were singing, I can’t help but remember the Christmas celebration with my family back home especially our Christmas days in the province when we were little. How I treasure those times when things were still simple and yet meaningful and happy. Then we started the exchange gifts. Of course, the children were so ecstatic about it…gifts, gifts and more gifts. After few hours catching-up on things, we called the night-off.



The day after, we were left alone with Aunt Rosie as the cousins head their way back to their homes. We spent the day relaxing and in the evening we attended a Candlelight Concert in town. It was a great Christmas presentation.



The day after, Aunt Rosie and I had to go for ladies’ pampering appointment at the beauty salon in the morning. For the Christmas Eve dinner, we were joined by some friends and neighbors.

On Christmas day, it was still cold and lots of snow. We decided to spend the afternoon to take a walk around the town of Niagara-on-the-Lake. It was a soothing walk after days and days of eating spree: enjoying the sights around, the beautiful and grandiose houses/villas, a wonderful time by the lake, a walk at the golf course and a visit to the historical monument of the town.





The next day, we planned to watch the Penguin Club event (bathing in ice-cold water) by the Niagara Lake but for some reasons we completely forgot about it. In the afternoon, we headed back to downtown as we had dinner invitation to Herbert’s colleague’s home.

We met the family in their beautiful home. Since the family has German and Italian roots we had lots of things to discuss about. They are such a wonderful, warm, hospitable and very successful family.

Welcoming the New Year 2008:

We decided to spend the New Year in downtown to witness the countdown at the Nathan Philips Square. We initially planned to have a Japanese dinner but the restaurant was fully-booked. Another Japanese Restaurant we like is quite a distance from downtown which means we have to drive to and back. Being a New Year’s Eve, Herbert didn’t want to drive. He was not familiar how safe will it be on the road at this time. So, we ended-up preparing dinner at home. Thanks to the internet, I manage to find a special menu. We went down to the St. Lawrence market to find good lobsters. This place is really perfect when it comes to fresh sea foods. We finally found our stuff. To my surprise most of the shops/stalls there were manned by Filipinos. I can’t believe they approached me in Tagalog. It is very heart-warming to meet Kababayans. Fresh vegetables and fruits are also available.



We had everything except wines. Since, the liquor store is just next door we decided to go down in the afternoon. It was crazy when we went down because the store was packed and there was a long queue outside. OMG! As I have mentioned in my previous posts that here in Canada the alcoholic drinks and cigarettes are controlled and run by the government meaning people can buy alcoholic beverages in designated store. Well, we queued for few minutes but it was just too much to stand there so long to get bottles of wines. Since, we still had some, we decided to drop it and manage with what we had. Am I learning gourmet? No, not yet but maybe in the future. With the help of the recipe we manage to pull a very wonderful dinner that evening.

At around 10:30pm we geared-up to walk to the square for the countdown. Though it was cold, snowing and heavy pouring-rain, we enjoyed and treasured that walk very much. We were re-capping how we spent the year, what we have achieved and our future plans. We were just laughing that exactly a year ago, we were in China and now in Canada. What a lifestyle!

As we were closing to the square the streets are full, everybody is heading to the same direction. We could hear the band playing rock music, the place was really full. We couldn’t go closer to the stage, instead we found a nice corner right across the square, and it was a good location to witness the fireworks. It was amazing to watch young people, families and couples who gathered around to welcome the New Year. Not long after, the countdown has started and I set my camera ready to take shots of the fireworks display.




But to my dismay, the firework lasted only about 10 seconds. I was asking "That was it?"Maybe it was just a prelude, so we stood put and waited as the music kept on playing. Then another set of display came on so I positioned myself to take a picture but before I can take one, it was gone and over. Oh No! I can’t believe it. I kept on asking…what? That was it? I had a hard time accepting that it was really over but when I saw the wave of the crowd moving away from the square, it gave me the sign that it was really over, it’s over. We can’t stop talking about it. We had very high expectations in terms of fireworks because in all places we have spent the New Year in had a crazy fireworks display: in Germany, in the Philippines and recently in China. One more strange thing is that, there was no single soul in the downtown who did firecrackers…nothing as in nothing. nichts! So we assume that maybe there is a law here which prohibits such things. Six hours before we were talking to my Parents-in-laws in Germany that they had a crazy firework. One of our neighbors there took the whole football team in the neighborhood and they did this humongous firework. Worried that the streets and our front garden was full of trash, the next morning my Parents-in-law were relieved to see that the young people had done their part of cleaning the place.

Nevertheless, we were also happy to observe how people get-together, walk together hand-in-hand, and even honk their cars shouting and singing happy New Year. It was a nice experience too. As we were walking close to our place, it was so quite-not many people outside.




On New Year’s Day, we greeted our day of taking and making phone calls from families, relatives and friends all over the world. Before lunch, we headed to Brampton to spend the day with a friend of mine and her family from Loreto, Surigao . We had a great day together. (I will write a separate entry regarding meeting friends from Loreto to cover it in detail.)