Trip to Winnipeg

My first trip to Winnipeg in six years. I can't believe that the last time I was here was back in the summer of 2016. I don't think that I have been away from Winnipeg for such a long period of time ever. I used to make a trip here at least once per year - at most every two years. But, the COVID-19 pandemic made travel anywhere over the past couple of years not very feasible. I've also simply been very busy at home and work. Yet, I have missed coming here. I still have family in the city and I definitely have a lot of memories and personal history here.

Frankly, it was great to get out of Regina, even if it was only for a day and a half. There is something refreshing about traveling to another city and seeing some different sites and how people do things there. The purpose of our trip though was not to do site seeing. We came here to get our kids their Japanese passports. They are planning on going to Japan this summer but with COVID restrictions still quite stringent in Japan, it is best that they enter the country with Japanese passports. Luckily, the Japanese Consulate in Calgary makes stops throughout the prairie provinces from time to time. Unfortunately, we missed them in Saskatchewan back in January. Traveling to Winnipeg though is not a huge burden so we are grateful that they are set up here. Traveling to Calgary requires a much longer drive and the scenery on that drive isn't my cup of tea.

The Consulate had set up shop at the Japanese Cultural Association of Manitoba's building. I'll talk more about this in another post. For now I'll just state that I am thoroughly impressed by the JCAM's facility and the friendly people running it.

Other than getting the kids' passports sorted out, we did spend some time with my uncle and cousins. This was the first time that I've visited them in person since an event in Saskatoon back in 2018. It is also the first time that I've seen them since my aunt (their mom) passed away in June of 2020. It was great to see everyone, in particular my uncle. He's getting very elderly and who knows how much longer he'll be with us. We had a great visit with them.

We had planned to get some exercise and take in the sites at Assiniboine Park. Unfortunately the skies were overcast with showers constantly passing through. It was kind of a miserable day. So, we decided to stay indoors. We checked out Polo Park Mall. The mall is full of the usual national chain stores that can be seen in just about any large city. More interesting though was our trip to the Oomomo store near Polo Park. We don't have one of these in Regina. It is a "Japanese Lifestyle" store full of imported goods of all shapes and sizes. The layout was clean and nice and it also included a cool little cafe where we had some Japanese style parfaits and drinks. More importantly, my family was really interested in everything in this store. They could have spent even more time in the store than the several hours that we were there.

All in, this was a good trip. We fulfilled our mission of getting the girls' passports and we were able to see some new things, even though it was a very rushed trip.