Montreal GECCO Trip, Day 2
A delayed post with the next part of my trip!
It turns out that internet access is more difficult than I expected at first - there is internet available in my hotel, but I usually got there too late and tired to do any serious posting - and the conference also has wireless access, but I was usually too busy there to use the computer.
But this just means that now that I have more free time, my posts will hopefully much more juicier.
Anyway, day two was a free day, so we woke up late and decided to go out and walk around some tourist places in Montreal. Before leaving, I managed to talk to Albert, a friend I knew from a Mafia Forum, and we arranged to meet at night. This is the third time I meet someone from the online games I access during my trips - and it is usually funny in what ways people in Real Life turn out to be different from their internet personas. In particular in the case of Albert, he had a much softer and kinda introverted voice than I would expect from his posts.
Me, and two friends from the Lab went for shopping at a nearby supermarket, where I found out that everything sold here has a hefty 17% sales tax which is not included in any price tags - It could lead to very embarassing situations if you don’t have enough money for a big purchase without tax. The supermarket was giantic, putting to shame anything I had ever seen in Japan in terms of variety. The prices were pretty similar to the prices in Tokyo.
Breakfast done, we’re cleared for some tourism! Montreal has a pretty comprehensive metro system, which takes you to most interesting spots in the city. There is a one week pass for metro/buses for $19.00 (23.50 with taxes T_T). Our first stop was the “Old Town”, which is a neighbourhood near the riverside with lots of very beautiful old-European styled houses. There is a large number of Touristy shops and Museums there, but there are also some boulevards and parks where people can just sit and relax in weekends.
Besides the tourist traps, there were more interesting places - like some very charming (and a bit - not much - expensive) French Restaurants, and a medieval shop with incredible looking statues of knights and witches. We found a shop specialized in Maple Syrup - they had Maple Syrup icecream, butter, salad dressing, and even Mustard! (the mustard was not that tasty).
We also visited the magnificent Notredame Cathedral, where I enjoyed some very unique cultural shock with my Japanese friends. Basically, they have never really been to a big Christian church, so I had to explain most of the imagery and the meanings of the rituals and objects. They were quite interested in attending to a Missa, although they were worried about the money (You need to pay quite some money to attend to Shinto religious rituals). It was the reverse role of what I was used to in Japanese temples.
After the old town, we headed to Rue St. Deniz, a somewhat more Bohemian part of the town, with many bars and clothing shops. My real objective, though was visiting the Valet du Cour, a large game shop in that street. While the prices were not very different, there were many games that couldn’t be found in Japan. I bored my friends for about an hour while I poured over their many games. In the end I spend almost $100 with Bang, a Carcassone expansion, a Munchkin expansion and the “Dungeon Delve” 4E book.
After that, we decided to walk our way back into the hotel - we followed through this completely charming part of the town, with many cute houses in the shape of castles, balconies asking to be used for reading and drinking, and parks full of squirrels. I could speak more and more, or you could just check out the pictures of the trip.
When we arrived in the hotel, I slept for a little while, then met Albert, from the previously mentioned mafia forums. We went to a coffee shop, and spent a long while talking about the japanese language, my life in Japan and Montreal city. Unfortunately, since Albert was without internet connection or a Mobile phone, we were not able to meet up again after this.
This concludes my second day in Montreal - the next day was quite promising: The start of the GECCO conference 