Dad Lights Candle, Notre Dame Basilica

I've gotten better at showing guests around Montréal. Dad and I are finishing up a three-day tour of the town.

Several of the sites where I've brought other visitors were a natural part of our itinerary. A return to Mont Royal for a view of the city skyline and beyond. An introduction to the McGill campus. A walk around the Old Port area, the area where the city was founded. A guided tour of Notre Dame basilica which included a visit to an additional chapel I hadn't known existed as I've attended only one service there nearly a year ago.

As always, there was an introduction to the poutine menu. That meal was shared with Dad's cousins Polly and Juliet who also decided to tour eastern Canada after cousin Jeffrey's wedding. But, beyond all the standard spots I guide people to for a Québec sampler, Dad's favorite place was one I thought was the least specific to Québec and therefore the least interesting. But, the area we kept coming back to--three times within three days--was Chinatown.

Dad, Cousin Polly, Cousin Juliet, and David Post-Poutine

Dad found Montréal's Quartier Chinois similary compact but more vibrant than Seattle's Chinatown. I think after so many unfamiliar activities over the past days: attending the wedding, passing through New England states he'd never seen, and eating unique dishes such as poutine, he was happy to have a bit of familiarity, again.

Over one of our visits there Dad showed me the difference in the Chinese characters used for the city's name. Evidently, Chinese place names for most locations outside East Asia have only recently been standardized. Dad wrote out every possible character that could be used to represent the name of Montreal. I knew only the more recent 蒙特利尔. Dad clued me in to the name he always knew the city by, 滿地可. It seems that all the Chinese characters used to write place names are now different from as he learned them: Seattle, Vancouver, San Francisco have all now adopted totally different characters to express their names in Chinese.

So glad to spend good time just hanging out together and showing you my new adopted corner of the world, Dad. Bon voyage and 一路顺风!