Spontaneous Adventure

Well my camera is due back tomorrow, good as new and under warranty to boot, so I thought I'd share one more non-photographic post.

Saturday we returned from our anniversary date by late morning and my daughter, Joanna (in Toronto on business for the weekend) was still at home - her plans fell through so she was going to go on a spontaneous adventure and I happened to walk in the door just before she was heading out. So we both spent the rest of the day together "being in the moment". So much of our daily lives are preprogrammed and tightly scheduled, that it’s wonderful to be able to just leave all of that aside for a while.

Most of the time when Joanna comes to Toronto or we go to Halifax for visits, there’s a purpose or event that drives it. Usually (and this is a good thing) we hang out as a family – Jo and her husband Ezra, and other relatives and friends who want to see them/us. So finding just “Mother-Daughter” time is rare and special and I thought I’d share some highlights in hopes that it will tempt you to have some spontaneous adventures of your own.

We started out hunting for a psychic reading (for her, not for me….I like NOT knowing about what might be around the corner. Although a friend recently had her tea leaves read and she was told that her friend – whose name starts with R is writing a book and having difficulty finding a traditional publisher. She said that I would be very successful selling it on the internet. If the news is good, I’m open to hear!!! But yet again, I digress). We walked along the area she remembered seeing a psychic sign on a previous visit to Toronto. After walking for about a half an hour (we did pass one psychic as soon as we got off the subway, but she was closed) before we found the one she was looking for. Finally we found her but had to wait for a half an hour and so were lucky enough to have a time to chat over a cappuccino. Once she left for her reading I had an hour or so to sit at the window of the Arquin Café on Avenue Road. It’s right beside some of the most fabulous flower shops in the city and every time the door opened, I got this wonderful whiff of fragrant exotic flowers and evergreen branches. It isn’t very often we get the chance to just sit and reflect on what’s going on with us. Usually we just move from task to task, event to event, and I thoroughly enjoyed reliving my anniversary date.

Once Jo finished with her Tarot reading, which was supposed to be 30 minutes but ended up being 90 and I was waiting outside for the last 30 minutes or so freezing my butt off (she's wondering when I'll stop mentioning it). She was hungry and I was frozen, so we headed over to Pho Hung on Bloor for some of our favorite Vietnamese soup and spring rolls.

After spending some time there, we finally headed down to the Skydome for the Canadian Aboriginal Festival that was really awesome. Native costumes, dance contests, art and handicrafts from Aboriginal nations across the country. There were a few non-aboriginals in the crowd, but this really was an event for the Aboriginal community. Healing tents, traditional teaching tents to educate the younger generation on their language & culture, performance tents where one could listen to stories and participate in hoop dance workshops, and more. We stayed for a couple of hours watching the dance competitions that were breathtaking (I wouldn’t be able to choose the winners – they all were great), strolling through the marketplace and listening to performers – it was heartwarming to see the pride in every event, every piece of art, jewelry, clothing and more. Check it out.

By 6 p.m. we were starting to get hungry and my honey came to meet us and took a subway to Dundas with the intention of eating at The Salad King for Thai food but it was packed and had a line up out the door. We thought Korean food would be interesting - for something outside our usual choices and I remembered (at least I thought I remembered ) the Korean BBQ house being in "Korea Town", so we headed over. Of course THAT restaurant is on Queen (far from where we were), but we wandered through a couple of different communities along Bloor and ended up in the heart of "Korea Town" with its shops, cafes, bakeries and stumbled upon a fabulous restaurant – Sejong Restaurant, that served BBQ - which means you grill meat (we had short ribs) & chicken on a charcoal grill that is imbedded in the central part of your table. The main course is served with rice and about 8 little side dishes of kimchee, daichon and other marinated dishes - sooooooooo good that we're going back next week when Jo AND Ezra are coming back to town. After this amazing dinner that started with an appetizer of spicy tuna rolls, we felt the need to walk some more and finally took the subway home.

All that adventure really gave us a work out and, you'll be pleased to know, we all slept like babies.

My open invitation to all of you – make time to have your own spontaneous adventure. When you do, drop me a line – I’d love to hear all about it.