Eganville, Ontario is a com­mu­ni­ty about an hour and a half dri­ve west of Ottawa. It was also recent­ly fea­tured in an episode of CBC show, Still Stand­ing (of which we’re huge fans! :D) We were going to Ottawa to vis­it fam­i­ly and to see the Bon­nechere Caves near­by, and then we saw the Still Stand­ing episode so we decid­ed that we would stop in the town to explore.

But first, the Bon­nechere Caves! The fam­i­ly that main­tains the Caves offers dai­ly guid­ed tours in the sum­mer months into Octo­ber, and our tour guide was very friend­ly, knowl­edge­able, and quite ani­mat­ed :) He explained that the net­work of under­ground caves and tun­nels were carved out by the Bon­nechere riv­er. The walls of the cave were imprint­ed by the move­ment of the water.

See the sta­lac­tites near the ceil­ing of the cave?

Just across the road from the Bon­nechere Cave site there was a nice view of the Bon­nechere Riv­er, we stopped for pic­tures :D

We then head­ed to Engine House Cof­fee for lunch, because we saw it on Still Stand­ing :D It is a love­ly place indeed, roasts its beans onsite, stocks an excel­lent selec­tion of organ­ic teas, and has a sun­ny patio with cof­fee plants.

Since it was still ear­ly in the day, and if we drove back to Ottawa to wan­der around town we’d have to pay for park­ing, we thought we’d con­tin­ue explor­ing Eganville. We picked up a brochure at the Caves with infor­ma­tion about the geo-her­itage/­fos­sil hunt­ing trail at the Bon­nechere Muse­um, so we decid­ed to visit.

The friend­ly muse­um staff told us that the muse­um build­ing used to be the com­mu­ni­ty’s post office. It now hous­es a very well orga­nized dis­play of arti­facts from Eganville and area.

Admis­sion to the muse­um includes the geol­o­gy and fos­sil trail. Since Eganville is known as “the Ordovi­cian Fos­sil Cap­i­tal of Cana­da”, the muse­um staff let us know that fos­sils are rel­a­tive­ly easy to find on the trail (and we’re allowed to take one with us per per­son). She gave us a map and some direc­tions, and we set out on some unplanned wilder­ness explor­ing :D

There were signs along the trail direct­ing us to the “fos­sil pit”.

And we found the fos­sil pit! I think this was a hon­ey­comb coral.

We fol­lowed the trail to a cliff area where we could see caves from across the river.

There was also a trench that we could walk down into and look at the lay­ers of sed­i­men­ta­ry rocks.

All in all, we find Eganville to be a love­ly place for a day trip when one is vis­it­ing in the Ottawa area. We quite enjoyed it as city dwellers; it was away from busy urban cen­tres, with a love­ly cafe for a leisure­ly lunch or tea, and it’s got some relaxed (read: grav­el paths, board­walk and stur­dy stair­cas­es) wilder­ness exploring :)

Hope every­one’s hav­ing a good weekend!

Last time I men­tioned that I had to pick up what I made at a work­shop that’s pret­ty far from where I live. So I was look­ing for some­thing else in the neigh­bour­hood at the same time. The Mont­gomery’s Inn muse­um was just one sub­way sta­tion away from the work­shop, so I thought I’d stop by. AND it hap­pened to be a Wednes­day, there’s farmer’s mar­ket going on every Wednes­day until Octo­ber, and the entrance to the muse­um is free dur­ing mar­ket hours! Lucky me :D

The muse­um docent was busy lead­ing anoth­er group when I went in, so anoth­er friend­ly staff gave me a self-guid­ed tour pam­phlet and sug­gest­ed that I walked around on my own. I’ve always had trou­ble with maps and direc­tions… so I found myself pret­ty much just wan­der­ing around in a huge house with no one else in it, which gave me the chance to take as many pic­tures as I want­ed, and to take as much time as I need­ed, wait­ing for the right light­ing and so on.

The one tak­en above is of the din­ing par­lour, viewed behind the door from the kitchen. I’m quite hap­py with it because it actu­al­ly looks like an old pho­to­graph with a fil­ter from the Cam­era+ app on my phone.

The Mont­gomery’s Inn was built about 1830 for Thomas and Mar­garet Mont­gomery, and it served many trav­el­ers, new­ly arrived immi­grants and labour­ers until about 1855. The cou­ple’s descen­dants sold most of the inn’s con­tent after they passed away, so the muse­um is restored with col­lect­ed fur­nish­ing to the peri­od of 1840s-50s. I sup­pose some of the only things in the house that were orig­i­nal to the house would be the bricks around the fireplaces…

… and this sign for the inn and appar­ent­ly the grand­fa­ther clock :)

Tea set, and sewing box by the win­dow in the sit­ting room :D

Rise and shine in the chil­dren’s room.

One of the things that’s very dif­fer­ent from oth­er his­toric house muse­ums I’ve vis­it­ed is that the inn has guest rooms! It looks quite cozy.

If you haven’t noticed already, I par­tic­u­lar­ly like how light comes through the win­dows in his­toric hous­es. Because the hous­es usu­al­ly don’t have arti­fi­cial light in them, and sun­light looks par­tic­u­lar­ly warm on old wood­en floors, hand­made cur­tains and linens, weath­ered furniture.

There were these love­ly hand­writ­ten labels on the bot­tles in the pantry.

And on the staff room’s door :)

Water­ing hole. Not so dif­fer­ent from a bar today, minus the cage I guess.

If you’re ever in the neigh­bour­hood, it’s quite an inter­est­ing place to vis­it! Like I men­tioned before, there’s a farm­ers mar­ket on Wednes­day after­noons until Octo­ber, and it’s got live music, BBQ and food truck, plus of course local pro­duce, baked goods and sweets, and free entry to the muse­um. Then on Sun­day the muse­um’s tea room serves after­noon tea, which I hope to catch one day. And there are lots of oth­er arts and cul­tur­al events too.

Some­times, I won­der why I don’t work in a muse­um. Hmm.

Hope every­one’s hav­ing a won­der­ful week! :D

It was Doors Open Toron­to at the end of May. We try to vis­it one or two build­ing every year. This year we decid­ed to take the long trek to Fool’s Par­adise, the for­mer home of Cana­di­an artist Doris McCarthy, who lived to be 100, and donat­ed her home to be an artist-in-res­i­dence cen­tre after her passing.

Her home was the first one built on this stretch of the road. She designed and draft­ed the blue­print for the house.

As soon as we entered the front door we were greet­ed by this rug, made by McCarthy.

Paper owl guard­ing her desk and all her tools still. “Like she nev­er left,” said the tour guide.

“The Chap­ter Room”, which she built to write her mem­oir. It is the cozi­est room I’ve ever found myself in.

Per­haps a sun­ny read­ing nook.

Her beau­ti­ful chan­de­lier and her beau­ti­ful arc­tic landscape.

The tour guide told us that McCarthy built all the cup­boards in the kitchen by mak­ing card­board mock-ups.

Neigh­bour­hood chil­dren used to skate on this pond in the winter.

And at the edge of the back­yard is the cliff of Scar­bor­ough Bluffs.

There were vis­i­tors picnicking…

And paint­ing :)

After our own pic­nic we explored a near­by park. The dan­de­lions were like glow­ing orbs lin­ing the path.

Look­ing down from the cliff. The water was so blue.

Next time we’ll vis­it the bluffs from below the cliffs so we can see the lay­ers of sediments!

Hope every­one is hav­ing a good weekend!

Well, it’s not offi­cial­ly sum­mer yet, but I think most Cana­di­ans see the Vic­to­ria Day long week­end as the first long week­end of sum­mer, and we’ve actu­al­ly got extra extra nice and warm weath­er this week­end after a rather cold spring, this week­end is such a gift! :D

We did­n’t want to let such nice week­end slip away, so Mike sug­gest­ed tak­ing one of the Dis­cov­ery Walks in Toron­to. We picked the Hum­ber Riv­er, marsh­es and Old Mill walk because it looked like there are a few dif­fer­ent things to see even if we did only half of it (the entire trail involves about 2 hours of walk­ing and it goes in a loop, but I’m not able to walk that long due to chron­ic foot pain >_< so we just did half the loop) and it’s close to pub­lic transit.

Parts of the trail was orig­i­nal­ly a trad­ing trail used by First Nations peo­ples trav­el­ling between Lake Ontario and the Upper Great Lakes.

In case you’re inter­est­ed in tak­ing this trail, we took the Queensway bus from Keele Sta­tion and got off at Queensway and Kingsway South. We then walked north along River­side Dri­ve towards Old Mill, then hopped on the sub­way home from Old Mill station.

We first came across the Hum­ber Marsh­es. We could­n’t quite get down the river­bank but we could look down from a hill. There were peo­ple prac­tic­ing drag­on boat­ing! :D

Then we pret­ty much just walked through a res­i­den­tial area. It was a nice walk through a neigh­bour­hood with real­ly nice hous­es, but I did­n’t take any pictures…

At the north end of the trail we arrived at Eti­enne Brule Park. There was the Old Mill Bridge and peo­ple fishing…

… and geese com­ing back to the north.

It was a nice walk along the river.

Then we stopped in the his­toric Old Mill Inn to look around…

It’s called Old Mill because it is built near the site where the first sawmill in Toron­to was built in the late 1700s. The prop­er­ty was built about 100 years ago, looks like an old tav­ern, but it was first opened as a tea garden :)

Speak­ing of tea, Vic­to­ria Day week­end is the per­fect time to play tea par­ty with my dear child­hood friend :D I’ve been want­i­ng to go to the after­noon tea at Duf­flet Beach for a long time, because it’s one of the more afford­able places in Toron­to and I’ve nev­er had tea ser­vice like this before. Check out our spread!

And the fan­cy table set­ting! I did­n’t expect a table cloth! We each had copi­ous amount of tea. I espe­cial­ly love this sweet tea timer.

Close up of the sweet treats… and I was so glad that the scones were served with clot­ted cream :D

It was a nice expe­ri­ence but my friend sug­gest­ed that next time we could make our own after­noon tea :D Look­ing for­ward to more fun sum­mer adventures!

Hope every­one has a great start to the week!

Long time no see every­body!! :D

Mike, my sis­ter and I went on a trip to Seoul and Hong Kong ear­li­er in the month :D We’re now home and feel­ing dizzy with jet lag, but we had such a good time! Thought I’d share some pic­tures of places we’ve been and loved, in case you’re think­ing about vis­it­ing these cities as well and look­ing for ideas!

We caught the cher­ry blos­soms while in Seoul, the pic­ture above was tak­en at Gyeong­bok­gung Palace, largest of the five palaces in Seoul. The archi­tec­ture at the palace is absolute­ly spec­tac­u­lar. It feels as though every tile, every beam, every brick is thought­ful­ly and mean­ing­ful­ly made and placed.

The palace grounds also has some love­ly ponds. We did­n’t have time to vis­it all 5 palaces, and the ponds were the rea­son why I chose to go to this palace. It’s dif­fi­cult to not get beau­ti­ful pho­tos here.

There were many peo­ple wear­ing han­bok (tra­di­tion­al Kore­an cloth­ing) strolling about :)

We also vis­it­ed the Nam­san­gol Hanok Vil­lage, Hanok mean­ing tra­di­tion­al Kore­an hous­es. The archi­tec­ture of civil­ian hous­es is no less stun­ning than that of the palace. I love the neat, clean, sim­ple aesthetic.

At the Hanok Vil­lage we par­tic­i­pat­ed in a tea cer­e­mo­ny activ­i­ty. We were served tra­di­tion­al Kore­an sweets as well :D They’re made of crispy rice. In the pic­ture the muse­um docent is pour­ing the tea from the teapot to a tea bowl for the tea to cool down a bit, before pour­ing it into the teacups.

We thought we did­n’t have time to vis­it oth­er palaces, because we were only there for 4 days, and palaces are huge! But found out that there is a rel­a­tive­ly small palace in the cen­tre of the city, which we would pass by any­way on our way to oth­er attrac­tions, so we went in. This is the Deok­su­g­ung Palace. It has new­er addi­tions with west­ern influ­ences, like the light fix­ture and wall dec­o­ra­tions in the picture.

It also has a cou­ple of west­ern style build­ings, which I cer­tain­ly did not expect to see in a Kore­an palace.

Speak­ing of archi­tec­ture, we vis­it­ed the Dong­dae­mun Design Plaza, which hous­es some shops and exhi­bi­tions, as well as a muse­um of an exca­va­tion site of a num­ber of dwellings that were built in the 1300s. This space­ship-like build­ing is just incred­i­ble to look at, and to walk around and underneath.

There is this beau­ti­ful stream that runs through the city called the Cheong­gyecheon. It was a creek that got cov­ered by trans­porta­tion infra­struc­ture in the 1950s, and then was uncov­ered and restored as a city green space in the 2000s.

It was love­ly to take a stroll along the stream. A bit of a rest­ing spot from the busy streets on either side above. A lot of local res­i­dents sat on the rocks and ate lunch, hung out.

One of the staff at the hos­tel we stayed at rec­om­mend­ed going to a mar­ket for tra­di­tion­al Kore­an snacks. So we went, but I can’t remem­ber what the mar­ket is called >_<… it looks like it could have been the Gwang­jang Mar­ket. Once stepped into the mar­ket I was at once amazed and over­whelmed, because it reminds me of Spir­it­ed Away with the peo­ple sit­ting at stalls and the light bulbs above head, and because I’m not so great with crowds.

The staff rec­om­mend­ed Kore­an fried pan­cakes, which we got, it was indeed deli­cious :D

And then through rec­om­men­da­tions from a friend we went to the Insadong neigh­bour­hood, where one could find arts and crafts of all kinds, and a kim­chi muse­um! :D There are videos about how dif­fer­ent kinds of kim­chi are made, inter­ac­tive dis­plays where one could expe­ri­ence mak­ing kim­chi Cook­ing Mama style, and very infor­ma­tive dis­plays about the ben­e­fits of kimchi.

In and around Insadong there are also a num­ber of tra­di­tion­al Kore­an tea hous­es. We vis­it­ed one with a beau­ti­ful courtyard.

And got our­selves some green plum tea and shaved ice, with dried per­sim­mons, dried red dates and red beans. We drink the tea with a spoon.

We stayed at a love­ly hos­tel called the Twin Rab­bit. The staff are very friend­ly and help­ful, the room is very clean, the rate is quite rea­son­able, and the break­fast area has a giant arti­fi­cial tree which is super cute. It’s locat­ed in a uni­ver­si­ty neigh­bour­hood with lots of afford­able eater­ies and hip shops and cafes, and some street arts and music too. High­ly rec­om­mend it!

Here I was try­ing to work on the cro­chet project I brought with me under the tree. I’m a bit sad to say that my project is not com­plete by the end of our trip, and I may have to take apart what I’ve done so far because the yarn isn’t work­ing out the way I want… but that’s a dif­fer­ent sto­ry for anoth­er time. Next stop, Hong Kong! Stay tuned for more pho­tos! :D