It’s May 6 here at the time of writing. It’s officially 52 days since I left Vietnam (on the 16th of March). The airplane landing is around 9.45 PM to be exact when I start feeling the coldness of the 16th of March. It was like 0-3 Celcius and I have been experiencing this coldness of the winter ending in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) for several weeks. Until early April between the 12th to 16th the weather is constantly changing, not as significantly different as in Hanoi. In Hanoi, the seasonal transition is like happens immediately, with cold and hot mixing. Here I feel like the temperature is increasing steadily when it transitions from Winter to Spring. Spring in GTA has a specific feature of raining more often. The rain here is tiny, I mean the droplets, and the density is significantly different from tropical rain. Tropical rain in Hanoi is all about the amount of water that falls to the ground.
My first meal is McDonald’s. I’m not sure why people have a bad attitude toward fast food. But I would say fast food is one of the most iconic features of the Western World. I mean fast food is a kind of cuisine that represents the West and the white people in general (White here I mean anyone rooting in Europe). I mean it’s civilized and clean, and convenient, and really delicious, it’s simple but good: just fries, coke, and a burger with some dipping sauces. All these are just a perfect combination to make you feel good. The salt, the fat, the sweetness, and the chilling of the Diet Coke, are definitely good. The only problem I find with the fast food here in Canada is that it’s getting more expensive now, I recall that every time I went to McDonald’s or Tim Hortons, I would have to pay at least 10 CAD for an OK meal. While comparing to home cooking 10 CAD can last me 2 days. Let’s be real with the number here, my grocery consists of only packaged meats and frozen veggies, which will cost around 80 CAD for two weeks. That is roughly around 6 CAD a day. But that is only if I add drinks to my grocery basket. In general, it’s obviously because I do fasting regularly so my meal is quite cheap. I also tend to eat plenty of packaged foods since I arrived here. I mean people say it’s processed and high in calories and blah blah. But at the end of the day, it is just food I mean. If you eat salad, then fine go with it and deal with the problems of cleaning and spending time on groceries in a daily basis. I decide not to do grocery very often. Probably 2 weeks per purchase so I prefer my food that is can kept and last for at least 2 days ideally in the fridge. By “ideally” I mean after microwaving the taste should not be changed radically. Food is a big part of every routine including me. I mean having a quality meal is one of the things that makes us happy, right? So I just decide to cook whatever I feel good about and not guilty. The food should be tasty enough to keep us thinking about going down the kitchen often, and also it must not be too bad for your health: like it should be low in sugar and calories in general. Keeping a calorie deficit is also one of my primary goals. The difference with Vietnam life is obvious: I started cooking a lot more. I thought that when I came here I would take advantage of fast food but then I didn’t. In Vietnam, ordering food through an app like Shopee Food is so simple and easy.
In Shopee Food, you can just scroll and tap whatever you like and food is delivered in a matter of minutes by motorbike. But here, Uber is also really good, I would call it a super app compared to Shopee in Vietnam. I say this because Uber can let you rent a vehicle, you can order food and groceries and can order rides. I personally use groceries most often. In Vietnam, Shopee can help you do shopping just like any other e-commerce platform like Amazon in Canada. I use Shopee to order food mostly and shopping. But for taking a ride, I use Xanh SM (VinFast subsidiary) and Grab. In here, groceries shopping I prefer to use Uber, of course, it costs extra to pay for the service fee and, you know, tips. Here in Canada, shopping with Amazon Prime is a breeze, it takes a day shipping for real, and on rare occasions, it takes 2 days. In Vietnam, I also take advantage of online shopping a lot but Amazon Prime can be said to have a better logistic and delivery speed, like 15% better, no significant but it is just faster and the package is just better in quality my opinion. For convenience, I can just ask the shipper to drop stuff in front of the door. I haven’t lost the packets ever since arriving here, although I expect that there is a risk but the neighborhood here is safe overall. In Vietnam, I had to ask a friend I know to help pick up stuff for me if I wasn’t at home.
Besides weather, shopping, and food differences. I would say communication is a huge difference too. People here are generally very nice. I haven’t seen homeless people, unlike in the US. But Indian people are everywhere. I mean Indian is just one of the major immigrant origins, there are immigrants everywhere in the city I am living in. Maybe 8 out of 10 people I see are not rooting from Canada, or not Canadian. But yes, they are all nice and helping this country a better place to live every day, I think?
The rent is high. For me, 900 CAD is already a large chunk of my net income. I am still able to manage spending an extra 600 to 1000 for a car but I say this if I owned a car now my life could change for good and I could feel better by being able to go around, make friends, and enjoy different locations in the city and also do some good picnic in other cities. I mean 4 kilometers is my current reachable distance using my bike. But from 4 to 10 kilometers, it will become an issue definitely. But god knows if I own a car will make a difference? When I was living in Hanoi I already stayed at home most of the time, I only used my bike to travel, outside of the city? no, I actually used my bike to only eat Pho, and yes to travel within 6 kilometers. Traveling in Hanoi could be as similar to Toronto, since the traffic is always high, it takes time to go places. So if you are a time saver like me, then you probably also stay home or just go around the hood most of the time. And also I prefer to save money for the future rather than spend it on short-term happiness in the present tense.
Do I miss home? No, I just feel peaceful living here, and before I decide to go, I’ve already made up my mind for more than a year. I am glad to be here, and very happy to enjoy nature, and the climate (at least the weather in April and May are perfectly fit for me), I like the neighborhood, the food, the tennis court, and the gym. I look forward to seeing if I can go to a park, a public library, a co-working space, or anything like that some days. I mean for now whatever I’m having already satisfies me. The only thing that I will figure out is what are the possible friends I can meet.