Very rainy day today, so didn’t do very much outside. It gave me a chance to relax and rest up.
I went to visit my friends mother at her apartment for a very pleasant lunch with her daughter. They gave me some good suggestions for different places to visit. Right after lunch, I drove to Lawrencetown Beach. Even with all the rain, there was a lot of visitors to the beach, with a lot of them who are surfers! The stones of the beach was very unique!
I noticed that nobody seems to use umbrellas here. I inquired about this, and was told that umbrellas would be damaged by the wind. So they just don’t bother.
After that, I drove by a seafood store. | have never seen so much live lobster in my life!! He mentioned he can ship live lobster back home for me. Hmm… I’ll need to think about that!
Also, as I was driving back to the dorm, I stopped by a grocery store to pick up a bottle of glass cleaner. Apparently, if you’re cooking in the car, the windows get dirty faster, and will get foggy very quickly in humid conditions…
Driving from Moncton to Halifax was just a bit over 3 hours drive time. Of course, I took my time, and made many stops and breaks. Once again, I started driving right at sunrise to maximize daylight driving time. I think I crossed the boarder into Nova Scotia approximately 7AM, right after my daily brew of coffee.
The welcome centre wasn’t open yet. So I just took some pictures outside, and enjoyed the scenary.
I made early breakfast/lunch in a small town just before Halifax by the side of the highway. That was a cool experience. That actually got a few chuckles out of people passing by at the parking lot.
You should see all the bugs that are stuck to the front of my bumper!
My first landing in Halifax was at Pier 21. I got the see the “In My Yesterday” exhibit at the Canadian Immigration Museum. That was one of my highlights of this trip that I was most looking forward to. I knew that exhibit was ending soon, and I am very glad I was able to see it while it was still in town.
The program book I received from the museum for the exhibit
I finished the exhibit at around 1:00PM local time. I reach the part where I dreaded the most, where I have to book accommodations.I looked up hotels.com and everything was in the $300-$500 range per night. Yikes! It’s because this is peak season. I found a university dorm facility being rented out for about $55/night about an hour away. I was about to pull the trigger, but then Murray told me that there is another dorm that is in central Halifax, and just cost a bit more. I ended up booking a University dorm for $242.81 for three nights. I’m quite pleased with that.
I went to the local Costco to pick up some groceries. I thought the Costco back home was bad, the Costco here is like a zoo! I actually spent more time looking for parking than I did grocery shopping!
While unpacking my stuff, and cleaning random stuff, I accidentally spilled water onto my laptop keyboard. If this was at home, I wouldn’t even think anything of it. I have all the tools and spare parts to get things resolved within 5 minutes. Unfortunately, I’m not. Some keys got stuck, rendering my laptop very useless. It was already around 6PM localtime, the local Canada Computers and Best Buy are already closed on a Sunday. So I look up the local Thrift stores, and found a place called Mission Mart. Normally, I refuse to buy second hand keyboards, because of how nasty it is. The first keyboard I picked up off the shelf was for 89cents! Wow. But it was quite grimy amd a little too beaten up for my taste, so I put it back. I saw a nice looking chiclet style that wasn’t too nasty looking for $3.89. Not bad, and I also have lots of sanitary wipes in my car. I also picked up a brand new PD/QC USB-A/USB-C car charger for $1.97, and an extra long USB 2.0/USBA-B cable for another $1.97 from the clearance shelf, both brand new sealed in original packaging. Apparently, the second hand products here are tax free? The total came out to be $7.91. The lady asked if I wanted to round up for donation. Meh, it’s only 9 cents. Why not? I’ve been to many of the mainstream ones like Value Village, and I was never able to find anything interesting, or they would be overpriced. The items at this independent seem to be very reasonably priced.
This is why I prefer roadtrips instead of going on a prepackaged tour with a guide. Having my own car, being able to re-scheduled things on the fly is quite nice.
Oh, I changed the header of my blog to “The adventures of a Chinese guy, his sports car, and an instant pot” What do you guys think of my new slogan?
While grocery shopping in Quebec, some random dude driving a Prius with his partner parked next to me. First thing he said was “SUBARU!!!”
We had a friendly chat. I told him where I was going. He said, that’s the perfect GT car to use for this kind of road trip! He gets it! The only thing close to a sporty car I have seen throughout the whole trip over was some older dude driving an 8th Civic 2dr. Everybody else drove SUVs.
This morning, while filling for gas, another older gentleman who was riding a Harley mentioned I’ll have an amazing time driving my car in Moncton. I’m looking forward to it!
Oh, and here is a pro-tip I learned from this road trip so far. If your car has sporty suspensions, and you’re cooking with an instant pot, don’t drive while it is cooking. The bounciness will make the pressure valve come loose, causing you to lose pressure. I was wondering, what’s the whooshing sound I keep hearing?
Cooking breakfast at the (closed) New Brunswick welcome centre
