Winter Has Been Kind

Last Friday’s Metro Halifax news says it all – that this year’s 2010 Winter has been very kind.

Some Shots of Winter

Here are some shots taken when we went out during winter and just after a snowfall.

Funniest one is this – A Chinese acupuncture physician shop named - “I Stop Pain”… 

Unsual Weather Again...

Canadians have a love-hate relationship with the weather. Its something we've been of late able to understand better.

Take for example today's forecast for the next few days.


Imagine this - its right smack in the middle of the winter month (not even at the end yet) and we're going to experience a temperature of 7 degrees Celsius with rainfall warning in effect!

Just 2 days ago it was -10 and -18 with wind chill effect. The weather is weird.

Here's CBC Nova Scotia's meteorologist, Peter Coede showing the viewers the weather outlook for tomorrow. Unlike back in Malaysia, the weather man is a much respected TV personality.


The markings in red are all the areas which are going to experience rain tomorrow.

Of Sleds and Toboggans 2

So we headed out to Canadian Tire today and got ourselves a sleigh.

Look at it, pretty sleek isn't it.





Ain't exactly the Rolls Royce of sleds but it'll do
By the way it is called, Snow Runner.



Sadly, all the snow is melting right now. Weather Canada predicts that the next few days would be pretty warm for this time of the year. A high of 5 and low of 0 C. Pretty unusual for beginning of Winter season. So guess, we'll have to wait awhile before we let Snow Runner for a test drive. But the change of weather is good though as we'll be heading to Cape Breton next week. Hopefully, it'll be good enough for us to go to Cabot's Trail too.

Apart from the sleigh we also got ourselves board games and a deck of cards.

Of Sleds and Toboggans

Ok, I can't wait. Just need to get a sled or two and test out the snow hill behind our apartment complex.



Guess the best place for us to get and where there's alot of choices is from Canadiantire. Here's the directory. Which should we go for?
http://www.canadiantire.ca/AST/browse/5/SportsRec/WinterSports/SledsToboggans.jsp

Just Some Links

So, here you are, finished with projects and exams. Fall can be said unofficially ended (since we've been having snow regularly of late) though technically speaking we're still in the Fall season. You're trapped more or less as going out is bothersome and cumbersome (it takes an extra 10-15 mins to prepare going out, now that the weather is colder). Not to mention, you've effectively increase the mass you carry (including your on body) wherever you go - due to things like your boots, gloves/mittens, winter coat, middle layer coat, long johns for your top, long johns for your legs, and also thermal (thick type) socks. By the time you walk 10 minutes around the mall (like we did today), you'll feel so tired that you want to go back even though you only got there.

Snow may be for those whose not seen it, like it was for us for the past few days, but reality is.... its troublesome....

Going out, should be done ONLY if it is absolutely necessary.

So what do you do then? There's no TV, no going out, and no cable. Apart from cooking food, the Internet is GOD's gift! Thankfully we have high speed Internet at reasonable price here. Its a wonderful technology. With the Internet, you don't need cable or TV. You don't need a phone or a call card.

You've got Skype to make your long distance calls and also do video chat.
For news, there's always CBC or CTV. We try to watch the local news to keep abreast with the local development as much as possible. Unfortunately, just like the locals here, which are bit more relax, local news are only on weekdays. We personally prefer watching CBC Nova Scotia rather than CTV Nova Scotia, because CBC kinda chunks all their new snippets into 1 viewing. I could be wrong but, my guess is, CBC is more like RTM version of Canada whereas CTV's like the TV3. One's government funded whereas the other isn't.

Of course, apart from keeping in touch with friends and families, using social networking sites like Facebook or Twitter, we'd also be googling for new recipes. But I'm a video guy so, I'd rather be watching any youtube cooking shows to learn how to do the stuff. Sometimes, I'll search for some popular video shows like The Naked Chef using torrent search engines and download them. With 5Mb, 1Gb download is nothing....

Of course we do visit theStar Malaysia to keep intouch with news back home. I'll even go to MalaysianInsider since MalaysiaKini is a paid service and I haven't bother to renew mine (got simply too many choices right now, so why should I pay right?).

Well, we hope we'd be able to pull through during the New Year break, but too much of the PC may make us sick, so we bought cards and was hoping to get some board games just incase.

MEC - Mountain Equipment Coop

We went to MEC, and purchased some winter stuff. Interestingly, MEC is a coop, so we had to sign up as a member in order to make any purchase. But it wasn't that bad as we only paid CAD5 for a life membership. With that, you could purchase anything from MEC. Although we'd be eyeing for its clearance stuff as normal price could be pretty pricey, unless of course if we had no other choice.

Here are the things we got, a cap for Mrs. and to protect her ears.
Pretty nice with pony tails - but its an acceptable fashion ;) I've seen one with bunny ears too.


Mittens for both of us (because gloves just won't do). Mittens are warmer. We both had to purchase them from the teens corner as the adult ones were simply too BIG....


And a round turtle neck scarf which you could pull up to cover your mouth and nose too if it gets too cold.


We also got a MEC bag for joining as new members. Pretty neat...