Holiday Happenings (Part 1)

For Christmas weekend Naoyuki and I went to Niagara Falls, Ontario, mostly figuring most things in Buffalo would be closed and, well, why not?

Naoyuki found (as usual) an enormously good deal on a hotel room, this time at the Sheraton on the Falls, which has a stunning view of the American Falls and the Rainbow Bridge, plus it is attached to several attractions, including Casino Niagara and the Fallsview Indoor Waterpark, which is a scarily gigantic six-story dome-covered attraction built, believe it or not, on top of a parking deck!

Not that we did anything that exciting. Our activities included an exquisite Saturday afternoon lunch at Peller Estates in Niagara-on-the-Lake; jam shopping at another NOTL favorite, Kurtz Orchards; a quick trip up to Burlington, ON to check out IKEA for the first time in a long, long time; a peek at the Royal Botanical Gardens, also in Burlington, where we found a couple of deeply-discounted framed prints of (all things!) palm trees; and dinner at Yukiguni, reputedly the best sushi restaurant in Niagara Falls and certainly the best we've found this side of Toronto. We also spent some time dithering around Fallsview Casino, including Christmas Eve dinner at Asian Pearl (I regret to report that they were horribly understaffed and even if the food had been more than just so-so I still would have had a hissy-tanty. As it was, I walked out telling the people lined up to get in, "you don't want to eat here!") Quite dismaying, really.

Christmas Day we headed back to Buffalo, where we had some lunch at the home of our friends Matt and Anita and their three young children (Hannah, Erin, and Brennan.) Then home to touch base with the kids and their mom and various grandparents (more about THAT another time...)

Unfortunately, I came down with a cold the very next day, nothing really icky but tiring, nonetheless. I worked at GCC on Friday, December 29th, even though I was still feeling a bit under the weather. My guess was that it would be about the slowest day of the year -- and I was right!

David and Emily arrived the next day. (See Part II)