It’s the Victoria Day long weekend and Saturday at Canadian Tulip Festival had event for Beijing-Ottawa Day at Commissioner’s Park in Ottawa.

It was a special occasion because it marked the 20th anniversary in the relationship with Beijing and Ottawa for bringing the Tulip Friendship garden to both cities.

There was a lion dance performance to mark the event and celebrating the friendship and tulips.

Prior to the lion dance performance, I had the opportunity to check out the tulips throughout Dow’s Lake. Due to the slow start to Spring, a bunch of tulips have slowly been growing. There were some colourful tulips which I was able to shoot some photos.

You check out the photos below.

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At the Canada Science and Technology Museum, I had the opportunity to attend the unveiling of their temporary exhibit, Leonardo da Vinci – 500 Years of Genius.

This year marks da Vinci’s 500th birthday. The exhibit showcases the inventions and paintings from this amazing figure. The real Mona Lisa isn’t there but there are various re-productions and different variations of the smiling painting.

Some of da Vinci’s inventions displayed at the museum have interactive elements for children and family to try things out.

Tuesday night was a preview for friends of the museum and it was great of them to host it before the official opening for May 2nd. Thanks goes out to the museum for holding the event. The exhibition runs until September 2nd.

The photos can be viewed below.

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Ottawa Instagramers held a meetup at Canada Council for the Arts in downtown Ottawa.

The interactive exhibit was something I wanted to check out when it was unveiled in February. It is called Thresholds by Michel de Broin.

The experience is pretty unique because it uses doors from the metro cars in Montreal. When stepping foot, the doors would be open automatically. With light rail being delayed, it gives a glimpse of journeying to the urban space.

It was great seeing other Intagrammers, new and old. It was also a nice surprise to see a friend who works at Canada Council for the social media side.

At this event, I experimented shooting some videos. As usual, Polaroids were also taken.

Thresholds runs until June 9th. You can check the photos and videos below.

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Scary Bear Soundtrack has released their fourth album and on Saturday night, they held an album release party. It was held at Black Squirrel Books.

Saturday night’s concert had guests with Trevor Pritchard and Jared Davidson on the french horn and clarinet. The current group lineup also marked a change as keyboardist, Tiffany had her final show with the group. She will be concentrating more with Girls+ Rock Ottawa.

The fourth album called Boomerang Kids, a vinyl version is available for purchase at local music stores in Ottawa.

Joining Scary Bear Soundtrack on Saturday night was Salmon Ella. They are a local Ottawa band which describes themselves as sometimes rock, sometimes pop and whatever. When they performed on Saturday night, they had a bit of a surf rock feel.

As a gift to Gloria, I decided to give her past and slightly recent Polaroid photos as I was decluttering my collection. The reason for it is that it’s best to give the physical copies and have it as a memory. It’s always great to see Gloria and the gang.

You can view the photos and Polaroid photos below.

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For a taste of Hong Kong, Morning Owl Coffeehouse + Parlour held a pop-up cafe by Admiralty Coffee on Saturday from 10am-3pm. 

The menu consisted of drinks from yinyeung (a mixture of coffee and tea), Hong Kong milk tea, and lemon cha. The food menu had congee and pineapple bun.

I ordered congee, HK milk tea and pineapple bun. There was a delay to the pineapple bun as I arrived pretty early to Morning Owl. The congee was pretty good and from what it looked, it had pieces of Chinese donut (youtiao) and other small toppings which I’m can’t describe. The congee was not very salty but due to not eating anything and having an unusual taste palate for Saturday morning, I didn’t mind the salty taste to start off.

The milk tea was also fine and I tried with no sweetener at first which had no sweet taste. I then added the sweetener and it had the sweet and creamy taste.

The pineapple bun came last as it took about 40 minutes to be made. When it arrived to my table, it was piping hot and tasted pretty good. I did not mind the long wait for the pineapple bun.

Overall, I had a good experience with Admiralty Coffee Pop-Up at Morning Owl. You can check the photos from below.

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Happy Chinese/Lunar New Year, 2019 is year of the pig. It is the Earth Pig and it ends the 12 year cycle of the zodiac in the Chinese calendar. Next year will be the Metal element of the zodiac to the Chinese calendar.

The best of Chinese New Year is the lion dance. There were several events we took part in. There was one at Innovation, Science, and Economic Development Canada in downtown Ottawa.

We did a few schools and the students enjoyed seeing the lion dance performances.

The important events we did were at Ottawa Ice Dragon Boat Festival (in its third year) and ending the celebration at T&T Supermarket.

Here are some photos posted below of the lion dance performances during the Chinese/Lunar New Year.
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