I actually woke up early today: 7:30. (Okay, 7:35, really. And 7:40.
Yeah, 7:40.) I had a quick bowl of oatmeal, heaping far more sugar on
it than is probably nutritionally advisable. And then I waited for
people to come online. Waah! Look! I was up on a Saturday morning! And
people were missing!

Naturally, people started coming online maybe twenty, ten minutes
before I had to leave. Still, it was really nice being able to briefly
chat with Dominique and my mom. =)

Then I was off to the Science Centre (see blog post before this one),
and then to a whole day of fun. =) Calum was really nice. Over salmon
sashimi and California maki, we chatted about Japan. He's planning to
go there in September, so I told him about things he must not miss:
okonomiyaki, street food, that nifty deep-fry place Dave Brown told me
about, rush hour in the train system, the hordes of photographers in
Meiji Temple on major festivals… He told me hilarious stories about
lay-off season at Nortel. Heh. Crazy.

Then he showed me what suburbian entertainment is like: basically,
shopping at big box stores like Sam's Club and Future Shop. ;) I told
him that we had warehouse supermarkets in the Philippines too
(Pricesmart, Shopwise), but yeah, Sam's Club is _way_ bigger than
Pricesmart. Mom would have a lot of fun going through that place. =)

He showed me Lake Ontario, too, bemoaning his lack of a real camera
that day. I told him about Papa shooting stock shots while on
vacation, Kathy's instinctive protection of camera equipment when she
slipped… See, I grew up around photographers. ;) I might not know
all the jargon, but I can relate.

Lake Ontario is pretty! And it has geese! =) Nifty…

We topped a fun day off with soft-serve ice cream. (I told him about
the time I did Linux support for ice cream, and Peppy and I ate ice
cream until the world turned funny colors… ;) ) It was great!

Much better than trekking around and figuring things out on my own. =)
Excellent day!