We are finally back to Tsukuba. Glad to be finally home. Crossing 13 time zones back and forth in just a week is no joke, and in fact, the two quitters who took the trip me are still sleeping right now, still on Toronto time. I decided to blog first before I join them. 🙂

The day before our departure, we decided to spend exploring the “underground” path (appropriately called “PATH”) in the city, starting from Eaton Center at Yonge St., finding our way to the CN tower. It’s no mean feat, I tell you, especially if you’re just a tourist. We were wondering where all the people went, because the streets were relatively devoid of pedestrians…guess what, most of them could be found traversing the underground pathway. We learned from the tour guide (in an earlier trip) that the pathway is an excellent way for people to move around during winter, and the path stretches for a few kilometers or so. There are shops everywhere, and the food courts can be found at every “block” or so.

We got lost, of course, and we decided to surface and find our way outside. The CN tower (they claim to be the tallest building in the world, although I’m not really sure it really is) was relatively easy to find once we were on the streets again. At the viewing deck of the CN tower, we were treated to a wonderful sight of the entire city, the harbourfront, and the Toronto islands.

Back to the hotel at last. When we got on the elevator, two other persons rode with us. One of them looked Asian – could even be Pinoy, for all we knew. The elevator stopped on the 12th floor, but when the doors opened, nobody got on. The next stop was our floor. On the way to the 13th floor, we heard a loud trickle of water, and when I looked down, there was a growing puddle of water at the floor, around the feet of the Asian guy. Luckily, the elevator had gotten to our floor by then and it was time for us to go. As soon as we were outside, it then hit me that it was not water that I saw, but pee! The man was peeing inside the elevator! Whadduh! We were laughing all the way to our room. It was gross, but it was kinda funny, too.

The bad thing was that Aya saw it all, and I think that was the event that precipitated her behavior from there on. When we got to the room, she happily announced, “Umihi ako.” You know, she is already toilet-trained, and in all our travels ever since she was toilet-trained, she never had this episode. Ok, fine, at least we were already in our room and there was no need to panic. The second time happened when we were on the plane. She peed right there on her seat! I tell you, this was the very first thing that it happened, ever! Of course I gave her more than the usual scolding. I gave her the cold shoulder. Fortunately, she got the idea and she never did it again during the entire trip. But I think that if she hadn’t seen that man pee on the elevator, she would never have gotten the idea that it was OK to pee anywhere.

Oh, I hate that man, whoever he is.