Square One Shopping

July 22, 2006
Well.. It was a rainy weekend in and around Toronto.. Our plans of visiting Hamilton had to be put-off to a foreseeable future.. We decided to visit Square one shopping mall in Mississuaga which happens to be biggest mall so far in Toronto.. It was good Shopping experience and visited Walmart, Sears, La Senza and few small shops.. Bought some good dresses for Chibi. Had some Cinnabons and Shenga-chikkis.

Next day we visited Gerard India Bazaar for our monthly grocery shopping.

Casaloma - Toronto's magnificient Castle

Casaloma - former home of Canadian financier Sir Henry Pellatt, Toronto's foremost castle is complete with decorated suites, secret passages, an 800-foot tunnel, towers, stables, and beautiful 5-acre estate gardens .

Sir Henry Pellatt was the most dramatic Canadian of his day. He was a visionary, whether it was being the first to bring electric lights to the streets of Toronto or the first to invest in a Canadian air service. He was a patriot and philanthropist, as commanding officer and private sponsor of the Queen's Own Rifles, the Canadian regiment that still marches to this day. And he was a colossus in Canadian business, with interests in everything from insurance to railways. At his height, Sir Henry sat on dozens of corporate boards comprising fully 25% of Canada's economy, a feat unmatched today. When he commissioned the construction of Casa Loma, it was the largest home in Canada.


But the demands of maintaining his castle, combined with a series of ill-advised investments and the fall of the Home Bank of Canada, undid Sir Henry. He and his beloved wife Mary were forced to leave Casa Loma and auction off their possessions to pay off his debts. But Sir Henry's many legacies live on, as does his magnificent castle on the hill.

I visited this beautiful building with Chibi and Bhavana in May first week 2006. I visited this the second time with Pach, Archana and Saanvi on July 16.

Love my Digital Rebel..

This blog is dedicated to show how much I love my Digital Rebel XT - Canon SLR camera. Pretty happy with the photos that I have taken so far and there is still lots of features to be explored.

I experimented with the Photo-Stitch software that comes with the Canon. Here I was able to stitch two photos together to get a panaromic view. Infact, one gets a feeling that it is a single photgraph.

Pach was able to stitch the great niagara falls involving both the American and Canadian falls.

Hats off to the camera and the Photo-stitch.. ;-)

Molson Canadian GrandPrix at Toronto

We visited the Molson Canadian Grandprix racing of 2006 at Toronto. I and Pachu took a street car from Union-station to exhibition grounds (near ontario place) in the street-car(Tram) had a good look at the race and collected few freebies which were given to us.

Click here for more photos.

Later, in the afternoon we watched the FIFA worldcup football finals between Italy and France. Italy won the game in the penalty shootout after the scores were tied at 1-1.

Visit of Wineries, Cherry Pick up & Niagara-on-the-Lake town

Trip on 08 July 2006 :

We visited the vineyards located close to the Niagara falls which is one of the major wine growing regions in Canada. We visited the Inniskillin Vineyards located near Niagara-on-the-Lake town. We had a free tour of the Inniskillin vineyards where they described about the lifecycle of Grape plants, about wines and especially the iced wine. We were given a taste of both white and red wines.







Here – me and Saanu Sweetie on our visit to the Inniskillin vineyard.













Closer look at the Grapes in the vineyard.. They are still green and may get ripe in other 4 months..






On the way back, we stopped at place where they allow us to pick our own bag of Cherry. It was fun to pick them from the plants, eat them and fill in the basket.










We drove past a small town called Niagara-on-the-lake. This I should say is one of the most loveliest towns built in Canada and each house is so nicely constructed that one gets a feeling that we should stay on here.

3 Cheers to Archu-Pachu on their 3'rd Anniversary

On 6 July 06, my dear friend Pachu and Archana celebrated their 3'rd wedding anniversary. I couldn't attend their wedding but was lucky to wish them fabulous 3'rd anniversary and many more fun-filled years ahead.
I was lucky to gobble up atleast 5 rosagollas which Archana had packed for Lunch along with vangibath. Evening I had the pleasure of joining them for the dinner treat in Madras Palace – a south indian restaurant on Highway 7, at Markham.

Everyone Loves “Marine Land”

goes a Ad-song of Marine Land... I happened to visit Marine Land first time on 21 May (on our 8'th wedding anniversary) with Bhavana & Chibi..









Just 8 and 92 more to go ! Yes.. It was our 8'th Anniversary on 21 May 2006. We were in MarineLand.








Chibi enjoyed the trip to Marineland pretty much.. She loved all the rides and did them boldly without a little hesitation or fear ! Here she is on one such ride !








The fun part of MarineLand is also to look at the Dolphin-Seal show and also feed and touch the whales..
Here Chibi with her Papa-honey doin' just that.








The second time I attended the Marine land was is on last week of June (Sat 24 June 06) with Pach, Archana & Saanvi.

Harry Potter and Great Niagara Gorges Adventure !

A new movie of Harry Potter with two new stars Roopesh & Saanvi shot in the Niagara Gorges and whirlpool rapids is about to be released..
No... We visited the Louis Tussauds Wax museum at Clifton Hill place in Niagara falls. This museums tries to imitate the famous wax museum at London and had numerous actors and movie characters created in Wax. This is one such picture with Harry Potter !

Trip to Niagara Falls

Niagara falls on any day is one of the world's most awesome natural wonders. Even though, I have seen this fourth time, I get fascinated from the sheer amount of water that flows here. Well, I get a feeling "Where on hell is so much water coming from?" and every day and every minute the water flows with the same intensity.

Peterborough Lift Lock

I had a opportunity to visit the Peterborough Lift Lock system on July 02, 2006. I and my friends Prasanna, Anil and their families had a visit to this place. I was totally fascinated by the engineering feat which has been implemented.

The Peterbough lock is by far the most developed and scenic as well as home to the Trent Severn Visitors centre. In fact these locks are simple and elegant. The unique lift locks operate by using hydraulic pressure. Within a closed system any displacement of volume in one container will transfer the equal amount to the other container. In the case of the Trent Severn Lift Locks those containers are the huge 140 foot long, steel tubs containing 330,000 gallons of water weighing 1,500 tonnes .

Beneath the lock tubs are located monster hydraulic rams which raise and lower the locks. Each ram is 65 feet long by 7.5 foot diameter extending some 75 feet below the lock to their footings on top of ten ton granite block, resting on bedrock. Both tubes are connected by high pressure pipe and other control pumps and fittings. In practice, the procedure used to raise boats is to fill the upper tub with an extra foot of water, and then vent this water volume into the lower locks chamber, the difference in weight then raises the lower lock.

My Car

This is me in my new car Nissan Sentra. I bought this on 15 June 06. Driving is my passion and I love driving long distances and visiting places.

Why is this site named Papa-honey?

Flash back to 2002.. When my daughter Shibani (Chibi) was just 2 years old. It was the time when she had just started speaking. I used to call her Honey and she used to call me Papa. Somehow, later she merged the two words together and started calling me papa-honey. May be it is her way of saying that I'm her sweet dad.