After spending five days in Montreal I have come to realize that men and women are a lot more well dressed in Montreal than in Toronto, probably due to the influence of the embedding French culture. Secondly, the females in Montreal are in general with very good physique, unlike in Toronto where many are overweight. Thirdly, Canadian French people are very very heat tolerating, because even when it is 32C with high humidity they can still sit in the patio to dine and wine, and ride in their convertibles with the top down driving in the city in traffic jams. 7 out of 10 cars would not turn on their air conditioner in extremely hot weather, but just have the windows rolled down all the way with their elbows sticking out. Old Montreal is a place that is out of this world, at least in the North America context, because it is like a time machine getting you to a European city by just walking down from Montreal down town---Rue Sherbrooke I am referring to. Our hotel on Blvd Rene-Levesque was just 600 metres away from Old Montreal so of course we walked down every single day we were there. The architectures are absolutely breath taking in the whole down town core with buildings and structures dating back three, four hundred years ago. I had been to Montreal 4 times before this trip, but never did spend more than 2 days there each time so this time I had all the intentions to explore the city whole heartedly in a packing 5 day itinerary by foot, car and Metro, their subway system. The underground city, RESO, although not as big as the one here, PATH, in Toronto, but the food courts and shops in theirs are much more glamorous and inviting. I especially like the section going from their union station, Gare Centrale, up to the Eaton Centre. I guess when their winter is so darn long they do need a good underground city for the working class to retrieve into during those snowy months in the down town core. Residential houses are usually quite old, and I do not see thousands of condominium buildings like we have in Toronto. St. Lawrence River is indeed wide and majestic, because even with two big Islands in the middle there is still plenty of room for the giant sea vessels to steer through into the Old Port of Montreal. The two islands are indeed quite big in size, because they have the Casino de Montreal and Pavillon du Quebec on one of them while the other one, Ile Sainte-Helene, holds the Parc Jean-Drapeau like the largest city park, High Park, we have here in Toronto. The La Ronde Amusement park like our Canada's Wonderland is also located not too far from the park on the same island. I can go on and on about Montreal, because I like Montreal, especially Old Montreal(Vieux Montreal), and I would not mind going back for another 5 days of excursion in the near future. Montreal has got to be one of the oldest cities in North America, excluding cities in Mexico, because of the French settlement almost 500 years ago. When I looked around in the city, up town and down town alike, I saw traces of long historical facts that surround the whole city. Cobblestone streets are every where in the city and majority of the houses do not even have a garage, because when they were built they were still relying on riding horses as their transportation mean before Ford. Montreal is a city I can say is truly romantic. Having visited most of the major cities in the USA I can really say nothing compares to Montreal---a modern city, yet accompanied with very special French culture, backed by close to 5 centuries of history. My next trip will explore Old Quebec City in depth, and I will certainly compare that to Montreal to see which one will come up on top for me. Stay tuned! Sorry, Toronto, my home town, but something is lacking here! : )

For pictures I still uploding daily, one to two per day only with captions, please visit my photo blog here: http://hk.myblog.yahoo.com/lasallechai

Read a thread at the forum I frequent at everyday discussing about how much a person should make before buying an entry level luxury car. Obviously there is not much of a black and white guideline, because luxury is very subjective, but the usual consensus is that people should not purchase a car that is worth more than their annual salary. In other words, if you make $50,000 a year, then a $50,000 car is all you can afford. I do not know how logical people are, but the reasoning behind basically says it should take no more than 5 years to pay off a car by using a car loan and a person can spend 20% of his or her annual income to fund that purchase. It does sound reasonable, but then if you think about it more carefully it is not very feasible at all for an average Joe to do that. Let me explain to you why, as a veteran financial planner who have seen many people's financial pictures. The average income earned in Toronto is $38,000 a year and with personal exemption of about $10,600 then $27,400 are liable for tax at about 25% and additional 3% to EI premium and 5% to CPP contribution on the whole salary amount. Therefore, $6,850 for income tax and $3,040 for EI and CPP, so Joe is left with $28,110, approximately. Now, the rent for a dwelling in Toronto is about $1,000 a month for a single person so Joe is left with $16,100. Automobile insurance in Toronto averages about $2,800 a year, and $2,000 for gasoline so Joe is left with $11,300. Now, let us go back to a car that costs $38,000 with a 5 year term car loan at 3.8%. The after tax with freight for the car should be around $45,000. In a nutshell, Jeo will have to pay $824 a month to fund the purchase leaving $1,412 for food, entertainment, utilities, RRSP, personal savings, cellular phone, cable tv, internet, etc. There is no way a person can live in Toronto with that amount left from his salary in one year. I do not know how people do it, but there are still many people driving very expansive cars on the roads, but no matter how I calculate it the maximum amount we should spend on a car should be about 50% of our annual income, and not 100%! I guess only people who live with their parents, or they have a free place to stay would be able to afford buying a car that worths 100% of their salary per annum. I wish I could buy a new car that is worth 100% of my annual income! : )

Seeing friends going away all the time taking pictures from around the world I feel kind of sad for myself. My true sightseeing experiences seemed to stop long time ago when I entered secondary school in Hong Kong. Thanks to my parents I had the luxury and opportunities to pretty much travel to half of the world when I was between the age of 4 and 12. I have been working for almost 23 years now since graduation from university, and as I look back to 1987 I have not had one true holiday trip that I can claim to be for exploring the world outside my home town of Toronto. Excluding the long weekend 3 day trips taken in Ontario and Quebec occasionally I have not really gone on any genuine vacationing trips. The last two trips to Hong Kong were for wedding and there was nothing to see in Hong Kong any way except a side trip to Japan for four days on my way back to Toronto from Hong Kong in 2003; the trip before that in 1998 to Whistler was actually for a paid for company conference and I decided to tag along a few more days after that to visit my clients and friends there in BC; the trip taken in 1992 to California was solely for attending my brother's wedding and I stayed behind for a few more days to spend with my long time high school classmate from La Salle. That is it and nothing else. I do not know how people can afford going away every year, because a trip outside North America for a fortnight can easily cost one to two months worth of income. Can I live on ten months worth of income?? I do not think so! I did try very hard to save a much as I could for seven years and plan for a semi retired life after age forty five, but of course that dream has been shattered completely. Income wise, even though I am not making as much as I did in the late 90's, but it is still a fairly good living, but cash flow wise it is still tight when I try to accumulate six months worth of fixed expanse amount as emergency fund. I wonder if I will ever get to travel around the world again when I am still healthy and able. Chances are slim, I think. Sad eh???

What is wrong with this picture?? Is she not a pretty soldier???? Well, she was indeed one of the prettiest Canadian soldiers I have ever seen, but the PICTURE is utterly wrong, because she is dead, and this picture will likely be used at her funeral next week! Yes, she is the 117th soldier who died in Afghanistan for the sake of peace keeping after the mess left behind by the US troops. Karine Blais was only 21, darn it! Rest in peace, Karine, and I will see you in a few days on highway 401, the Highway of Heros, on your way home.

Every time I attempt to take a picture of the people who wait patiently on the Highway 401(Highway of Hero) city overpass I cannot find a parking spot. I always want to turn around and park on the other side of the overpass, but traffic is always hectic for me to reconsider. Finally I have found this photograph from the Toronto Star recently. This was probably taken from a helicopter, and you can see a few fire department trucks and van were parking on the side of the road with 5 current soldiers standing on the roof of the fire engine. They were all looking East above the 6 lanes of West bound traffic. I am always in awe when I see these average citizens waving Canadian flags waiting patiently for the deceased soldiers' hearse to pass. The thing that baffles me most is that these people could be waiting for hours just to take a glimpse of the hearse passing through at speed around 100KM per hour, which does not last long at all. Can some body explain to me why they are so dedicated??? They never fail to pack the highway overpass on each local streets whenever a fallen Canadian soldier returns to the nation getting transported to the Toronto Pearson International Airport for delivering back to their hometowns. Seriously, when the Canadian national hockey won at the Olympics and at the World Championship they did not get this kind of welcome home ordeal. Bravo, Canada! May God continue to keep our Land!