96 hours in Canada, finally a more productive day. No more moping around in Tru's basement room, I went to Toronto today. Tru had the day off, so we drove to this Chinese mall in Markham. It sounds really dumb, to fly for more than 24 hours to come to Canada, then drive for 2 hours just to go to some place to see Asian faces and buy Asian merchandise. Haha. But anyway it was already a lot more productive. I managed to buy some stuff for my brothers, my students and my parents. Aha! Not bad at all, now that I think of it. Bought some jewellery for myself too, as part of my re-inspired shopping craving. Hehe.

Frankly, this vacation is nothing like the past few holidays I've had with my family. I'm actually more like just a visitor rather than a tourist. I don't visit any tourism spots, I don't buy souvenirs characterized with the Canadian flag or the maple leaf. I actually managed to develop some sort of relationship with the locals here (Tru and Pho-Tru's brother). I think I like this more than anything else.

Tru asked me today if there's anything worth seeing in Singapore, if he should visit and I said no. I didn't think there was anything in Singapore that's really that spectecular, but I guess since he'll be going to teach in Thailand, he'd might as well drop over. Though by then, I would have been in US already. So, when Tru asked if we'd ever meet again, I felt genuinely sad. I think we should. I really like his company and it would be so wasted to just let go of this friendship at the end of this 2 weeks. I would love to see Tru's family again. I've never developed such a strong sense of attachment to the locals for any of my past travelling experiences before. Except in Philippines, where the bellboy was really cute. Haha. Kidding..

I still wish Po Chin is here with me though. I'm still having problems making Tru and Pho understand my Singapore-accented English. They know what I'm talking most of the time, but they (especially Pho) like to tease me about how "choppy" and fast my speech is. =P

Tomorrow is yet another day. Tru has tomorrow off too, but we have no idea what we'll be doing tomorrow. By the way, tomorrow is Canada Day. I hope it'll be exciting. I hope Po Chin will come back to Tru's place by tomorrow, so we can celebrate it together.