I went on a 9 day bus tour of the Maritimes with my extended family. Sitting on the bus to get to various destinations sucked. But I saw various attractions that helped me to learn a little more about Canadian culture along the way.
The Canadian war museum - located in Ottawa, there are various artifacts and galleries and tanks on display describing Canada's role in the 2 world wars and other wars. The more interesting exhibition was the one describing Gladiators and Roman soldiers from the ancient Roman Empire.
Hopewell Rock (Bay of Fundy) - This was a beautiful scenic beach that we visited during low tide. We explored some of the various rock caverns that this park is famous for.
Peggy's Cove - This was a panoramic, post-card like attraction, with the mini-lighthouse and attractive rocky shoreline. The tour guide for some reason kept promoting this spot and encouraging us to spend some tourist dollars buying various trinkets, which we obliged.
The Atlantic maritime museum - I think the main reason this was chosen as part of the tour was because they had a gallery on display which contained artifacts from the Titanic, some of which were used in the actual movie. The Titanic was apparently very popular with the Hong Kong people. There was also a boat that we could board to see what life was like living aboard a boat.
Anne of Green Gables Park - another piece of Canadian culture that we visited.
Magnetic Hill - the bus driver demonstrated the effects of magnetic hill by driving "down" the hill and then putting it into neutral so that we can see the bus slide back "up" the hill. Magnetic hill is actually an optical illusion where the human eye is tricked into seeing the hill as "downard" when it is actually upward due to no horizon available to use as reference.
Whale Watching (Riviere du Loup) - First time whale watching, and the St Lawrence seaway near Riviere du Loup was a great location. I was able to see fin whales and minke whales, as well as a bunch of grey seals.
Chinese Buffet dinners - not surprisingly, the buffet dinners more or less served the same kind of westernized Chinese food - chow mein, fried rice, California Rolls, sweet & sour pork, spring rolls, stir fried veggies. The maritime provinces are not known for their Chinese food unfortunately. For the ones that tour bus took us to, I think the only reason they even exist is because of the bus tours "feeding" them. I asked the tour guide, and she told me that there are on average 5 to 6 buses such as the one we were on driving asian tourists out to these destinations 2x per week. Each bus has a seating capacity of 52 people, so assuming a buffet dinner costs around $15, that works out to $7800 per week of business for these hole in the wall restaurants. Not too shabby.
lobster dinner - this was the first time I have ever eaten a whole lobster as the main course of the meal. The whole lobster was steamed and partially cracked to make it easier to access the meat, and came with a baked potato, half a corn on the cob and some rice. The lobster was not overcooked and tasted great, although the service was disappointing. I don't think they had any system to deal with a large group such as the tour group I was with.
My son was more interested in swimming, and he got to try out the swimming pools at the Delta Fredericton, Delta Prince Edward (Charlottetown), the Prince George Hotel (Halifax), and Le Gouverneur (Montreal).
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