Hello! Beautiful Niagara Falls

I was lucky enough to be sent by my company to go to COM2012, a mining and metallurgy conference in Niagara Falls that happened in the beginning of October. 

The conference was held at the beautiful Sheraton at Niagara Falls and the conference level had a gorgeous view of the falls.

Now tell me that's not pretty 

I got a chance to walk around on the first night of my conference and see the night views. They shoot lights at the water from the Canadian side and the falls seems to have a magical quality to it.

   

  

Here is a close up view of the water:

 

Looks like it's a scene from a movie

Here's the same picture without the lights, not as impressive, but still quite nice.

I walked around the touristy area after looking for something interesting to do. Clifton hill, which is the tourist area adjacent to the falls had quite a bit of haunted houses for tourists but I felt too old / local to really enjoy any of it.

Typical touristy stuff. 

There was even a Ripley's Believe it or not and I quite liked how the building was shaped :)

Notice that it's on its side?

The view from my room at night was really pretty too. With the way the hotel is located, you either get a view of the falls or a view of the tourist area. I had a "City view" room and the lights at night did not look half bad :). 

View from my room. Not bad eh?

I've wanted to do a long exposure time with a Ferris wheel for a while and I finally got my chance.

Since most of my meals were taken care off, I had very few opportunities to try the local cuisine. Though I did find an indian place down the alley from Dave and Busters. I got the lamb biriyani and it was quite good for a touristy place. They even added raisins to the dish and I've never had that before. I was the only customer eating there for the first 45 minutes before someone else came in. I'd like to think that I helped them draw in more customers that day :)

Mm..something that's not fries :)

On my last day, I ended up wandering over to the Crowne Plaza during lunch which is connected to the Sheraton and took some pictures there as well. I just loved the way everything seemed so grande and pretty in the lobby.

A reflection off the piano.

The casino is in between the two hotels and I got to go into a casino for the first time in my life! Not as interesting or as impressive as I thought it'd be. Just really loud, and lonely-feeling?

They give you a stamp when you go in, took me a while to wash it off.

 So I hoped you enjoyed viewing my adventures in Niagara and I apologize for my absence for the last little while. I'll will try to do more posts in the future :). Have a great weekend :D!

Orlando Trip

I recently went on a trip to Orlando, Florida and I thought I'd share with you guys some pictures that I took from my trip :). Sorry about the lack of updates recently since things have been pretty crazy since exams have ended. 

I've always been a huge fan of Disney movies and I've always wanted to go to Disneyworld in Orlando ever since I was a little kid. So I finally got that chance a few weeks ago to visit Disneyworld and Universal Studios, it was like I was completing my childhood dream from all those years ago. 

Disneyworld is made up of four different theme parks: Animal Kingdom, Epcot, Magic Kingdom and Hollywood Studios. All four are very different from each other in the feel and design. 

On our first day we went to Epcot and it happened to be a flower festival so I got to see amazing garden cut-outs of various Disney characters.

One of my favourites: Cinderella dancing with her prince <3

Animal Kingdom

The next day we went to Animal Kingdom and it was by far one of my favourite sections of Disney World.

The park surrounds the beautiful hand-carved Tree of Life and is divided into various "wild" areas in the world. 

Look at the amazing detail!

Everywhere you go, you'd see amazing animals and flowers on display and it was absolutely beautiful.

There were even street performers and I happened to catch this lady who was a "tree"

Can you spot her face?

Disney even had a safari ride that you could go on to spot various exotic animals. It was definitely very exciting to see elephants and giraffes so close in person.

Flamingos!

We even found some ostrich eggs! Oh how I wanted to take them and make omelettes....

Later on in the day, I saw a gorilla up close for the first time and it was really freaky how human like they seemed.

There were lots of native birds in the park and this one posed for me :D.

The food at Disneyworld was quite pricey and since my family wanted to get the most bang for our buck, we decided to get the turkey legs since they seemed like a good deal.
My family bought four turkey legs, one for each of us. They were really good but we were quite disgusted with the taste by the end of the legs.

Magic Kingdom

The next day, we went to Magic Kingdom and I was fortunate enough to take a picture with Cinderella's Castle with almost no one in the background. Tip: If you want to take a good picture at Disneyworld, best do it early in the morning since that was the time when there were the least amount of people and the light was sufficient for a good photo.

 

I just love Disney's attention to details and especially how everything lights up at night :)

But my favourite part of Disneyworld was the fireworks! The lighting of the castle and the music really added to the magic of the show. 

Disney's Hollywood Studios

Disney Hollywood Studios is the more family friendly version of Universal Orlando. You still have the fun stunts and roller coaster but you also have more mellow rides for young children and adults. This was the last stop in our Disney trip and it was pretty cool watching the stunt shows and looking at the behind-the-scenes area.

Prop from Prince of Persia

GI Joes from Toy Story

Wizarding World of Harry Potter

I grew up reading Harry Potter books so I could not resist going into the Harry Potter World in Universal Orlando when we went there on the last day. The place was beautifully decorated but I wish it was larger since they only recreated Hogsmeade and the Hogwarts Castle. Still I had a really good time there and can't wait to go back. 

Thumbs up to the Hogwarts Express conductor for wearing so many layers in 30 degree weather :D

The inside of the Hogwarts castle was decorated according to the books and were absolutely beautiful.

Just before you got on the ride, you get to see the talking sorting hat, pretty good animatronics :)

I hope you enjoyed my little journey to Orlando and I will try to post about my other trip to Moncton  soon.  In the meantime, have a great week!

A Day Full of Cupcakes

Just finished my last exam of undergrad today so I finally got some breathing room to do some blogging. :D The last two weeks can be described as crazy, uneventful, stressful and intense. But nonetheless, it's over and I hope I passed everything.

Just before things got crazy though, I got to try some of my friend Velora's amazing cupcakes. She was kind enough to do the baking for Chem Club's charity event and made a periodic table full of cupcakes! It was honestly the most delicious and awe-inspiring thing I've ever seen in my life. 

Look! Its even arranged in the way that the table is  arranged in :D

Mmm, look at those vanilla and chocolate cupcakes with raspberry butter creams....

Chocolate cupcakes with mint cream cheese frosting!

She even made lemon short bread cookies!

Since I was studying for my fuel cells exam at the time, I decided to get the lead and nickel ones since they reminded me of the lead-acid and nickel-cadmium batteries in my fuel cells course. 

 

Both of the cupcakes were so good, I would eat them everyday for the rest of my life :D.

For some reason,  the International Student Centre was giving out free food that day as well, so I got to eat more cupcakes after Velora's bake sale.



There was definately a lot more buttercream on these cupcakes but they just don't taste the same as Velora's, which had this fresh and made-with-love taste and feel.



Overall, it was a great day since I got free food and tried more of Velora's baking. I wish days like this would come by more often...


Extras:


I got a pair of fake Birkenstocks from Joe Fresh, they're super comfortable and I can't wait till the weather gets warmer so I can wear them more often.

It's been raining a lot and there's a little creek by my house, so I decided to capture the moment with my camera.

Yay for nature!

Hope you guys have a great week!