Green Lungs

The past few days have been packed with activities. Cui's parents and bro flew over so we had to clear the 6th floor apartment which looked like a disaster zone i.e. carpets caked with dust, soiled toilets, stained stove and cabinets. After toiling in a near vacuum (most apartments here are sealed and aircon-ed),we were thankful to see a respectable house emerge.

It was gorgeous weather so we decided to throw a very Americanish BBQ or what they call, a cookout. The guys rented a car and we drove to a huge complex of hypermarts (WalMart, NoFrills - the quintessential mass market consumer haven) and shopped for groceries. Cui and I love shopping for foodstuff so we went crazy (she shopped for a balanced meal while I supplemented with junk). Our menu consisted of:

• cheesy beef patties


• turkey patties (for the health conscious and beef non-convert)
  
• cheese sausages


• salad (I insisted!)


• skewered prawns


• chicken wings


• chips (Miss Vicky's honey and garlic)


• rosemary and Italian burger buns


• fishcake stuffed with mushrooms

Cui and the guys have been doing this every summer so they're an old hand at it. They bought Sputnik, an adorable sphere grill (named after the first official Russian satellite) with tripod legs. We made 2 trips down Lakeshore Boulevard (pretty name!) to Ashbridge's Park which is beside Lake Ontario.

Canada is home to the Great Lakes and Toronto is by the shores of Lake Ontario (which looks more like a sea to me because of its vastness). I can't help feeling overwhelmed by the thought of actually seeing one of the Great Lakes after plotting them in geography class. Guess I never did imagine I would visit them one day.

On that tepid summer evening, Ashbridge's Park was raining cotton. Millions of cotton fluff swirled, floated and danced across the whole carpark. It reminded me of a snowy winter day. Very surreal. Unlike Singapore's manicured parks, Ashbridge's is charmingly undisturbed by constant pruning so some spots have overgrown grass and large pockets of wild flowers. We wandered along the hilly paths, watched the seagulls bicker and saw the sun set behind the yachts. It was blissful to munch on hot burgers as the cool night air seeps in and wave sparklers when the sky turned dark.

Good food and company marks a fulfilling day.