Loaded

Montreal

2006-08-12T10:28:00.000+03:00

This is the view from a friends appartment downtown. I never thought Montreal's skyline was that impressive but from this angle some of the buildings look pretty cool.

These funky tunnels connect the Montreal World Trade Centre with the underground city. They're super cool and deserted. Great place to take pictures.

The orange julius at night. It's not evident in the photo but basically it's a giant orange on the side of the highway with mystery juice that magically comes down pipes from the centre of the orange where highschool students and unfortunate immigrants squeeze oranges all day for minimum wages ( I think).

Photograph courtesy Ruwayna Ghanem, one of my favourites of the trip. She took it from the inside of the Montreal World Trade Centre. No relation to the twin towers.

Montreal tam tams. It wasn't as good as I remember it mostly cause the statue, where the tam tams used to be based, is under renovation. It was also kind of hot that day.

Ontario street at night (I think) from Pont Jacques Carties. We were out there to watch the fireworks and caught this shot on the way back. We didn't notice it when we were walking but when I had the camera leaning on the bridge railing I could feel the bridge moving a little from all the people walking on it.

Just For Laughs street fest. Montreal is festival city, I got there right after the Jazz fest but I got to see the Just For Laughs fest. We caught a show called the Asian Invasion, supposedly some of the best Asian comedian around today, unfortunately it was quite disappointing and kinda discouraged me from watching other shows. The weird creature in picutre 9 was walking around the street in between kids with his package exposed.

These pictures were taken at the botanical gardens and insectarium. The insectarium is one of my favourite day trips in Montreal, especially the stick insects and big beatles.

This was at the protest against Israeli aggressions in both Lebanon and Palestine. It was relatively small cause it was during the summer, about 3000 people showed up. Half started off at Concordia and the other half had spent the night in front of the Israeli consulate. We met at Guy Favreau, the Canadian federal building, where it started rainning on us. A couple of days after I left they held another protest with about 15, 000 people. Members of the oposition political parties joined in for political gain but nevertheless it was good that it was for our side for once.

These were taken at Parc Lafontaine in the East End. It's a beautiful park that I rarely visited in Montreal cause it's a bit far from the West Side (represent) but a great location for a pic nic and football game.

Road Trip

2006-08-11T20:28:00.000+03:00

Rained out at Oka Park: We were supposed to go the Super Park Aqua Club that day to hit some of the water slides there but since Montreal experienced some crazy thunder storms, and some 500, 000 residents on the North Shore of Montreal were out of electricity, the aqua park was closed for the day and it was Oka beach instead.

We got there just as it started rainning again, Ruwayna tried to brave the elements and run into the water in the rain but the lifeguards whistled her out. Lightning, water and swimming don't mix. I took that picture while we were waiting in the car for the rain to stop, eventually it died down for like 1 hour and we got to have some beach fun.

These pictures were taken at "Parc national des Hautes-Gorges-de-la-Rivière-Malbaie" probably one of my favourites in Quebec. Omar, Ruwayna and I too a couple of kayaks up the river before we got bored and decided to hike up this stream. What a decision, probably one of the highlights of my trip. We climbed up giant boulders, moldey boulders, smooth boulders and rough boulders and cooled off in small pools that developed under the mini waterfalls. Too bad I didn't have my camera when we climbed the stream. I could have sold the photos for shampoo ads.

We took these on our way to Oka Park, the storm had uprooted giant trees. One of them was so big that my buddy Alex could fit in a little cave that developed under the roots of the tree.

These were taken on our trip to Mont Saint Anne which is a mountain I wish I would have discovered when I was still living in Montreal. They had great mountain bike trails and we rented some hot bikes (picture of bikes in Friends post). I've never been a gear junky when it comes to mountain biking but shoes are definitly one of the essential pieces of gear.

Friends

2006-08-11T14:33:00.000+03:00

Family

2006-08-11T00:05:00.000+03:00