Birthday Travels

Okay, here's the post I was going to blog like, half a week ago or something like that. So, I've been spending quite a bit of money on my friends' birthdays thus far this semester. Yes, it's all been fun, but it still hurts to see the numbers in my account go down that quickly (or more readily, the speed at which my wallet empties itself). So, here are the two places we went to.

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RZ-F's birthday
For her birthday we (about 8 of us) decided to go to Canada for a day on a Saturday. We first went to some place in Windsor, Ontario, for dim sum. It's like this "famous" dim sum place, at least amongst Asians in every US state bordering Ontario and probably in Ontario too. I recognized it immediately as my family used to go there sometimes. And yeah, the food was still good, and hopefully it'll always be good.

A little background on "dim sum." Dim sum is (I think) a Southern Chinese thing. It's basically a certain kind of brunch/lunch where you don't order dishes. The waiters wheel around carts with a wide assortment of appetizers on them. You basically just eat appetizer after appetizer. The appetizers are things like sesame balls, egg custard tart, dumplings, and a variety of steamed or baked buns. You can order an actual dish, like pan-fried noodles or something, if you want, but that's not critical to dim sum - the carts and carts of appetizers are.

After dim sum, we went to this place called Pelee Point. It's a really cool nature area near one of the Great Lakes (don't remember which one, Lake Erie I think). There was a marshland that we went to first, there were frogs there! Pelee Point itself is where this part of the beach juts out into the lake. 3 of my friends and I took the "scenic" route through the woods. Then we found the road again, haha. Somehow, the 4 of us made it to the end of Pelee Point before the other group of 4, who wanted to walk along the beach. It was a great view from Pelee Point, as you'll in the next several pics.












After we finished up at Pelee Point, we went to the casino in Windsor. RZ-F wanted to gamble a bit, but most everyone else just wanted to see what there was to drink. I didn't really want to partake in either, but I must admit, some of the drinks did taste really good. I liked this particular drink with blue Curacao, Sprite, and lemon/lime juice. Also, "sex on the beach" is a really good drink too, haha. Towards the end of our time in the casino, I had 2 drunk friends (girls) in arms - one hooked on each - trying to steer them in the right directions. Alas, I'm always the one stuck like this in such situations. I ended up going home in a car with the 2 drunk ones; that would've been interesting when crossing the border if they hadn't both fallen asleep.

SR-F's birthday
So SR-F's wanted to take us (RZ-F, JW-F, and me) up north for the weekend of her birthday. Her family owns a condo just north of Petoskey, MI. Driving all the way up there too several hours, and the weather was nasty - rainy, cold, and dark. That first night was unpleasant.

But the next day (Saturday) was amazing. By mid-morning, the clouds had cleared and the sun had come out. We first went to a corn maze at some farm. That was entertaining for a little while - 4 college students getting stupidly lost in a muddy and puddle-filled corn maze. Then we went even further north to Harbor Springs, which was a nice tourist-y town on Lake Michigan. It was a really nice area and I love walking through Midwest downtown areas. And the fall colors were amazing - another prominent feature of the Midwest.












Later that day, right before sunset, we went to a lighthouse in Petoskey. It was really cool watching the sun set beneath the lake from the lighthouse (it was a small lighthouse). Then came the highlight of the day.












Oh yeah, we went out to eat every meal . . . so that accrued quite a sum. We ate dinner at this local place which was okay, and then went for ice cream afterwards. Oh, how I do love ice cream. Anyway, back to the highlight of the day. Around 1:30am or so, there was supposed to be the Orionid Meteor Shower. Around dinnertime new clouds had rolled in, but by 1am or so, the sky was clear again! So we went out onto the balcony of SR-F's family condo and watched the sky for meteors. Honestly, even if there weren't meteors, there were SO many visible stars because we were in a rural area with very little light pollution. I hadn't seen that many stars and constellations so clearly in years! (I used to be a huge astronomy nut in like elementary/middle school.) They were truly beautiful and I found it touching, for lack of better words. But of course we also saw several meteors go by (at a rate of maybe 1-3 every 5 minutes or so), and that was really really cool. I only regret that my digital camera wasn't good enough to capture anything in such low light. We watched the meteors until almost 3am, but then we really needed to sleep as we were going to head out by 9am in the morning.

I woke up around 8am or so, early enough to see the sun rise. So I took several pictures. I love taking scenic pictures. That pretty sums up that entire trip. SR-F, JW-F, and I had to be back for orchestra rehearsal that afternoon, so we sped along on the highway.
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So I hope everyone enjoys these pics as much as I do. Pictures capture great memories. And now that I've finished drinking my green tea, it's time to take a shower then watch anime or something before going to sleep.