Trip home last August

August 2006: Visiting home in Canada

So, in August I took my first trip home in nearly a year and a half. It was like a breath of fresh air, being able to see my parents, sisters, grandparents, a few of my old friends again and my old stomping grounds. Since I was to start training for a new teaching job the day after I got back, and more so because I'd made my travel plans before quitting my old job, my trip was only a bit longer than a week and a half. Still, it was nice.

Following a flight (maybe around 12 hours, I forget completely) to Minneapolis, Minnesota, and then transferring to International Falls, Minnesota, I met my parents and one of my sisters at the airport for a two hour ride home. The flight from Minneapolis to International Falls was interesting because I ended up sitting beside my old aikido sensei. It goes to show, just how rural the area where I come from is!

For the most part, I just did a lot of visiting, lying around, and checking out the old house, cabin, lake, and taking a side trip to Kenora, Ontario, with my good friend, Mike. At the end, we drove to Winnipeg, Manitoba, to drop my sister off at her apartment for school, and for my to catch a flight back to Tokyo.

Here are some pictures from the trip:

The Cabin
















This is in front of the family cabin. A good place for a nap!
















Here's my father's giant truck. There definitely aren't many trucks this large in Korea or Japan. That's my grandfather (dad's side) and mum near the car.
















A couple of canoes that we have. I love canoing!!!
















A view of the lake.

















There's dad. My must be thinking about having a beer by the fire. :)
















Ye old shithouse, how I love thee.
















Yes, someone really did paint it green inside. Mum?
















There's Tysanne, the dog, wondering why I still smell like kimchi. She seems to be keeping her distance. Who likes the smell of kimchi anyway, other than Koreans (all Japanese are part Korean anyway, even if they won't admit it to even themselves. ;) )?
















This is from inside the cabin.
















The lakeside porch.
















This is on the point of our property.
















Here's Tysanne, doing some good scouting work. Good work dog, you'll find some Pokemon in that lake yet!!! Gotta catch 'em all!
















A man behind a steering wheel. This is the natural order of things.
















Here's Rhia, Tysanne and mum.
















Some people own their own freakin' airplanes here!
















I like trees.
















I also like sun rays.
















Islands are sweet, too.
















Here's the cabin! That strange metal contraption in the water is called a boat lift. You put the boat on there, crank up the cable, and it lifts the boat out of the water. It saves the boat from banging up against things like nemesing docks and the like.


Kenora

Me and my buddy Mike...


(me and Mike)

...went on a small road trip to Kenora, about an hour and a half from Dryden. He was one of my best friends in Dryden, and my best friend in high school. It was awesome to hang out with him again!
















Somewhere in downtown Kenora. It's a nice town in the summer.
















It's nice. Nice I say!
















The vehicles are so big!
















Some people where I'm from say this isn't a nice town, but they are wrong. Other than the drunken locals lining up in front of the liquor store once a month when their treaty cheques come in (I'm not being racist, it's the truth. Sioux Lookout is even worse), and then running around drunk every Friday and Saturday night, it's a beautiful place.
















Hey, you can even park your plane here and go shopping!
















ROOOOAAAAARRRRRRRRR!!!!!!
















For a town of around 15,000 people in the center of Canada, I was amused by the high ratio of Chinese restaurants (and a shop). I don't even know if four Chinese people live here, but there are four Chinese businesses that I found. Ho-Ho's is a Chinese restaurant chain in northwestern
Ontario. The buffet is okay, I guess. After some beer, it's better than okay.
















I wandered into this Chinese furniture store. It's owned by a guy who's daughter's been teaching ESL in China for a past decade or so (haha, the music on the Naruto soundtrack I'm listening to just made me laugh :D ). She keeps shipping stuff on a container ship, and he puts it in his store and tries to sell it. I wished him good luck. I think he'll need it. It had a lot of cool stuff though...
















I can't say anything about this place, because I've never been here. All I can say is that it can't be all bad, as it's licenced for alcohol!
















After having eaten at Chinese restaurants in Canada, America, South Korea and Japan, and finding them all to be different (well, the Canadian and American ones are the same), I am really curious to go to China and see just what the hell Chinese food really is.
















Kenora is a town with quite a few mural paintings on the buildings. I think they look awesome.
















I wanna be a voyageur!
















I wanna be in the fur trade and shoot people!
















A view of the town from across the water.
















It's Husky the Muskie, and Mike!
















This is a very large root beer.


Mike's House

















Mike bought a house! Yay, Mike!
















It's a sweet basement of hockey goodness.
















Where's the Pronger Ducks jersey?
















Sweet...


My (parent's) House
















I lived here for many years. From 1991-1999, plus a few months here and there.
















Grandma and grandpa and grandma and grandpa...
















The backyard, where the dog does play.

















The back deck, where the mother does sleep.
















Kelsey and dad.
















A small party we had. Beer is so good, beer is so good...

















C'est fin.