How Toronto is Responding to the Corona Virus - a Global Health Emergency

Chinese New Year decorations in a Toronto supermarket

January, 2020

Chinese New Year is the most important cultural event for Chinese people in China, also for overseas Chinese around the world.

Unfortunately, since the outbreak of the corona virus in China happening around the same time as Chinese New Year, many celebrations have been cancelled in numerous Chinese cities. In Toronto, Canada, there are two confirmed cases of people who have contracted this virus upon their return from China recently.


Our Canadian government is doing an excellent job in tracking and contacting other passengers who sat within three rows of these two passengers on the plane.

Some people in Toronto are reacting quickly and irrationally to the virus situation. We never thought of wearing any masks but  I have learned that surgical masks are all sold out in our pharmacy stores in Toronto. Some people are avoiding social gatherings, church services; they just stay home.

As for us, we live our lives as normal.

A lady prepared the  special food for our church new year dinner.

 Last week, on Chinese New Year's day, we went to a family  New Year dinner with our brother-in-law's family, and attended two church services and a church New Year dinner.

A couple of days ago, we took our Mom out for our weekly Tuesday luncheon at a nice Chinese restaurant. 

A Lion Dance team performing in a Toronto restaurant

Not long after we started eating, there was the lion dance team coming into the restaurant and performing for the patrons.

The Lion Dancers came to our table and performed.

We held up two New Year red packets and attracted the dragon to come to our table.













I also met my sister for lunch last Monday and another friend for a drink in the evening.

My sister gave our mom a red lucky packet. My mom was tickle pink.

She kissed the lucky red packet!







My Mom was happy !
Life is normal for us! We go out, visit my mom,  friends and family and attend church services.
Nothing has changed.  We don't wear masks either.


I was so glad to see John Tory, Toronto's Mayor and Jim Karygiannis, a city councilor,  and his other fellow councilors attending a  Solidarity Dinner in Toronto on tonight's evening news.



 Actions speak louder than words! While some Torontonians are nervous and staying away from churches, restaurants and shopping malls, our elected officials' presence demonstrates their support for the Chinese community and business. Bravo to most of the inhabitants of Toronto who are not affected by the bad news on the other side of the continent and live their lives fully and normally!

R.T.
Toronto, Canada
Jan. 30, 2020

Review of Hotel Beresford, San Francisco

Bay Bridge, San Francisco

San Francisco is one of the most beautiful cities in the USA. In fact, it is the top travel destination in the States.

Google office, SF

No matter when we visit the city, it is always bustling with visitors from around the world with many activities going on in the city.

 There are many high tech companies located here employing a huge number of high paying techies as well as its popularity among tourists from around the world,

San Francisco is a very expensive city for tourists as well as for its inhabitants.

Our downtown hotel was close to many nice restaurants 

We had to work hard to research for a decent hotel which would meet our three main criteria:

1. Reasonable price
2. Located in a safe neighbourhood

Festive decorations in the lobby of the hotel where we stayed.

3. Convenient to public transportation with good eating and shopping places

A welcoming lobby at the Beresford Hotel, SF, USA

 After much searching on the internet, we did find one!

Hotel Beresford , located in downtown SF, is withing minutes to many attractions. It has a nice welcoming lobby with 24 hour concierge service.

Our room came with complimentary continental
breakfast each morning in a comfortable bar within the hotel.

Our favourite room was the cosy TV room right next to the lobby where we watched the news and enjoyed our tea and newspaper after our breakfast. It felt as if we were sitting in our family room at our own home.

We stayed at the Hotel Beresford in SF recently.

We stayed there for five nights and enjoyed our stay very much as we could walk everywhere easily from our hotel.



R.T.
SF, USA

Learning to Ride a Scooter for the First Time , SF

 Our stay in SF was coming to an end. It was't a long vacation at all.
Today was the last day we could spend time with our family member.
He was very considerate as he would leave SF for New York a day ahead of us, he wanted to make sure that we would know our way around the city for our last day.

E. took us out walking around the neighborhood showing us the way to downtown and making sure we knew where the train stations were etc.

Scooters are available for rent in many places in SF 

I found that SF is much easier to get around than many other big cities in the U.S., for instance,  the subway system is well developed here. Visitors can easily take the bus or train into the city of SF without having to pay a hefty taxi fare.  Besides the trains and public buses, people can take UBER, ride their bikes or scooters around town.

We saw scooters locked to street poles available for rental in SF.

My first time riding on a scooter!

Never been on a scooter, I wanted to try my feet on one.  Using his credit card to rent one, E. unlocked a scooter attached to a street pole easily and demonstrated to us how to ride on it.

I learned how to skate, ice dance, cross country ski and downhill ski not when I was a child but during my early adult years.

Older, not as agile as before, I could really feel the difference this time. Our son was good, he showed us how to do it. Shaky at the beginning, I finally got it!!!

A new and exciting experience for me while vacationing in SF!

R.T.
SF, USA
Day 9

Festive Decorations Around 101 California Street, SF

I love the architecture in San Francisco!

I have always been interested in architecture.

I always enjoy visiting San Francisco, a city filled with splendid buildings everywhere.

Recently, we spent the entire Christmas holiday in that beautiful city.

We walked a lot admiring the grand buildings, both old and modern in the downtown area.










One place where we particularly enjoyed was the public space surrounding the office building on 101 California Street in downtown SF.

Festive decorations around 101 California Street, SF, USA

The place was all decked up with red Christmas decorations.







Numerous plant pots containing red flowers along with red cushions were staggered and placed on the different levels of the concrete steps in the area.

The child in me could not resist climbing up the steps to the top level of these steps.














We posed and snapped pictures in this festive little park.

It was fun simply spending time with my loved ones!




R.T.
SF, USA

Enjoying the Cirque du Soleil Show Under the Big Tent in SF's Waterfront

We visited a few places, we had a very busy afternoon touring around downtown San Francisco on Boxing Day. Instead of going to the gym, we decided to slow down and had a simple dinner at E. apartment before heading out for the evening. The best part of this vacation was the opportunity I had in sharing my glimpses of grace experiences with E. at dinner tonight. I told him about my experience with my dad and Mrs. MacArthur and urged him to listen to his inner voice.

After dinner, we went to see the Cirque du Soleil show at 8 p.m. playing under the big tents at SF's waterfront.

Lots of acrobatic performances by highly skillful performers

The big tent was a full house! It started right at 8 p.m. and the audience was attentive. We were sitting at section 202, in the middle of row O, the seats were pretty good. The show was better than I thought.  We enjoyed the show because:

1. The circus show we went to before had animals doing tricks and people jumping around.

The Cirque Du Soleil show we saw in SF was called Ama Luna which has an interesting story based loosely on Shakespeare's The Tempest.

2. The show itself was accompanied by beautiful live music and songs throughout the entire performance.

There was also colourful and interesting costumes that went with the show.

3.  Instead of having performers simply jumping around and performing their acrobatic skills, there was much artistry that went into every movement.

A Cirque du Soleil performing a difficult balancing act

It was artistic, beautiful and romantic at times.












I really like the part when Miranda performed her part in and out of the huge water bowl. It was simply mesmerizing!  My husband enjoyed the see saw performance by the guys. It was very good too!

We enjoyed the hour and half dance acrobatic performance. Afterwards, we went into a bar, had a drink and snack and talked about the show. E. was able to explain in detail some parts I missed about the show and that was when I learned that the Ama Luna story was based on Shakespeare's story of The Tempest!

It was an enjoyable evening spending with my loved ones in SF!

R.T.
SF, USA

Grocery Shopping at the Automated No Check Out Self Served Amazon Go Store, SF

We visited the Amazon Go Store in San Francisco recently.

While we were visiting downtown SF, we walked by the first cashierless grocery store - the Amazon Go store. I heard about this store on the news last year after our visit to this city.

The first no check out grocery store in America.

Out of curiosity, we went in to take a look. There was a gentleman standing at the entrance trying to explain to potential customers such as us how the store worked.

He informed us that if we had an account,  we could just walk in, pick up grocery items and walk out of the store upon completing our purchase.

Should we pick up something but put it back on the shelf, the computer would know that we did not purchase that item and there would be no charge.

The shelves were stocked mainly with ready to go meals.

The most attractive part of the store was that there would be no line up, no need to pay cash or credit to any cashier at the door. Amazon Go store would send a receipt to us charging us on our visa card.

Amazon Go Store was quite empty when we went shopping there.

We went in the store and browsed around. It was about 4p.m. in the afternoon but the store was very empty.












We picked up three boxes of ice cream, and some snacks and just walked out of the door. No line up, no need to pay anyone as there was nobody at the exit. No cashier, nobody.

Did I enjoy shopping at the store? Would I come back again to the Amazon Go Store? I asked myself.

No! Part of the fun of going shopping is interacting with people, asking questions and talking to store employees.






I enjoy personal service and chatting with store employees. I found shopping at the Amazon Go Store dehumanize, and an impersonal experience.  If I have a question about an item, who would I go to and who would help me?

One question that puzzles me is this: North Americans value their privacy highly. However, shopping at the Amazon Go Store gives away much of our privacy such as our very personal information regarding our address, contact information, shopping habits, what items we buy, our product preferences and even our life style and choices.  Many of us object to security cameras being installed in our cities citing breach of privacy. Why on earth would we allow Amazon to know exactly what we buy for me and my family daily and how much we spend monthly on our groceries?

May be this is the reason why the Amazon Go Store is not as popular as the company has anticipated. It was opened exactly a year ago but it has a long way to go before it can be widely accepted.

R.T.
Amazon Go Store
San Francisco
U.S.A.

Day 8 - A Nice Dim Sum Brunch at the Ferry Building, Downtown San Francisco

Rincon Centre, San Francisco, USA

There were such good shows on CNN last night on Christmas day that we stayed up and watched the Christmas specials late into the early morning.











Instead of rushing around trying to take in all the attractions in SF, we decided this was not our priority at this trip. Taking it easy, we slept in on Boxing Day and skipping breakfast.

Nice artwork lining the walls of the Rincon Centre Building in SF

It was a nice mild day and we enjoyed this spring like weather and decide to do as much walking as we could this time.

Heading towards a restaurant for brunch, E. took us through his neighbourhood by the waterfront.

We discovered historical buildings.













 Taking our time, we admired the nice artwork within the buildings in this neighborhood community.

Ferry Building & the waterfront- a must visit place in SF

We discovered a restaurant at the Ferry Building on the Embarcadero  when we went out for a walk on Christmas Eve, so we told E. about it and decided to try this eatery.











The Imperial Court Tea House, located within the Ferry Building was normally a 10- 15 minute walk form where we were.

That day it took us almost 40 minutes as we were  meandering through the side streets.

Lots of eating places inside the Ferry Building, SF

The Ferry Building was busy today, being Boxing Day with many people off work. We were glad that we didn't have to wait for long before getting seats at the restaurant.

The Imperial Court Tea House - our favourtie place for tea

The Imperial Court Tea House, a place for people to stop for different kinds of teas was where we had our Boxing Day brunch.
















It also served dim sum dishes and a light lunch menu.

Happy to discover a dim sum place so close to his apartment, E. ordered his favourite dim sum - shrimp dumplings and home made noodle soup. They were delicious!

We were delighted to discover this dim sum place at the Ferry Building, S.F.

The best was that we could linger a little and talked over some hot drinks and catch up with E.

Enjoying a dim sum brunch at the Imperial Court Tea House in SF.

I was also busy trying to take a few pictures and making a short video clip for J.













After brunch, E. took us to the Winter Walk downtown. The place was not as busy as we thought . There were not a lot of vendors selling their holiday gift items save for a few kids with their parents enjoying some children's games and activities.

We enjoyed the walk downtown,  many of the buildings were grand and the Christmas decorations were  beautiful!






The best was spending time outside enjoying the sight and sound of this beautiful season with my loved ones!!

R.T.
SF Downtown
USA