Snow Snow Snow...

Its in the news. Nova Scotia's finally witness its first snow fall of the season 1st hand today and that made it into local news already

See CBC's, Wintry weather hits Nova Scotia


or ChronicleHerald's N.S. gets blast of wintry weather

Just Finished Demo

Well, its been a tough week. Finally we've delivered the demo and presented it. There's a sudden relief and a sense of freedom (at least for now). Hopefully this weekend there won't be any rain, cause we got tickets to Nova Scotia Sea Food Festival. Looking forward to sinking my teeth into some good seafood. Mmmm Mmmm Mmmmm.... Atlantic Lobster, Snow Crab, Oyster, Haddock, Scallops and John Dorry, etc and what else there is that we haven't eaten yet. hehehe.... (laughing out loud)...

Seafood Festival

Its been awfully quiet lately, partly because we've been busy with our lab reading. As for me, I've been updating the look and feel of the blog. However there's a short period where the Google Analytics javascript code didn't work -- in plain English, I wasn't able to track my visitors for about 2 days due to this problem. After tweaking and debugging the code, I believe I got it fix. How do I know :)

Well you guys of course! I was able to see the usual people coming in to visit our page and see our progress. Do leave a comment or two from time to time. If need to, create a dummy account but personally email us to let us know who you are.

On another note, we just bought 2 tickets to attend the Nova Scotia Seafood Festival which will be held next weekend just round the corner near our place.



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It cost CAD 8 per ticket but we get to go in and sample the food there at discounted prices. It would be an interesting and gastronomic experience (we hope). Definitely something we look forward to, to learn more about the local food here and probably get an idea or two on how to cook some of the stuffs available. We'll bring along our camera and probably do some recording or two to be posted here. Meanwhile, hope you guys stay clear of the outside - heard that Malaysia is experiencing a bad spell of haze again (especially Cheras). Drink lots and lots of water and safe water too - (there's a likelihood that there won't be much going around very soon)....

Election Fevah...!

While Malaysia has been seeing a streak of by-elections, over here in Nova Scotia another election just took place. Appearently the provincial government of the Positive Conservative (PC) Party (which is a little like BN back home) has lost the vote of the majority in the provincial assembly and therefore the election had to take place a year earlier than expected.

Come election day which just ended today, results were an outstanding vote for NDP (National Democratic Party) government. Its the first time ever that they have won the provincial government in Nova Scotia, which has always been a fight between PCs and Liberal Party.

Its interesting also to see that over here in Canada there's 3 strong contenders (parties) in both the federal and provincial level - that are the PCs (currently the ruling federal government headed by Stephen Harper), the Liberals and the slightly newer NDP (lead opposition at Federal level). Unlike back home its just the BN and PR. Even in the US, there's just 2 choices, its either the Republicans or the Democrats. Here, Canadians are spoilt for choice - 3 parties and sometimes even 4 (there's a new one which is still making baby steps and its called the Green Party).

The NDP won with a resounding 31 seats over their opposition Liberals and the PCs who each garnered 11 and 10 respectively. Even with both parties combined to go against NDP, they won't be able to do much with only a total of 21 seats compared with the NDP who has the majority of 31.

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/nsvotes2009/story/2009/06/09/nsvotes-main.html

Trivia On Halifax 1

Trivia,

Did you know that Halifax is a sister city of Hakodate, Japan and Norfolk, Virginia.


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Of the 2, the reason why Hakodate choose to be a twin city with Halifax is because they too have a star shaped fort right in the middle of the city. Halifax has one that is called Fort George and is located at called Citadel Hill. Where as, Hakodate's is called Goryōkaku Tower.



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source -- http://www.smu.ca/och/area_hfx.html

MSI Health Card

Ye ha... Finally, something off our minds... We can now heave a sigh of relief because we just received our health cards from the provincial government's health department.

About Nova Scotia & Halifax In General

So let's talk about this place called Nova Scotia. This place that we have recently made our home. Where is this godforsaken place anyway. 

Well firstly its in North America and in the land of maple leaf - Canada! It is actually one of the provinces in Canada. And it is also a peninsular just like home; as in Peninsular Malaysia of course. Only thing is, its not as big as home in terms of land mass. Probably would be somewhere in btw the sizes of Pahang and Sabah.

But the difference is, is that it is never more than 67 km away from the ocean. Probably the map below could give the idea why is that so.

It is also the 2nd smallest province in Canada. The smallest being, PEI (Prince Edward Island). And also, it and the other 3 more provinces nearby (New Brunswick, PEI, and Newfoundland) are fondly know either as the Atlantic / Maritime provinces / states. Why? That's because of their close proximity to the Atlantic Ocean compared to the other provinces. Nova Scotia itself is a latin word which literally stands for New Scotland. History aside, and for the sake of knowing how it came about, those Mat Sallehs who have already called places New England, New France, New Jersey or New Caledonia, whathaveyounot! figured that they haven't name a place after Scotland yet and that the land surrounding NS resembles that of Scotland, so lo-and-behold, that's how the name came about. 

TRIVIA! Did you know that the shape of the province is said to be a resemblance to that of a lobster? Which incidentally is also one of the states major produce.

The capital of Nova Scotia is Halifax. The downtown area of Halifax which is its heart and soul is by itself is also like a peninsular out of the peninsular province (see image below).

The population size of Halifax is roughly about 340,000 but combined with that of Darmouth (which is the other township nearby it would surpass 400,000 slightly). However, the NS government has somehow decided to merge the districts surrounding Halifax and Darmouth into a Regional Municipality and name it Halifax Metro.

Dispite its smaller size compared to other major cities in Canada like Toronto or Vancouver, it is the largest city amongst the other cities in the Atlantic provinces. The people of Halifax are called Haligonians. The city also boast the largest naval base in Canada.

Tourism is one of Nova Scotias biggest industry other than fishing or education. Mostly Canadians or people from the north eastern parts of US would come over to visit during the spring, summer or fall season. It is said that the best time to come is during Fall. Anyway, folks living here, whether they are native or coming as an immigrant for studies or work, couldn't agree more that Halifax is neither too big to be like a metropolis (equivalent to that of Toronto or New York) which would be too fast pace for some people nor is it too small (like Charlottetown of PEI, which is pretty small indeed) for others which would find it too boring then. So its somewhere in between.

Ok then, hope that helps explain about what Nova Scotia and Halifax is all about. You could google it up from time to time to read more. 

The End Of Getting Started?

And so it begin, on the 8th of May 2009, we woke up to a wee bit cloudy morning. Thankfully there wasn't any rain or fog. Breakfast was bread as usual. Our itenary? Well, it was to go and get our SIN numbers. What's that, you say? SIN stands of Social Insurance Numbers. It is a nine-digit number that you need to work in Canada or to have access to government programs and benefits.  

So off we went walking down South St. and then turned to LeMerchant St. and finally into Coburg St to board bus no. 1 which would lead us to "Halifax Shopping Center". 

With all our papers and necessary documents, we arrived at Service Canada office for the purpose of getting our SIN numbers and eventually a SIN card which would be mail to us in a week or so. But we hit a snag as the letters issued by our employer did not use the actual study permit no. and so, we had to return to get a new set of letters. And that was exactly what we did. Rushing back to campus and getting the new letters then back again to the bus and off to the service Canada office. With all that, we successfully got our SIN numbers and luckily we asked the officer if our SIN cards would be the replacement to our passports? (As of now, we're carrying the fairly large peice of document everywhere we go, which is rather cumbersome). Lucky for us, we were told that we could apply for a provincial identification card which would serve as a replacement for our passport as long as we're in the province. That way we don't have to carry our passports with us all the time. What a relief that was to hear that. We rushed to "Access Nova Scotia" office which was just down the block to get our IDs done.

And that was it. After an hour of waiting at the provincial service center we had our IDs done....

So, in short, if you're ever going to Canada for studies while working, here's what you can do:

1. Ask your employer to write you a letter stating that you're working for them and what kind of permit you're on (if its a study permit, state so and your study permit no.)
2. Bring that letter along with your passport and other IDs to the nearest, Service Canada office. 
3. Ask about applying for your SIN (Social Insurance Number). Get the form and fill it out. Then wait for the officer to interview you before issuing the number to you.
4. Wait a week or so, to get the actual card. (REMEMBER!!! Your SIN is only for your eyes only. It is PRIVATE and CONFIDENTIAL. Never let anyone get hold of it along with your DOB and other information.)
5. Upon receiving the card, show it to your employer (that's part of the regulation) and inform them that you have receive it.
6. (May not apply to other provinces) but in Nova Scotia, should you be working legally with anyone, you are qualified to get a MSI (Nova Scotia Health Card) card. So call the office up and let them know you want to apply for the card. 
7. Another important thing is to get a provincial identification card so that you don't have to carry your passport along with you all the time (as long as you remain in the same province).

So there you go! That's what you ought to do...

Where are we going to?

I believe both of us have been asked this question many times again and again. Its not that I'm not fond of answering it, its just that I start to realize I'm giving different sets of answers to the same question and its follow-up questions. So this blog entry, kinda serves as a template answer. For now, here's the location as to where we going to go to. I know Canada is big, but, for us, we're headed to Halifax, Nova Scotia!


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If I were to put a dot as to where Nova Scotia is on a map, it would look like this (see below). Yes its at the Eastern most of Canada. Very good for lobsters there...



/*watch this space*/