Farewell to Tae Hoon

We had dinner at Tony and Iris' place today. It was in honour of Iris' brother Tae Hoon who was here studying English in Toronto. He'll be returning home to Korea on Wednesday.

After Tae Hoon, Tony and Iris, I was the next person there. I arrived half an hour after the stated starting time so I was surprised no one else came before me. I guess starting at 4:00 p.m. was a bit early for most people.

Ying came next. I let both her and Tae Hoon play the Camouflage and Airport games I grabbed from my nephews. They're puzzle games that I often bring to gatherings. People really like playing them.

Mike arrived at 6:00. We started dinner shortly after. Tony and Iris had made a lot of wonderful food (like they always do). Along with rice, vegetables and salad, there was a Korean boiled pork dish and soup. It was all very good.

Andrew showed up while we were eating and we saved John some food after he arrived at 7:30. He had been delayed by a detour on the subway he was taking. They were doing some track work there.

All in all it was a lovely evening. We played my nephews' games. We chatted a bit and listened to Christmas music on the radio. Tony and Iris had a crackling, fireplace video on their television set. And the wee Christmas tree they bought from Canadian Tire on Sunday was twinkling beside it.

A Visit to St. Jacobs, ON

Today I took Iris' brother and parents and Jinny to St. Jacobs for a visit. It was my first time there. It's in the Kitchener/Waterloo area. About 1-1/2 to 2 hours west of Toronto.

The main attraction is the farmers' market. It's about 3 kilometres outside the village of St. Jacobs. The sell a lot of local produce and other food items and crafts and gifts there. It's a neat place.

After spending just over an hour at the farmers' market we headed into town for a bite to eat and to check out some of the stores there. Since we were pretty hungry we didn't take long on picking a place to dine at. The photo above shows Iris' parents, brother and Jinny inside a restaurant called Stone Crock.

We had the lunch buffet there. It was $13.99, plus tax and tip. I thought it was a reasonable deal compared to other choices. Normally a single entrée would cost you over $10 anyway. For a few bucks more you could eat as much as you'd like. If you know me, you know how much I like to eat. So that suited me just fine.

After lunch we only spent about 1/2 hour more wandering through town before deciding to head back. The weather wasn't that great and I think Iris' parents had enough of walking. Besides, if we wanted to make it back to Toronto at a reasonable time we couldn't stay much longer. Rush hour traffic was staring us in the face. And that wasn't something any of us were looking forward to.

All-in-all I believe everyone had an enjoyable day out. Though I'm not sure it was worth driving through rush hour traffic for (on the return trip). If I had to do it again I think I'd pick the weekend as a better time to venture out.