Toronto - May 3 - 8, 2005

The Story

After Ottawa I hopped over to Toronto to conclude my trip. Alicia and Mike were in Toronto which gave me a base of accomodation. I arrived at mid day and wandered around the city after having lunch with Mike and Alicia and then we went to Chinatown to have dinner as I am genetically predisposed to requiring chinese food every few days. The next day I went to the art gallery and the Hockey Hall of Fame. In between the art gallery and Hall of Fame I had me some fried chicken. The Hall of Fame isn't so busy now that there's no hockey to speak of. It was at the Art Gallery that I got to see the works of Christo and Jean Claude, the two fools who made littered New York's Central Park with orange banners known as "The Gates".

Afterwards Alicia gave me a partial tour of the northern half of the downtown Toronto and then we ended up in Koreatown for some Korean meat. It was also that day that we went and saw Douglas Adams' A Hitchhiker's guide to the Galaxy which I quite enjoyed although I knew nothing of it prior to going.

The next day Alicia had managed to get the day off and I rented a car and we drove off to Niagara Falls which happened to be just over an hour away from Toronto. Niagara Falls is quite nice and the town of Niagara Falls is quite pleasant. We chose not to hop on the boat that takes you right up to the falls. It was also here where we hit an outlet mall where I spent close to $400 buying a pair of shoes, a pair of pants and a jacket. Oh yeah, I also got 2 USA Olympics wristbands. Don't ask me why. After getting back into Toronto we headed to Markham where we stopped at a T and T supermarket to do some chinese style grocery shopping. We also hit a chinese dessert shop of which none exists in Vancouver - oh, how I love some good old grass jelly and tapioca!

My schedule the next day (it was Friday now) was to visit the work office in Toronto. My last two trips have involved stops in the office - I suppose we're big enough now that I can almost go anywhere in the first world and hit a work office. I got to meet the people I converse with regularly over email which was great. Following that I hit the Royal Ontario Museum which was undergoing a massive renovation job. Nothing exciting there.

That night Alicia made dinner for Mike and I and then Mike and I went out to have a couple drinks. Ok, it was a FEW.

After a really rough morning where Mike begged off an afternoon baseball game due to his wimpiness I went with Dave and Alicia to a Jays game where I got to see them get hammered in a manner unlike what Mike and I did the night before. I did have a great burrito from Burrito Boyz at the game - wow, was it ever good! After the game I considered going up the CN Tower for the 2nd time in my life but decided against it after seeing that it cost $18 to go up. $18 for an elevator ride?! No thanks! That night Alicia and Dave took me to their favourite Japanese restaurant, Toshi's which was located in a neighbourhood not unlike Yaletown in Vancouver except less cool and more expensive. The waitress was cute and the food was good.

Finally my time was up and I had to hop a bus to the airport early, early morning on Sunday. An attractive Japanese was at the same station as me and we chatted briefly, that's her taking a pic of the CN Tower. She watched my bags when I had to run back to Alicia's to get my camera charger. The flight was pretty boring and I was rather unhappy that on a 3 and a half flight that Air Canada does not serve meals. You had to buy $5 sandwiches instead.

This was my third stop in Toronto and it doesn't really get better with experience. Vancouver is a far better city than Toronto except for perhaps its nightlife. There were a lot of cute girls in Toronto but there weren't enough to make up for the boring cityscape nor the excessive concrete. I'd really only go there to see my friends.