After much deliberation it was decided that they will depart from Ottawa on 13th, Wednesday, around noon and spend 14th, 15th, and then the weekend of 16th and 17th in Toronto. Lunato, excellent at planning vacations, made detailed plans for how to best utilize each day.

Lunato and I hadn't met Harry since our visit to Jakarta in October of 2004 and Dooh hadn't met Harry since he left Ottawa back in September of 2003.

Dooh and I applied for 2 days-off from work. Lunato is free from 2PM on weekdays so she decided not to take time off for Thursday or Friday. Shekhar was supposed to join us as well but unfortunately he had a previous engagement for the weekend that he just could not back out of.

In any case, we arranged everything that needed to be arranged, bought everything that needed to be bought, fixed everything that needed to be fixed, confirmed everything that needed to be confirmed, informed Renny of our plans, reminded Harry multiple times about the plan, and then waited patiently for the 13th.

On the morning of the 13th, mere hours before the Greyhound bus was scheduled to depart from Ottawa, Harry called me and informed me that he is not coming because something came up.

...

...

Dooh was furious but being the patient man that he is he held his tongue and quietly made his way to the Bus Terminal.

I used profanity, told Harry to do as he pleased, hung up, and went back to work.

Lunato was shocked as well but she gave him the benefit of the doubt and tried to convince me that some emergency situation must've occured and that is why he can't adhere to the orignal plan. Tsk tsk, she simply hasn't known Harry as long as Dooh and I have.

Dooh rode the bus alone from Ottawa to Toronto. We met him at the Bus Terminal near Bay and Dundas, argued and whined about Harry's yet-again-but-to-be-expected casual disregard of pre-made, pre-approved, pre-confirmed, pre-reconfirmed and pre-re-reconfirmed plans. Arrrgh!!

But that's typical Harry and we love him for what, and who, he is. Besides, as he commented later, "It would be a boring story to tell if everything went smoothly"

Dooh's birthday was on the 11th of June and Lunato and I had deliberately ignored it and hadn't called him or wished him a happy birthday. We were going to take him to Demetre and celebrate together with Harry. Demetre's strawberry-belgian-waffle-ice-cream is delicious and the Demetre staff played the birthday song for Dooh when they brought him his food. I think it was a nice surprise.. he wasn't expecting it at all.

After Demtre we just went home instead of wandering around downtown Toronto until the wee hours of the morning. While complaining about Harry and narrating past episodes of Harry's chicanery, infidelity, treachery, betrayal, duplicity, perfidy, and knavery to Lunato (one of my favourite pastime) the lights went out in the whole neighbourhood. After fighting-off the invading mutant zombie horde we finally went to sleep fully expecting Harry to not show up the next day.

So my twenty first birthday again!.. thank you, thank you!

A day before, friday, sikander came to downtown to pick me up. He dragged me to the corner of the street and opened a car door in front of me just like 3 years ago.. hahaha very surprised and at the same time funny that it was same surprise and I still didn't have any idea until he opened the rental car door. (yeah yeah we are still a subway couple).

We went to Bestbuy in downtown to get our new digital camera and we found the one we wanted to get. While we were hesitating because there weren't any new unopened box ones and only opened-and-returned ones were available, a black-and-white couple walked over to us and told us that Futureshop is way cheaper than here for the same camera. See, multi-colour couples are smart and kind :D

So we got a brand new digital camera from Futureshop instead of Bestbuy. By the way, I wonder what others' opinions are about warranties. For me, I really feel I am being ripped off when I pay for extended warranty. So I kept sending sikander the signal not to buy the warranty but he paid more than $100 for warranty saying "what if". "but again, what if it goes to total waste?." "then that's even better.. nothing wrong with the camera" well.. warranty mystery will be solved in 3 years time.

My birthday was on Saturday and usually I sleep until I can't sleep on Saturdays. I had hardly opened my eyes when sikander woke me up for breakfast. Gotta wake up to have breakfast with you? Oh well.. compromise.. marriage is all about compromising, isn't it?

I went to living room and I saw the dining table. OMG... who did this? There was seaweed soup, sweet noodle, and sweet rice cakes, which are very traditional Korean birthday food , placed nicely on the dining table. I sat at the table and saw the seaweed soup up close. WTH, fish cake in the seaweed soup? After I took one sip of the soup - I know I should say "sikander it is the most delicious seaweed soup I have ever had." I said "sikander it is the weirdest taste seaweed soup I have ever had"

We went to downtown Toronto, driving along Yonge street instead of taking the subway. Yonge street is the longest street in Toronto? Ontario? Canada? In the world? Anyhow, whenever the subway went above ground along Yonge street, I wanted to walk or drive on that part of Yonge street and finally today I did. It was pretty nice with many small, unique shops, restaurant, and cafes, and the atmosphere was pretty active and energetic. Instead of highway all the time, it's pretty enjoyable.

We were on our way to the CN tower (currently the tallest free-standing structure in the world). Hurry hurry!! The sun was setting and we wanted to see morning Toronto. There was a long line and it took so long time to get to the ticket booth. But still outside was bright enough. We got to the observatory room and could see the whole city of Toronto. Beautiful.

From our apartment we can see CN tower but from CN tower we couldn't recognize which building was our apartment building. Somewhere over there I guess.

Soon the sun set and I could see night sight as well. Definitely, I love night sight more than the morning. At night everything is enchanted and looks fascinating. Hehe, I am night person without doubt. Maybe it's because I came to this world late at night. Oh, here is a video of the view you see when taking the elevator back to the ground. Nice, isn't it ?

Phewh, pretty busy day. Thank you so much sikander, for making my birthday something memorable always and waking up so early to prepare all the food. Thank you to all my friends and family... and I appreciate my mom who gave me birth and raised me with love and sacrifices.

We went to Yorkdale mall and got a nice Columbia Bugaboo winter jacket.

"sikander, I am so sorry, you know, I am so bad at making a surprise. It’s boring to get a birthday gift like this, isn’t it?"

"No, no I really like it. Thank you so much"

After winter jacket shopping, we headed for downtown to go the "The Decemberists" concert. It was fun.. if they are coming to your town, go and enjoy.

On the way back dooh called and said the first "happy birthday" to sikander. I didn’t know it was already midnight :(

After we got home, I told asked: "sikander, I am so sorry to say this, but when was the last time you took a shower ?"

"Oh no.. really? Believe me, it’s because we were in such a big crowd…..damn. Sorry"

While sikander was taking a shower I took out the new bathrobe I had bought for him and hidden in the superintendent’s office for a few days. I laid it out for him with a Happy Birthday card as well.

"Whoa.. lunato, what is this?"

Hahaha sikander "happy birthday"

The next morning, his birthday, we went to IKEA for their $1 breakfast. We had wanted to have IKEA’s breakfast for so long, but all the time failed to go there in time. Today we got up like 7 in the morning, and finally finally we made it. It was a nice healthy vegetarian breakfast.

Mom came over and we had a good time. We also went to T&T supermarket in Thornhill and sikander tried eel for the first time and didn't like it. Bulkbarn was right beside it so we bought a ton of stuff from there as well. Going to bulkbarn is almost a tradition now haha.

"mom, are you o.k?"

"yeah, i just hit the glass with my elbow while i was doing dishes. by the way, there will be so many good things coming this year for you"

"why?"

"breaking a glass is a sign of good luck, some people do it on purpose. it just happened on your birthday morning so it's a sign of good luck for you"

"oh really? true or not, i will take it"

by now i truly believe it. i had wanted to change my position at my work and it happened recently. i am still working for same ministry but different work in a different office which is what i have wanted for so long. i miss my ex-coworkers a lot though.

i have wanted to learn skiing (i have gone skiing twice long time ago and i sucked at it) and i went on a ski trip with my new coworkers last weekend. we all enjoyed the weekend there and i can ski now without falling continuously:)

also recently, we, my coworkers and i, chipped in 10 dollars each to make big money for a game. the winner will get all the money and feel happy about it during the upcoming lunar new year holiday. the game is like this. you draw as many vertical lines as the number of people taking part in the game. then everyone is given a random number and they go and put one horizontal line in the slot assigned to them. this horizontal line can be drawn anywhere from the top most part of the vertical lines to the bottom part. basically you make a ladder in your slot without knowing what the final result will be like because everyone else can make their own ladder as high or as low as possible. once everyone has drawn a line then we start climbing these ladders which have become stairs now because all the ladders are all connected. the game stops when you cannot climb any higher and whichever ladder you stop in is the winner. i chose the 5th ladder without expecting so much but surprisingly i became the winner and got the money!!! see? lucky me..

talking about sikander...it was the first birthday to spend without him ever since i have know him. when i was talking to him the night before my birthday i told him, "i know you are in Korea right now, where are you?", "no lunato,i wish but i am not", "you you sneaky.. you are gonna come to my office tomorrow, aren't ya? i am on 11th floor, don't get lost"

hehe instead of him, a package arrived here for my birthday. best pictures collection since we've known each other and very good taste of picture frames, cds with his korean handwriting on it (some letters didn't make sense:) and sweets..thank you sikander.. when i get home after a long day, i sit at my table looking at what you gave me. all your presents refresh me and make me realize that smiling makes everyone look pretty and happy :)

so everyone smile~~

soon i saw a guy walking toward me in black jacket and pants... my eyes are deceiving me. it can't be sikander.. it can't be him.. there is no way sikander is walking toward me in korea. he is in canada, of course. wow, very realistic dream. i will talk about this dream to sikander later when i get home. he would say "i wish i could do that". but i can't wake myself up and my dream seems to continue. and sikander walked up to me and said "hi heajoo, happy birthday". i couldn't speak properly and everything seemed to stop. i asked him if this is real and he came closer to me and said it is not dream, it is real.

yes, it was real. unbelievably real. sikander left korea just a few hours ago. he stayed here 12 days with me in korea. when sikander came to my office, i couldn't believe it, and now he is gone to canada, and i can't believe it either. oh someone tell me everything from 13th january was real and even now is real.

         

if i ask sikander when was the best day in korea i am sure he would say "everyday, lunato" but if i say "no, you should choose only one day" then he would choose last saturday as the best and so would i. after our strawberry milk and yogurt breakfast, we went to visit the old palace in north downtown seoul. contrary to western concept of downtown, we have many downtowns in seoul. i like the north downtown the most. it shows the very good harmony between old and new, calm and busy.

since it was saturday, we meet a lot of korean and foreigners there. oh, speaking of foreigners.. it is funny how sikander slowly changed his attitude as a foreigner here. unlike westerner who are sick and tired of immigrants, foreigners are relatively rare here and koreans are willing to help them to give them a good impression. sikander, in his early days in korea, was so helpless and scared as a different one here but soon he realized people are doing him favors a lot. later when we had to ask for someone's favor he said "no no, i will ask for it". omg, he is learning so fast. i don't like to be with sikander here in korea. people are treating him special but not to me :(:(

after old palace we walked to Insadong where a lot of gallaries, antique shops, restaurants are gathered together. we had so many different street vendor's food while walking down the street trying to find souvenir for sikander's family and friends. i didn't know how much fun it would be idling there eating on the street... we found nice souvenir for sikander's family and friends and left there to go to the city hall for ice skating.

we had to wait for ice skating until 9pm so we decided to watch a movie in the meanwhile. the time was not good for both movie and skating so we had to chose between movie and skating. we chose movie cuz watching movie in different cities has been our custom and i didn't want to miss the chance. of course we have popcorn and softdrinks inside of the theater, but it is not as popular as canada. instead of popcorn, we have some other snacks like dried fishes... i thought sikander would never like dried fishes.. but really he is becoming accustomed to the snacks here. i thought it would be "ewwww" from his point of view but he said it was not bad at all.. he ate a lot of fish cakes (oden) with passion, a lot of dukbucki with crazy spice, and a lot of fried buns with love. oh, the movie we saw was "Vanity Fair"; i doubt if reese witherspoon was the right actress for it but overall it was enjoyable.

after movie it was over 10 pm at night. should we call it the end of the day.. nonononono, good thing comes at the last. both we were working so hard, especially sikander.. even when i was taking days off, he had to work like all day long. heh what the hell? he came all the way to canada and is still busy ? hyuuuu. but comming to korea from the opposite side of the world should compensate for any of his unsincreity and unattentiveness for now right ? i will forgive him for now hehe.

i booked a late night sports massage for us to ease our tensed muscle and sikander was sooo happy to go there. the place was open 24 hours but what if it is some perverted weird place.. what if we should take our clothes off.. hehe but i only relied on the word "sports".. it is not just massage.. it is sports massage and sports is related with some healty stuff.. right? yes, it was totally unperverted and very relaxing... sikander and i lied on the beds next to each other. the massager kneaded my muscle like flour... ohhhhh so good. i heard sikander's relaxing melting sound as well. if his massager was a woman i would be so pissed... but hold on... it was a man and he was still making melting sounds... oh no, i guess there is all the time some possibility we never expected...

                                 

there are so many other things i want to memorize forever. the super nice room of hotel queen, the fun we had in my friend's place, sikander's very good deal of new shirts and jeans in myeongdong, shack meet in s.korea (sikander, lunato and xphil), NANTA "Crazy beat" night, walking in seoul at night, the seoul tower, the main islam mosque in Itaewon, the numerous restaurants we visited, sikander picking me up at work, the subway rides, etc etc. i felt like i haven't lived in korea cuz i hadn't explored all the places before. kind of like sikander who never knew ottawa has such a nice bike path around the city before he met lunato.

                                           

sikander.. continuing with my birthday last year, you got me completely this year as well. you again ruined the rest of birthdays and somewhat ruined my reality as well. hmmm well, being so sad is not my job i guess. i am a project manager of my imaginery "the apprentice" from now. i achieve everyday goal like keep busy, meet friends more often, read more, eat healthy, sleep regulary, etc etc. my boss is watching me. internet will be his eyes and ears.