Now I want to talk about my two weeks travel in more detail. I started from Melbourne with a transit in Singapore first. The only think about this transit was that I could really feel the tropical weather in Singapore and I would say they have one of the best airlines because you have the opportunity to watch movies as many as possible and also the flight attendants are nice!
I did not have a good experience of my transit in Shanghai airport because I had to recollect my luggage and they wanted to make some problems for my flight because of my strange trip. I was going to Canada from Melbourne by taking a long trip through Singapore and Shanghai and having an Iranian passport made them more suspicious. Finally I could convince them and went for my next destination:
“Vancouver".
I had heard about Vancouver and its reputation as the most livable city. I would say it is a very 'beautiful city with a nice climate but I still think that Melbourne is more livable. The city's harbor was a main attraction and there were some big ships which initially I thought are just for exhibition but then I realized that in fact they are working. Vancouver is called the glass city and you could not quite understand as long as you see the buildings along its waterfront. Another main attraction in Vancouver is Stanly Park which is big. People go there for jugging, skating and refreshing. There were many squirrels every where like cats in Iran. There was also an observation deck in Vancouver where I could take some pictures of the cityscape. I also discovered a work by Moshe Safti "a library like a Colosseum" .
My next destination was Toronto. A big city! My first impression of the city was when I left the underground and I found myself confined by huge and high buildings. A loop links all main stations and you can travel around the CBD via that. As I knew about the CN tower I decided to climb it as well. it was really tall and a funny thing was a glassed floor which you could stand there and have 553.33 m empty space under your feet. The CBD is really big and a tram line facilitates the transport. I had just half a day here and had to prepare for my main destination for the conference "symbolic interactionism and ethnographic studies" in Niagara Falls.
I traveled to Niagara Falls with a bus .In fact a mini bus with 5-6 passengers and a nice driver. There was a conversation between the driver and a passenger which was started as a routine talk and ended up with a serious discussion about the deepest concept of life by the man. He was British with an Italian background working in a tour company and was complaining about how modern life and western thought silently bounds people and he claimed that he is lost in search of other beliefs such as Buddhism and Islam and I suppose the driver who did not want to take the conversation that much serious dropped him soon and when he left said to me "very metal!". Any way I was the last passenger when I agreed the driver deliver an Indian family first. In our way to the hostel we saw the Niagara Falls and you know when you confront something that you always had just an illusion of it that makes a great moment. I took some pictures of the fall quickly and finally said goodbye to the driver.
The hostel was nice and there were a lot of painted walls every where with bright and strong colors (red, blue, yellow and violet). There was a French group there and I doubt if they could speak a single English world. At night I went to see the falls and lightings and when I reached there I found two different environments. In one hand the falls, pure nature and water's sound and some steps further a street full of neon lights and sounds of funny electronic games like a Disney land. This is the power of globalization.
Next day I went to the city to find the conference venue and buy a converter for my laptop plug because of the different electricity standards. It was cold and raining the whole day and the only public transport was bus. There was not a clear bus station or time table and I had to ask for each transfer. I was nearly soaked when I decided to buy an umbrella. Finally I found the hotel which had a nice view of the falls. In the evening when I went back to the hotel for the registration there were many people there and probably most of them knew each other so I was fouling around to find a familiar face or some Iranians as there were some of them in the participant's list. Then suddenly a lady with a kind of traditional Indian like cloths was weaving her hands for me. Initially I thought she is doing that for somebody behind me because I did not know her at all but finally she approached me and said why you don't response and well she was also alone. She was from Mexico and working in China as psychologists. We talked about some issues and later on other people joined our conversation including an Iranian couple from Windsor University. We left the hotel to be prepared for our tomorrow’s presentation.
پستها
