Update

 Sunday Nov 30 2025

We are doing a full day city tour today in Hanoi. Weather is perfect, no humidity.

Weekend Roundup

  WE ARE TRAVLLING UNTIL DEC 22, I WILL LINK UP IF POSSIBLE. BUT I EXPECT LIMITED INTERNET/WI-FI.

As I am away, and will have limited wi-fi access, I have scheduled Weekly Roundup, not knowing what Tom's choice will be. Therefore I'll choose something!!

Welcome to The Weekend Roundup...hosted by Tom The Back Roads Traveler

1. Starts with "V"
2. A Favorite
3. - Chosen by Tom me!

Starts with V (BIGGEST/SMALLEST/LONGEST/SHORTEST/OLDEST)

VOLKSWAGON VAN small Lego New York City

FAVOURITE

VINTAGE Kensington Market

MY CHOICE

VAN HORN TX 2025

Happy Anniversary!

 November 27, 2025

Well, who would have thought that we'd be here in Hanoi Vietnam on our 38 wedding anniversary +9 years together!! 47 years!

It's been a good travel year so far!

Signs

  Joining Tom at Signs2

Wordless Wednesday Wordless

WE ARE TRAVLLING UNTIL DEC 22, I WILL LINK UP IF POSSIBLE. BUT I EXPECT LIMITED INTERNET/WI-FI.

Hanging around in my files. Found on the TTC.

Monday Mural

  I'm linking up at Monday Mural 

WE ARE TRAVLLING UNTIL DEC 22, I WILL LINK UP IF POSSIBLE. BUT I EXPECT LIMITED INTERNET/WI-FI.

February 2025 - Cathedral City CA

The Agnes Pelton Murals Path is a grassroots Public Art installation of murals and mosaics by artists commissioned by the Agnes Pelton Society. Mosaics and painted murals are visible to the public on Chuparosa (hummingbird) Lane and F Street in the Cathedral City Cove. The murals are on walls of private homes.

Agnes Lawrence Pelton (August 22, 1881 – March 13, 1961) was a modernist painter who was born in Germany and moved to the United States as a child. She studied art in the United States and Europe. She made portraits of Pueblo Native Americans, desert landscapes and still lifes. Pelton's work evolved through at least three distinct themes: her early "Imaginative Paintings," art of the American Southwest people and landscape, and abstract art that reflected her spiritual beliefs. She was a first cousin of American sculptor Laura Gardin Fraser.

 “Agnes and Friends,” is a mural depicting Agnes Pelton and other artists who lived in the Cathedral City Cove from the 1930s to ’60s. 

I knew nothing about Agnes Pelton when I found these murals. Since then I have read about her and found this great video.

Agnes has the blue scarf around her neck.

Lalo and Five Mariachis is a painted portrait mural by Luiz Castro.  It is a tribute to former Cathedral Cove resident Lalo Guerrero who is widely known as the Father of Chicano Music.

We had seen a sculpture of Lalo last week in Cathedral City.

It took some manipulating for John to get these photos as the mural was behind a wall.

Simeon Den wrote this on Facebook about this mural.

Most of us in our four-to-five blocks of neighborhood know each other, at least by face, and many of us by names.  We are a multi-cultural, cross generational, interdenominational, mixed ‘hood of whites, blacks, Mexicans, (at least) one Asian (me), who wave at each other as we drive by or walk our dogs. We have at least five STVRs (short term vacation rentals) in our ‘hood and if ever there was something worth complaining about, before calling the cops to complain  we would no doubt politely walk over to the offending house to talk to our neighbors and problem solved! 
On another note, last year we commissioned a neighborhood Latina artist to paint images of our neighborhood elders. (There are many residents who raised their families in the houses they grew up in and  now are visited by  their grandchildren in those homes.) Our elders mural “@Las Mayores de Cathedral City Cove.”

 8-Bit Frida, painted ceramic tile mosaic by Marnie Navarro is a tribute to the Surrealist painter and political activist Frida Kahlo.

Our Lady of Chuparrosa, a  mosaic composed of broken pottery by Peter Palladino. Lady of Chuparrosa is fictitious saint referencing the popular  Lady of Guadalupe. Nevertheless, locals often leave lit candles and flowers at her feet. 

I couldn't find anything on this one.

Tokyo Japan Nov 21 - Nov 24 Interim Update

I bought a Chromebook for this trip and it isn't cooperating with Blogger so I'm just going to post as is, call it a draft and fix it up when I can!

I am also having a learning curve importing my photos!

We are all good, enjoying ourselves immensely. Hilton Tokyo is amazing.

We did 23,000 steps yesterday!

La Boulangerie Moderne de Montreal nov 21

 Linking up with Marg at The Intrepid Reader

Weekend Coffee Share
Sunday Salon

WE ARE TRAVELLING UNTIL DEC 22, I WILL LINK UP IF POSSIBLE. BUT I EXPECT LIMITED INTERNET/WI-FI.

COMPLEX DESJARDINS MONTREAL QC

Last Week's Post Pigeon Cafe

Last Year's Post Tim Horton's HHOF

Five Years Ago     Allan Gardens Toronto I wasn't doing weekly recaps back then.

SATURDAY

We are still organizing our trip. I booked our airport transfers for Tokyo. We checked out our Air Canada flights and adjusted some seating.

I'm guess I'm not normal!

SUNDAY

We went to brunch with my cousin and her wife at Capra's, owned by local Canadian celebrity chef, Massimo Capra. My cousin's daughter was as a server while going to university.

We had great food and great fun catching up. A wasn't our server, but she did take our orders and stop by when she could. David was a  delightful server who gave us a chocolate lava cake on the house.

EGGS MASSIMO Two Eggs Poached in Tomato Sauce, Roasted Onions, Fresh Tomatoes, Oregano, Sausage or Bacon, Homefries or Arugula & Cherry Tomato, Multigrain Bread.

Merguez Sausage Hashbrown  Poached Egg, Shredded Potatoes, Peppers, Tomato, Onion, Citrus Avocado Crema

My fern is doing well, although it does drop a lot of leaves(?).

MONDAY

Monday's Mural

On the bus - don't let it fool you, it was cold and windy! The trees have lost their autumn finery. 

I met my BFF and we had lunch and did the shops. K even bought a top at Winners!

John decided his sandals were falling apart so ordered new ones online.

TUESDAY

SIGNS  - Canada Walk of Fame

Tuesday Treasures 

I figured out and configured my laptop so I can use Google Docs while offline.

Then I started encountering this error while doing various things online.

Cloudflare down today: Cloudflare, a critical web infrastructure provider, experienced a major outage that disrupted access to numerous major websites worldwide, including X (formerly Twitter). This incident highlighted the company's essential role in keeping the internet running smoothly and how its failures can have widespread, visible consequences.

I had a haircut and then went to meet a friend for lunch. After that I did a couple of errands before heading home. 

Some sights along the way.

We had seen these birds at City Hall last week, but we didn't realized they were an advertising campaign.

 Energy Bird is a system of products mindfully designed to regulate your energy throughout the day. Whether it’s building your base, boosting your brain’s energy, or finding balance, we have a formula for that.

The event is free and open to the public, with no tickets required. However, you can unlock special benefits with a Flock Access experience complete with product discounts, exclusive swag and a skip-the-line fast pass.

You can qualify by entering the Instagram giveaway or by finding the Energy Birds located across the city.

The plaque highlights the vital, yet often overlooked, contributions of women to Toronto's workforce. The site was once a mail-order warehouse for The Robert Simpson Company, where women took on significant industrial roles, especially during the First World War, which helped pave the way for greater workplace equity. 

Royal York Hotel getting attired in her festive array.

John went out to lunch with his old boss.

I had procrastinated completing our Japan entry declaration and it turned out to be not to bad. Some questions were a little weird due to translation but we got our QR code. 

WEDNESDAY

We booked mani pedis for 10:15. Then I went downtown to do some errands. I wanted some makeup and a couple of things for dinner and for Christmas, as well as some cash. I did get a turkey breast on sale for Christmas. 

John got started on his packing and his new sandals arrived. He also took his clubs out of the car.

THURSDAY

We got the Christmas fund cheque to the office for the employees. We won't be going to the Christmas party. John started handing out his Xmas money to our special employees that we engage with daily.

The car keys were given to the valets in case they have to move it for something.

Packing, organizing, finalizing, watering plants, tidying, ETC.

FRIDAY

We are off to the airport at 6:40AM!

COOKING

Saturday rotisserie chicken pot pie

Sunday brunch Capra's dinner leftover chicken pie

Monday chips and eggs

Tuesday Vietnamese pork meatball wraps

Wednesday Liver fried onions carrots turnip (yay the end) mashed potatoes 

Thursday ORDER Swiss Chalet Chicken

Friday TRANSIT

WATCHING

Memoirs of a Geisha  released in Japan as Sayuri, is a 2005 American epic period drama film. It tells the story of a young Japanese girl, Chiyo Sakamoto, who is sold by her impoverished family to a geisha house (okiya) to support them by training as and eventually becoming a geisha under the pseudonym "Sayuri Nitta." The film centers around the sacrifices and hardship faced by pre-World War II geisha, and the challenges posed to geisha society by the war and a modernizing world.

Mr. Mercedes  is an American crime drama television series based on the Bill Hodges novel trilogy by Stephen King, which consists of Mr. Mercedes, Finders Keepers, and End of Watch. It was developed by David E. Kelley, and stars Brendan Gleeson and Harry Treadaway.

Retired detective Bill Hodges is still haunted by the unsolved case of "Mr. Mercedes", who claimed 16 lives when he drove a stolen Mercedes through a line of job-seekers at a local job fair. Meanwhile, brilliant young psychopath Brady Hartsfield emerges to focus his attention on Hodges. What begins as an online cat-and-mouse game soon has deadly real-life consequences as an increasingly desperate Hartsfield becomes bent on leaving his mark on the world.

It slowly dawned on us that we had watched this during the pandemic!

I watched Once  on CBC Gem, a 2007 Irish romantic musical drama film written and directed by John Carney. The film stars Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová as two struggling musicians in Dublin, Ireland. Hansard and Irglová had previously performed music as the Swell Season, and composed and performed the film's original songs.

READING

With some much organizing going on this week I am still reading A Darker Domain.

However I did download a bunch of books to read over the next while.