[ Jun.2019 ] Later in our Niagara tour in Canada, we saw the newer hydroelectric power station and a floral clock.
Canada and the US share the income from the water resources from Niagara River apparently.
Our guide, Tiernan joked “That is at the moment. The idea of building the wall between the US and Canada has not raised yet”.
The Floral Clock is designed by the students of the local horticultural school and its diameter is a bit more than 12 metres.
Apparently they replant twice a year.
There were many people picnicking around here and many of whom were Muslims, which reminded me of the scenes I had seen long time ago in Shiraz in Iran.
And then, we went to our last destination of the day, Niagara on the Lake.
This is the town located at the point where the Niagara River merges with Ontario Lake and it used to be the capital of Upper Canada, the colony of the UK.
War of 1812, which was fought between the UK and the US to scramble for the territories of Canada, the East Coast of the US, Ontario Lake and so on destroyed this town and after that they rebuilt it.
The current town is the result of the restoration work done in 1950s.
According to Tiernan, one of the tourists he looked after had said “This town does not look realistic, it is like a stage set” .
I can agree as it was too pretty for real people to be living in.
We saw some lovely carriages on the roads for tourists and there were people from the society for the prevention of cruelty to animals calling against the carriage services, which was more realistic.
There was an old pharmacy museum, so we went in.
The building itself is from 1820s and it became a pharmacy in 1866 when they renovated it.
Apparently this is the fine example of the commercial establishment during the Confederation time.
It was one of the oldest pharmacy in Canada until it was closed in 1964.
I learned these information from the board next to the museum.
There were many attractive shops and cafes in the town and one of them was a gemstone jewellery shop.
One of the things I was expecting in Canada was to see some good semiprecious stones.
There are many mines in Canada, so there must be some natural stones for jewelleries.
I had known about Labradorite from Labrador region, but I was expecting to see much more.
The shop assistant in this shop told me the stones from Canada are Ammolite whose colours are too showy and Jade with the dull green.
I did not like either of them, so I bought a pendant of the purple turquoise which was nothing to do with Canada.
The price tug said about 75 C$ ($56.3, €50.5 £46.7), but the actual amount I paid was more than 90 C$.
What was added was the tax called Harmonized Sales Tax.
In Canada the rate of this tax is different depending on the state or city and maybe because of that, they do not show the full amount that you have to pay on the tugs, which was really a nuisance and we could not get used to it.
In Europe, the tax is included in the price on the tug.
So even towards the end of our holiday, my husband complained to a shop assistant that she calculated wrong, though it was he who got it wrong forgetting the tax.
Another thing we did not get used to was the tip system in Canada.
For the tour on the day, towards the end, Tiernan passed an envelope to the customers and we put some money in it, which was a conscientious way to collect tips, I thought.
