Some of the students and staff of Le Cordon Bleu Ottawa (Note: None of the chef instructors are in the photo). Most of the students who came on this Winterlude excursion were international students like me (I guess most of the local students and the chef instructors had seen enough of these sorts of things, so they didn't bother to come along).
We saw Chef A's wonderful piece of ice sculpture that came second in the single-block ice carving competition:
Chef A is also collaborating with another ice carver (one of his nephews) for their stunning Poseidon Adventure ice sculpture:
Later, some of us also went down to nearby Rideau Canal to skate.
This was the first time I had ever put on a pair of skates and I really couldn't keep my balance. I fell heavily a couple of times in the first 10m and gave up. I just walked the 3.5 km on the frozen Rideau Canal to a major rest point (to meet up with the other students), and had a cup of hot chocolate with a cinnamon & sugar beavertail (LCB Ottawa gave each of us a coupon for this).
A beavertail is a very Canadian snack, and is basically a piece of fried dough (tastes like doughnut, but is flat and oval in shape) with different toppings. The most common topping is cinnamon & sugar. I quite like the cinnamon & sugar one, and also the garlic butter & cheese one (which I paid for myself). I had tried the one with hazelnut paste and chocolate topping before (when I first arrived in Ottawa), but I didn't like it all that much (it was too sweet for me).
Anyway, here are some photos of the memorable day:
Skating on the canal
Coming up to a major rest point (where food and beverages are sold) along the canal
A stall selling different kinds of beavertails ($4 or $5 each)
A stall selling maple taffy
Maple taffy on snow
At the end of the day, we came home exhausted but really glad to have experienced ice skating on a frozen canal. I am thinking of going back to the canal to learn to skate later...
