Been feeling nostalgic about the trips I went on while on exchange in Canada… and suddenly thought of the small little village that we stayed overnight in on our trip to the Rockies… Valemount. It’s a really tiny place set in a mountainous region. Can’t even say it’s a town. It’s core consisted only of a few motels, gas stations, convenience stores and a few tiny restaurants whose only business seem to come from tour groups like ours who stop over for cheap accomodation after visiting the Rockies.

It actually felt quite surreal to be there. It felt very much disconnected from the rest of the world, and one wonders what kind of recreational activities residents there go for, since its probably at least a couple hundred miles away from any major shopping mall, with mountains surrounding it.

Although it was quite boring, I feel it’s a memorable part of the trip as I’d never been to any place as seemingly desolate as that. I’d passed through remote villages in Vietnam and Cambodia before but they always had some hustle bustle. The funniest part of it was that it wasn’t snowing when we went to bed that night, but the next morning when we woke up the cars in the parking lots outside were half covered in snow! Sure was an interesting experience for SIngaporeans like us who only get to experience snow on vacations.

One interesting thing was that there was actually a authentic, family-owned Korean restaurant there! Well, its only business seemed to come from our tour group (they actually opened the restaurant in the morning just to serve us breakfast)… I wonder how it feels like to be an Asian family smack in the middle of the snowy wilderness in Canada. I wonder in the first place, how that family came to move to that kind of place.

Actually, deep in my heart I long for a day when I can do something like this (though not in that kind of location) – open a tiny little restaurant in a quaint little village or suburb in a place where the air is fresh and where my family and I can do some gardening in spring, go for picnics in summer and build snowmen in winter.

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