Around the Great Lakes

When Ontario becomes closer, the everlasting field disappears and the woods comes to extends around 100 km east of Winnipeg in Manitoba. The Trans-Canada Highway 1, which runs all the way to Vancouver in the west, somehow changes its name to the Trans-Canada Highway 17. The trees in this region have thinner trunks and become denser than those in the Canadian Rockies and stand straight into the sky. In places white birches are found among those trees. The Highway 17 advances to the east, threading these trees and countless small lakes in the hilly land with mild undulation. This is the best road for motorcycle trip. There are quite a few riders who are heading for the west on the oncoming traffic. The highway 17 soon goes on the northern shore of Lake Superior and Lake Huron of the Great Lakes. Both sides of the road are all the way fringed with trees and so I feel like riding in a dense forest, however, I see the lake at times on the downhill or through the break of the tree wall. The lake is huge. It is like a sea.

The other side of the lake is invisible and only the horizon can be seen. The other shore is the US. From Winnipeg to the turning point for the east away from Lake Huron, there is nothing with human trace. Because there is not any gas station in the distance of 100 km, I am always haunted by the fear of running out of gas. It is the best policy to fill the gas tank whenever a gas station is found. The forest continues to Montreal. I have traveled about 4000 km from the Rocky Mountains in the west of Canada. Montreal is much larger than other cities and such a large city that it could have held the Olympic Games. It is reported that its population is 3.4 million and more than 80 different ethnic groups live in the city. Most motels in Canada are owned by the people from India. In Montreal I visited inexpensive hotels to find less expensive one. The people I talked were India-oriented people. The parents of my friend Kati, who lives in an apartment for $350 CAD ($225 US) a month in Montreal, moved from Yugoslavia to Canada when the Soviet Union exercised interference against East European countries under its communism regime. In Montreal there are a Latin quarter and naturally a China town. The China town is located in the hinder area of the old port facing the St. Lawrence River and surrounded with the skyscrapers of more than 50 stories behind. The back streets close to the port have a feeling of Paris. Along the St. Catherine, the busiest street in Montreal, there are lots of buildings that have various pictures painted on their walls.

Below the tower there is the baseball stadium of the Blue Jays of American League. The stadium has a mobile dome. The city has a subway network as well as Montreal, and also trams on the streets. Together with Montreal, Toronto is abundant in greens. Toronto is also similar to Montreal with the regard to the fact that a number of ethnic groups live together and the quarters of Italians, Chinese, Greek, Hispanic are found in the city. However, French influence or flavor is scarcely detected in Toronto. The language spoken on the streets or in the TV programs is English. There is a rumor that hotels are expensive in Toronto. The two motels where I stayed were poorly equipped, but charged more than in Montreal. There were a Polish restaurant next to the second hotel where I stayed and a Yugoslavian bar across the street. The people from the same country gather in these places. A waitress of the bar lost everything during the civil war and immigrated from Yugoslavia to Canada 8 years ago. She is a beautiful woman. The woman who owns the bar is also beautiful, although she is older. I can now understand the reason why there are world-famous fashion models from Yugoslavia. In Toronto I met Esperantists for the first time in a foreign country. As soon as I arrived at Toronto in the evening and checked in a motel, I went to see a woman using an Esperanto name Lunjo, with who I had made a contact by email. We took a walk along the lake and had dinner till eleven at night. The following morning I left the motel, went to Lunjo's apartment, opened the door by the key that she had given me on the previous day, connected my PC to the telephone line to email and waited for her coming back home. At six in the evening and eight thirty Ken, who looks like an Esperanto founder Zamenhof, and Scott, who would give me an accommodation on that night, respectively joined us at a coffee shop in the downtown. The three Esperantists including Lunjo came by subway. At eleven I pull out the motorcycle for the apartment of Scott with a map Scott drew for me. It was nerve-racking to ride on a freeway of a totally unknown city. Scott devoted himself to the Internet as soon as he returned home in the evening and got up in the morning on his off-duty day. I hoped to learn from him about how to renew the home page that Osaka Esperanto-Society newly had set up for me, but I could not make it.

Scott is going to leave the apartment to visit one of his friends during the week end after I stayed there for two nights. He suggests me to keep staying there by myself, but I decides to leave because there is no spare key of the apartment. Scott and I take my two bags, tank bag and backpack to the motorcycle in the parking of the condominium. I head towards Niagara Falls, expecting more motels in the suburbs. I do not see any motels. After riding several kilometers there is a motel and I check in. But there is no telephone in the room. They tell me there are not any more motels further in the west, so I go back towards the center of the city. There is something wrong. I do not feel the load on my back. The backpack with my computer is missing. I saved all the data last night, but a computer for Japanese is not sold over here. Oh, my God! When I left the condominium, I smoke a cigarette, leaving the backpack at the side of the bike. After smoking, I put the helmet on and wore the gloves, and then ... I must have left the parking. I hurry back to the apartment. The backpack I left two hours ago is not there! I ask about it to the super attendant of the condominium, but he says he has not received the backpack ant that he cannot do anything for my backpack. Although there is less than one percent of possibility, but I might have left the backpack at the motel without a telephone...? It is already dark. First of all I ride out to find a motel in the neighborhood. I leave my luggage in the room and go back to the motel without a phone. No backpack as I predicted. I buy a map of Toronto on the way back, go back the motel I checked in, ask the location of the police in charge and visit the police. No information about my backpack received by the police. I report the loss of my computer to the police and go back to the motel again. It is already eleven at night. I am starving. I have not eaten anything after eating a loaf of bread for the breakfast. There is a bar open across the street. This is the bar I wrote about before. I came into the bar in leather jacket and pants. The waitress listens to my story and I drink bears till three in the morning, expecting to forget everything. I wake up and find it twelve at noon. This is the first hangover during this trip. I make a phone call to a Zamenhof, Ken and ask him to let me use his PC. The insurance that my credit card covers will be expired in a few days. Ken kindly tells me to pick me up at my motel. I write my message of the missing PC and the reward of $500 CAD (($350 US) on two pieces of paper before his arrival. Ken appears 30 minutes later. He says $500 is too much, so I write my message again with $100 reward this time, following Ken's suggestion. We head for Scott's apartment in Ken's car with the message, CD-R and CD-RW in which the email addresses of my friends are copied. I put the message on the board at the entrance of the condominium and a supermarket nearby. What I must do nest is to send an email to Japan. My bank or credit card company in Japan does not accept emails. There is no other way than asking one of my friends in Japan. Ken's PC no doubt cannot deal with Japanese. I could write my Japanese email in alphabets, however, the person who works at home and always sits at a PC is an Mr. Hirai, an Esperantist. I write an email en Esperant, asking him to report the loss of my PC to the credit card company. On sending my email, an mail from Scott is received. Oh, thank God! Scott writes in his email that he found my backpack left in the parking ten minutes after I left and that he keeps it in his room. If his cellular phone was connected when I called him, I would not make a fuss like this. He will stay in his friend's place and won't return for several days. I won't be able to use my PC during this period. Then there is no other way but having a sight-seeing around the city.

The following morning the sky was blue without any cloud. The air was already cool even though it was yet the second of September today. It seemed autumn had come in Toronto. The air show was by chance being held in Toronto and the contrails of the jet fighters drew white lines in the blue of the sky. Ken came to the motel by car to show me around the city at 11:30. I got into the car with the polyester jacket on and we went to see an IMAX movie. The theater has a huge dome screen like a planetarium and its vision and sound were amazingly realistic and powerful. We took a walk around the city center and along the lake after the movie. Later Ken bought me a Chinese dinner. It was a buffet dinner with various kinds of Chinese dishes including a pile of big crabs and it was the best food during this travel. After eating heartily after a long time, we walked again on the lake shore. Good fortune follows bad fortune. Many thanks to Ken, Scott and Lunjo. I am supposed to join the meeting of Esperantists of Toronto. I am looking forward seeing more number of good people.