Brady Perkins's blog

Life

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Headed aboveground!
Headed aboveground!

I’ve been gone for a while. I think I need a real break.

The past week has been a lot: it started out with something neat, though, and I wanted to share a little bit.

Since I’ve had my car on campus at school, I’ve been wanting to make a journey across the lake and see the city on the other side, and this summer I made a friend who self-identifies as as much of a city person as I do and who is equally impulsive. Last Sunday, we popped into a car together and crossed the border and got on a GO train to Toronto.

That was the beginning of the giant wildfire cloud that blanketed the entire US northeast and Canadian woods for a while, and visible in a lot of the pictures.

I did take a lot of pictures. I’ll give away a few (I love taking these)! I’ll definitely upload some to my Wikimedia Commons profile, too:

The view stepping out of Union Station.
The view stepping out of Union Station.
The TTC, a surprisingly nice metro..
The TTC, a surprisingly nice metro.
Taipei or Toronto? The tram tells all.
Taipei or Toronto? The tram tells all.

This isn’t all of the pictures, but I did try some poutine and rode plenty of TTC (although I missed the trams, since none of them were traveling from places to places that both me and the friend I was traveling with wanted to go).

I did hit Chinatown and a Muji in the Chinatown (my favorite store). If there are two places in any North American city that I feel obligated to visit when I show up, it’s the Chinatowns and the historic districts (looking for charming brownstone shots and anywhere with brick roads).

The distillery district: even nicer than I anticipated!
The distillery district: even nicer than I anticipated!

Chinatown felt surprisingly like Taipei, and Corktown and the distillery district scratched the other itch as well as it could’ve. I also missed the Toronto Islands, which I hear are a ferry ride away (fun) and also historic and adorable.

I’ve discovered, with all of this friend-making and city-walking, that what I enjoy the most is making good friends and seeing and trying new things.

As much as I thought, when I left Taipei for that one-week trip those few months ago this year, that what I was missing was something I couldn’t get in America, I’ve more than proven that wrong: my personal bar for satisfaction in life is much lower than I imagined, and I think that’s a good thing.

I’m laying down in bed with my laptop now. Life’s gotten in the way a little bit lately, and the plans I had for this month have fallen out of possibility. I’m back at home early from my summer internship. I’m thinking about the future even more than I usually do, because I can’t help it now that I don’t have much else to occupy my time.

My bedroom at home.
My bedroom at home.

In that bedroom photo, you can see my super-cool new giant teddy bear. That was a gift from a friend. He’s even more stylish with my Bopomofo handbag that I’ve now strapped around his shoulder.

Rather than give a rollercoaster series of events, as I tend to do, I think I’m going to take a break for a long time. A month, two, or maybe more. I’ll come back in the future and report back, but the blogging bug has been sufficiently squashed over the past while.

I'll be home for a while. At least some parts of home are nice.
I'll be home for a while. At least some parts of home are nice.

Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoy my posts and I hope you check back in a little while if you remember. I’m sure I’ll have plenty to talk about.

See you then!