Canada_Day3_Ottawa_Parliament

We had good night sleep finally. I called Kai to get information for good pastries and foods in the morning. We decided to visit Byward Market and also Parliament of Canada in Ottawa.
We planed to explore the City on our own in the day time and have dinner with Kai and Scott at night.

Downtown area. Overcast and Rainy day! Cold but very humid.

Parliament of Canada is in the front after we walked less than 10 minutes from our hotel.

There were tulips all over the place in Ottawa. They were all blooming.

Started feeling like walking in Europe!

Looks like French Castles. Felt so unreal to see such kind of buildings in a very busy downtown area. There are lots of tourists here.

Lots of tulips in front of the Parliament building.

Garden next to the Parliament.

Continue walking to Byward market. Lots of good restaurants, shopping and a traditional market there.

Rivers go through Ottawa.

Fairmont Château Laurier

Byward Market!

Fiddlehead. I never had this vegetable. They said it tasted like Asperagus and Broccoli combined.

Lots of furniture stores here!

Restaurant Area.

Fun Stores.

Lots of Seafood restaurants here

Remy was tired and starving. He was drinking his milk while we were shopping.

This is a very Good French Bakery shop. Huge and very busy. We also get some ratatouille here. My first time to try ratatouille. Barack Obama was here. This is the OBAMA Cookies.

I got three different kinds of Croissants here. Also several different sweet desserts. They are all GOOD!!!

Heading back to the hotel. We've been out for several hours.

Kai and Scott took us to their favorite Korean Restaurants. BBQ is perfect for the cold weather day.

Korean pancake. Free with meal!

BBQ chicken and Beef.

Canada_Day2_Albert@ the Bay, Ottawa

We got up pretty early at Kai's house. Ottawa was still cold even it's about May. We were all very tired from traveling whole day yesterday. The cold weather makes me felt like getting a cold. Remy also had very bad cough. But he was still very active! He played with Kai's little dog, checked on everything in the house and tried to touch everything in sight.
I was so tired to hold Remy to prevent him from getting into trouble or getting hurt. Ira and I made a quick decision to find a nice hotel nearby so we can relax without watching Remy.
Scott, Kai's partner suggested a suite hotel where his mom normally stayed in Ottawa. We decided to drive by and check it out when we were out for lunch.

This is the cafe Kai loves to go for lunch. This is a dog friendly Italian cafe. We had very nice light lunch at this place.

"The Real Canadian Superstore" is like the "Super Target" or "Super Walmart" locates at West Boro area in Ottawa. We were there for Remy's diaper and some little things.

Albert at Bay Suite Hotel, Ottawa. Very nice suite hotel; highly recommend! Remember to reserve early; not may vacant room available. This hotel is in the center of Downtown so we can walk to almost everywhere. We got the Deluxe Suite with supper large king bed. (This is the only one left so not much choice.) I negotiated to have the same rate for 5 days with free parking. This save us lots of money. During the Tulip festival, our room is more than $200 per day and parking is close to $20 per day!

Remy was checking everything ever since we came in the room.

Still has the Jacket on. Ottawa is still around 5 C.

View of Living room, Kitchen and part of Dinning Area.

Our suite also has a huge storage room.

We also have a large king bed. Remy loves to snuggle with us even though the hotel brought him a baby crib to sleep in.

Canada_Day1_Depart

Remy's mom did not teach this semester. Thanks to state government is nearly bankrupt! We decided this is the best time to take a trip. However, we do not want to take a long flight so Canada became our first choice.
We do not want to go to Canada before mid-April because the weather is still freezing cold. And we want to go before summer traveling season begins which is before May 20. Finally, we came up with the schedule of April 29-May 8. We planed to stay at Ottawa from April 29-May 2, Montreal from May 3-May 6, back to Ottawa on May 7 and leave on May 8.

We got an umbrella stroller for Remy to travel. Remy was trying it!

Car sits and strolles are not counted as carry on item. They are free to take on the plane.

We transferred our flight at Washington DC. Remy was "sucking" his lunch while waiting for the flight to Syracuse, NY.

Our plan was to fly to Syracuse, NY which is the closest airport in the US to Ottawa. Rent a car and drive up to Ottawa.
Two reasons to travel this way:
1. Cheaper air fare and shorter air traveling time. We do not need to pay for Remy's free ticket TAX if we fly within the US. Also the total traveling time by plane cuts down to about 8 hours than 11 or 12 hours. It's hard to travel with an active 18 month old boy on the plane for 12 hours.
2. We decided to rent a car anyway and renting a car at Syracuse is cheap.
We get to Syracuse before 6:00 pm and went to get groceries in this little town before head to Ottawa. We left Syracuse around 7:30 pm.

Canada and US border line. We were driving through the Canadian Custom. It looks like a toll plaza. Only took us 2 minutes to answer some questions to pass the Canadian Custom.

We finally got to Ottawa, Kai's house by 10:30 pm. He was waiting for us to go to dinner.
We picked a Cantonese restaurants. There are lots of Chinese live in Ottawa. Most of Chinese restaurants open late.