Round trip – Toronto

Overdue post about my trip to Toronto last summer.

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As we were planning to go to Boston with my family, we decided to cancel this year’s round trip to Toronto.  But as I was discussing with my friend, we came up with the idea to do a collaboration shoot in Toronto, so I said why not! I discussed with my mom and she encouraged me to give it a try.  So we decided to go to Toronto for a day or two and I can do my collab as well. I wanted to expand my photography services in Toronto also.  I didn’t want to miss any opportunity.

I contacted few people on Instagram and I was able to organize it and I  had two shoots ready for the both Saturday and Sunday. Even though I was staying for two days only, I wanted to use both days.

The day I reached Toronto I had a shoot with Thanusha and Sinthuja Let’s Collab! -TORONTO EDITION and they were amazing. After a long drive and a long shoot day, we went to my aunt’s house, stayed there a bit.

 

 

In the evening, were supposed to meet up with my friend who lives and my sister wanted to go this cafe called Poop Cafe. So what I did is; I took both my sister and my friend to the cafe, which my friend loved it as well as my sister.

The next day,  I had the chance to shoot with Tia Tia Bhuva – The Cancan lady right after my church, I drove to her place. She was super nice and really down to earth.

 

 

Later on, we had planned to meet up with my cousins for lunch. We went to this Indian Chinese restaurant ( can’t remember the name)  in Scarborough and the food was amazing.

Just before we come back to Montreal. We had a quick tour in the heart of Toronto. Since I had two shoots one after the other one, we didn’t have too much time to visit more places.  We were able to go nearby CN Tower only.

 

 

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These two days were hectic, but huge thanks to my mom who supports me and made this trip worth it.  Even with all the driving and waiting, she didn’t complain about and patiently let me work.  Without her, nothing would be possible.

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Last year’s trip : Toronto and Me

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Magog – A vast lake

As you all must know by know that I love road trips. I either plan trips months ahead or I plan to go somewhere the last minute. When it is last minute, I usually go for a day where I can return home by evening.

This time, I wanted to go somewhere I have never been, whether crossing the Quebec borders or the Canadian or even stay in Quebec.  I wanted to visit a new random place.  So, I opened Google Map and went through the cities and found this place. I’ve heard about it but never went.

Magog was inhabited by the Abenaki and it means ”The Lake” in their language.  Magog is actually located in the province of Quebec about 120km east of Montreal. has a nice beach with nice views ( as you can see on the pictures above).  It is actually aligned with the Lake Memphremagog which means ” vast lake”

It was a beautiful place to visit. As we decided to do a picnic kind of a trip – no shopping- only sight-seeing.

As we were eating, we were looking for something to do and we saw a train with passengers, but it was a tourist train, which goes around the lake and the region of Memphremagog. A while after, I found that they had a different kind boat cruise and what struck me was this ship. The tour was about 2 hours as well. It is called L’Escapades Memphremagog. 

It was fun and we enjoyed so much the rides. I would recommend this place to visit and has a lot of fun activities to do, such as fishing, boat rides, beach, cycling, train tours and much more. And it is all in one place. You might need more than a day to do all these activities at Magog.

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Until my next road trip…. ENJOY!

Crossing the borders

Most of the time when I go on road trips there is always always a story to it.  A week ago my family and I went to the States to do some grocery shopping and other errands. We drove 100km to Plattsburgh, New York, in two cars. From Plattsburgh, we decided to drove to  Burlington, Vermont which is 55km.

So at Plattsburgh, we bought stuff for the house and some other junk food for our tummies. Since my mom likes plants, she saw plants at the store and she like we should get it, it is so cheap even though she was not ready to buy. Since it was only  5$(CAD), we end up buying it.

We left Plattsburgh and drove to Burlington where we had to take a car ferry in order to cross the Lake Champlain between New York and Vermont. It was the first time I had experienced this kind of ferry.

Around 7 pm we decide to come back home. Usually, when I cross the Us-Canadian border, I speak French with the officers to facilitate the procedure (poutine! all the way). There was a public notice saying that we should declare any kind of plants or anything has to be declared. So I told the officers about the plant that we bought ( worse thing to do ) they kept our three passports (mom’s sister’s and mine) and told us to park the car and go to the office. That’s when my mom starts overreacting – I should not have bought the plant! we are wasting our time for 5$. She was like tell them to keep the plant; we don’t want it; we will just leave and blah blah. It was only 5$! 

In the office, they were doing an investigation on the plant, meanwhile, they gave back our passport.Thirty long minutes later, the officer told us that we can’t bring the plant in Canada and we had to dump it at the other side (USA). I was like are you kidding me; we had to drove back to the other side, show us our passports again and dump the plant and come back to Canada. We spent almost one hour at the borders back and forth just because of the 5$ plant. Surprisingly, the American officer was very nice and friendly with us and he was crying (joking) with us for the poor plant.

Out all the time I went to the States, this is the first time I had to spend more than 10 minutes for crossing the border. We end up just laughing about the plant and we were like the American officer was crying over the plant bought in his country and that he was sad that we were dumping the plant.

Moral of the story: NEVER BUY PLANTS ACROSS THE BORDER

Toronto and Me

I went to Toronto more than hundred time in my life. We would go to visit families or bring our family who had visited us to Toronto. It is always exciting to visit the industrial city. It is in fact like travelling to another country, since Canada is big enough to feel like different part of Canada is like is a different country. Last Summer in 2016, I visited the beautiful city once again. But this time it was different from my previous visits. And it was once again another trip to remember.

My mom and I had planned to drive to Toronto just for the love of road trips, we didn’t have anything, in particular, to do or attend. We just wanted to go somewhere and come back home a few days later. As we usually travel to the States, since we didn’t get the chance to go. We decided to go to Toronto and we had visited few places that we didn’t go on our previous trip. Here are some of the many pictures from our trip last summer.

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Floral Highlight: Canadian Flag located on the 401 hill -Belleville, Ontario, Canada

Absolute Wolrd: A Residential condominiums twin tower skyscraper complex located in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada

8Gooderham Building: historical landmark In Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Located at 49 Wellington St.East. Built in 1892.

The Big Apple, Colborne, Ontario, Canada. Roadside attraction including a restaurant and a bakery.

Thousand Island, Ontario, Canada

St-Lawrence Public Market: Old District, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

One country! two months! Twenty-five cities!

Most of you know very well that I travel once a year to Sri Lanka. More often, I don’t stay more than four weeks as I have to come to work and, of course; pay back all my bills and save for my next trip. But this time, I stayed for two months. Can you believe ?? TWO WHOLE MONTHS !!! Thanks to my super work and my super nice bosses who let me go for TWO MONTHS. I was able to travel and travel all over the country and of course, I spent a lot of money.  Every time I visit my home country, I always try to discover at least one new city and place to add in my Sri Lankan map. ( travel map coming soon)  But, this summer was a tiring and hectic trip. No complaints! I loved it. As I was planning my trip to Sri Lanka in the beginning of summer 2016 I didn’t imagine that it would be a trip to remember forever.

               I was able to visit few cities and villages in the beautiful Island of Asia.  Even though Colombo is where I stay during my vacations,  I was born in Kurumbaciddy, a small village  12km away from Jaffna Town in the Northern Province of the Island. if I would have to pick my most favorite town, it would be without hesitation Nuwara Eliya, obviously right after JAFFNA. Nuwara Eliya is known for its cold mountain climate and of course for the tea estate and tea factory, which Sri Lanka is famous for. I was able to visit this small town three times, the first time was in 2013, and each time I stayed two days. there are many activities including the famous World’s End. Even though I am a lazy person, I loved walking for 12 km for the second time. You can read my famous story ”When we decided to visit the Plains”.

During my stay in Sri Lanka, I didn’t initially plan all these trips. Even though we were tired and wanted to rest, we always ended up planning new trips. I didn’t want to miss the chance to go on road trip and moreover, it was on my bucket list to do the tour of Sri Lanka. I almost covered the Island, especially the Northen and the Central part is covered.  I still have few cities to discover in the Southern part of the country to officially declare the tour as COMPLETED.

I had the chance to visit twenty-five cities in two months. YES! TWENTY-FIVE!. It sounds so crazy BUT YEAAAH!!!! TWENTY-FIVE!. Here is the list of the cities I visited:

Here is the list of the cities I visited in 60 days in no particular order.

Colombo,  Jaffna, Kilinochi,Vavuniya, Sangupiddy (Bridge), Chavakacheri, Mulathivu, Trinco, Anuradhapura, Nuwara Eliya, Katharagama, Sigiriya, Dambulla, Batticaloa, Kandy, Madu, Puttalam, Ramboda, Kalathura,Ninathivu, Badulla, Tellipalai, Karavedi, Kankesanthurai

It was a great experience for me as I was able to visit all these places within two months. And I was able to enjoy this road trip so much. I was and I will be never tired of road trips as I am planning more trips like this in the future, including a trip to Europe. Stay Tuned. I will be updating my experiences about my trips in my blog.

I hope you enjoyed reading my post! Do not hesitate to leave your feedback and suggestions! 

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When we decided to visit the Plains

 Sri Lanka is a beautiful island and it is a well-known country among the tourists. The country welcomes more than 1.4 million tourists since 2014, including me.I have been visiting Sri Lanka for the third time since 2012, it is 20 years since I left the country. In fact, I was one-year-old, I don’t remember anything of the places. I always considered myself as a tourist.

From the very first day of my trip, I fell in love with.  It was a different experience. It was beautiful, I love the weather,  the life, the atmosphere, the transport, I loved everything, except one thing… MOSQUITOS. I loved traveling trough different places and cities. I discovered many things, totally different from where I live for more than 20 years. I met new people, it was a unique experience. I realized how much I loved to travel; long hours flights, long drives, jet lags, meeting new people, wasn’t issues for me, in fact, I loved.

My goal is to visit all the main cities in Sri Lanka. The Island has the most beautiful places to visit. As far as I know, Sri Lanka is one of the top tourist destination for the westerns. Luckily, I managed to visit almost 10 cities in Sri Lanka.  One of them is Nuwara Eliya, located in the Central Province of the Island. It is one of the main tourist destination city in Sri Lanka. The weather is chill, I say chill because ”cold ” is not the correct word to describe it. As a Canadian, nothing is cold like Canadian winter.

We stayed in Midky Hotel. It is located on Kandy Road. The hotel provides all the facility to their guests. It was a pleasant stay and it is not far from the town and market. We went to Mackwood Tea Estate and we had a nice cup of their tea. As you know Nuwara Eliya is known for their tea factory and estate.  We also visited Ambewela Farm where they make fresh milk, cheese, and yogurt.

My all time favorite place is Horton Plains, where you have to walk 12 km. It was a funny experience. We decided to go to the Plains to see the World’s End. What we imagined is totally different from what we did. I thought it is a place out of nowhere, upon the mountain, as we will just park the car close by and go and come back. But what we discovered was nothing like that. We drove almost 25 minutes and the road was very scary since we were driving on hills. We finally reached the destination. It was unique, we discovered that we had to walk 12 km, and we came at the wrong time, whereas everyone was done with their tour. We still went for it, and we were the only ones to go at that time. I was tired already, it was very hot too and we didn’t even bring water bottles, great. We did walk 12 km, but it was not normal walking. We experienced mountains to climb, rocky path, mud and all kind of things. But it was amazing. I will return again the next time I visit Nuwara Eliya.

As I am writing this, I am planning my next trip. I never thought I will fall in love with this beautiful paradise island so much, maybe I will move and settle down in the best country in the world.

Stay tuned.  Another post about Sri Lanka on its way.

 

New York and I

New York City, found in 1625, holding a strong history almost 400 years, is a dream destination. We have to visit at least once in our lifetime.However, I am very lucky, I had the chance to visit it twice. As it concern, one day is not enough to visit this beautiful city. I am looking forward to going back one more time. It is well known for its diversity of culture. It is actually the hometown for anyone around the world. I had the chance to visit twice in 2013 and 2015 and every time I went to different places. And it never ceases to impress me.

The first time I visited the city, I went to the Liberty Statue Park. The Statue was gifted by France to the United States of America, symbolizing the freedom of the country.

These pictures were taken the second time I visited New York. I went with my family. We went on a tour bus. I had the chance to visit a lot of places. It was one of the best trips. Even though I’ve visited many cities in the states, New York City is not comparable to any cities, it has its own charm and beauty.

This picture of the City (above) was taken on a moving Tour Bus from Brooklyn Bridge. It was hard to take it because I had to be very quick since the bus was moving. I took almost ten shots, but I like the way it came out.  One of my favorite photo. Even though it was quick, I liked it. As you can see, one side of the photo is blurry. Since I didn’t have a lot of time to take it, I am not bothered much.

I would like to go again and discover new places. Stay tuned.