Toronto, ON & Niagara Falls

Sunday
After being consistently amazed by Ottawa (and surprisingly so), Toronto had a lot to live up to. Unfortunately, it failed on many counts, not least because I missed its winter festival (known as Wintercity). Nonetheless, I really enjoyed it, although it definitely did not endear itself to me like Ottawa, Montreal & Quebec City did.

My first impression of Toronto will stick with me for a while. To me it symbolises what differentiates it from other cities around it. You arrive from Ottawa on a rapidly expanding highway, approaching 9 lanes in each direction about 45mins out of downtown. Nowhere else in Canada that I know of ever gets to this level and I can only dread to think about how bad the traffic is in rush hours.

Suffice to say, the scale alone shocked me, and it was clear from the onset that Toronto was a different bread of city – big, brash and very very business-focused. Not a lot of tourist sights here, unless of course, you are here in the summer months. Then, I’ve been told, it’s awesome. It’s just I wasn’t visiting then!

After meeting my 2nd cousins (I think that’s how we are related – Norm is my Dad’s cousin) at the bus terminal, we drove straight to Niagara Falls. After checking in (to the Embassy Suites no less!) we had drinks at the Manager’s Reception and I headed out in the blistering cold to the IMAX theatre. Despite the amazing view from our room (see the photos), the weather was overcast, so I decided to go watch a movie on Niagara in the summer. See it how it should be seen, I guess.

The movie ended up being on the history of the falls, and more particularly on how people have attempted baralleling over it in various contraptions. The movie documents the success stories and has some awesome footage of the falls themselves, as only IMAX can. It also tells the legend of the falls, which involve a First Nations woman who, upon being given to the oldest and wisest man in the village, decided to leave rather than deny the old man his gift (if that makes sense). Legend has it she kayaked to the falls and fell over, becoming the “Maid of the Mist”. That term has since been the name of the boat that goes right up to the falls in the summer months.

I think today ranks up there as one of the coldest so far – the high was -13 Celsius, which became -27 with wind chill. Buffalo, just across the border in the US was 3F today. Ouch!

But I digress. We eat dinner at the Keg restaurant which overlooks the Horseshoe Falls (on the Canadian side). The steak and salad were of Canadian proportions but incredibly juicy and delicious. And the brownie I had for desert was definitely a fudge brownie, and as rich and thick as one should be. I have been spoilt this trip!!

Following dinner, Norm and I headed to the nearby Fallsview Casino, which really didn’t impress me at all. If anything it gave me a chance to see just how bad gambling really is. There were absolutely no redeeming features here to entice me. It was just row after row of poor, desperate, predominantly superstitious (lots of rubbing the screen here) people eager to ‘beat’ the house. Look, it’s not going to happen, and you will waste your money and ruin all that you have worked so hard to achieve. Argh! It got me so worked up! At least I saw the end of the Superbowl, which the Indianapolis Colts won rather convincingly.

Monday
We awoke this morning to find the poor weather gone, revealing a bright blue, sunny sky and the falls shimmering in all their glory. The mist was down too on yesterday, revealing more of the Horseshoe falls. The photos speak for themselves really – it was an awesome sight, and really noisy!

Luckily for me, Norm and Anne had a car, so we drove past the falls towards Niagara-on-the-Lake, passing many vineyards and the hydro plants on the way. Niagara-on-the-lake is renowned for its ice wine, and after a false start (we stopped at the one winery that didn’t make it first!), I tried some and bought a bottle. It’s so sweet – a sugar rating of 18 (desert wine has a rating of 8) – but really quite good.

We stopped twice more on the way back to Toronto (or as Jane would call it ‘T-dot’). The first stop was a quaint little Scottish pub known as the Queen’s Head in stylish Oakville. There I had my first Scottish Meat Pie, which was the perfect antidote to the biting cold outside. The second stop was an outlet mall where luckily I was able to withdraw some Canadian dollars. Once again, Toronto outdoes all other Canadian cities with its many strip malls blighting the landscape. These places are so wasteful! Doesn’t anyone realize how inefficient it is to have each shop in a separate building, surrounded on all sides by a mammoth single-level car park? Argh!!

Tuesday
After having re-checked my sightseeing guides to Toronto, I realized that there just wasn’t enough to see here to cover my three days if I proceeded at usual Tristan pace. So I gave myself loads of spare time to explore the city. This turned out to be most interesting, and led to some great times in Chinatown and in the PATH system.

My first stop, given the good weather I was blessed with, was CN Tower. Just to clear things up first off: CN is not CNN spelt incorrectly. Instead it stands for ‘Canadian National’ and refers to the railways company that operates Viarail and all intercity rail in Canada. It still stands as one of the tallest structures in the world, despite it being over 30 years old. The viewing platform that I reached was 346m above the ground!

To be honest, I don’t think its worth the exorbitant fee charged (C$22+). To start with, it’s such a symbol of Toronto that to take a photo from it defeats the purpose. You spend your whole time going ‘but where is the CN tower’ in all your photos. In addition, the ‘amazing’ glass floor doesn’t run the whole way along, but rather a very limited portion of the level, enabling you to see the concrete spire below and not much else. Being winter, the outdoor viewing deck was closed (a fact they failed to mention anywhere), so my pics were limited to those taken behind Perspex. Pity, because the view is amazing and the weather was perfect, if freezing.

From the CN Tower, I took the PATH underground city back to Union station and from there the subway to Museum. I emerged opposite the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM), however I chose to leave that to another day and begin my walk back downtown. Starting along University Ave, I reached the Legislative Assembling buildings (otherwise known as the Provincial Parliament).

Some of you may be wondering, as I did, why the provincial government is in Toronto, but the national is in Ottawa. It’s all due to history, apparently. When the province (Ontario) was first colonized, it was done in Toronto, and so the legislative buildings all grew there. Ottawa as a national capital was added later (located where it is to appease the Quebecers & Ontarians).

The buildings themselves are well worth a visit, and I was lucky to have essentially a private guided tour. They have led an interesting history, having been burnt largely to the ground in 1909. Unlike the national Parliament, where the library was left intact, the library in Toronto was destroyed. Instead they were able to save the chamber, and it stands, partially restored, as a monument to colonial Canada.

From there I made the obligatory rest stop at Tim Hortons before making a brief visit to Old City Hall (now a large courthouse and subsequently mostly off-limits). I also stopped in the enormous Eaton Centre shopping complex, spending quite a bit of time lounging in Chapters and HMV. It was here that I caved in and bought the new Fall Out Boy album (early thoughts: nowhere near FUCT, but growing on me).

I knew I had to be opposite the MuchMusic studios for 6:30pm to meet Jane and her friends, so I made the most of the rapidly depleting sun and headed for Chinatown. I’m very glad I made that decision as Toronto’s Chinatown is the real deal. For starters, the majority language is Mandarin, not Cantonese, the markets are wet markets and the shops signs are all written in characters. This is my kind of place – for some bizarre reason it felt comforting, like home would. Odd, eh? I take it as a sign (if ever I needed one) that I’m a born ‘egg’ as always will be.

Think about it … what do eggs look like? White on the outside, yellow on the inside yeah? So … geddit? Ah forget it!

To continue the egg theme, I met with Jane and her friends (including another egg, Peter) for some Korean BBQ. We ate far too much and it was awesome. Great company, great food. What more could you want!? After nightcaps in Starbucks I headed home to watch some TV with Norm.

Wednesday
To my regret, a lot of my spare time in Toronto was wasted attempting to activate wireless internet in Norm & Anne’s apartment. I should have resigned myself from the outset that this was an unachievable goal and moved on. Instead I let it get to me and it came to define my time in Toronto. In the end I had to get my internet fix and did so at St Lawrence Market, but that wasn’t until Thursday. Before then, I bummed around the house watching BBC World. I guess there are worse things, eh?

And so it was that I found myself at midday in Starbucks on Bloor St, peoplewatching. To be honest, I love people-watching. It’s like stalking without the creepiness. Well, without most of the creepiness. You never know their names or occupations, but it’s always interesting to think about where they’re going, or what compelled them to dress the way they did. But I digress …

The aim today was visit some of Toronto’s museums. The first stop was the aforementioned Royal Ontario Museum (ROM). This place is destined to be huge, once the additions are finished (in the summer, obviously!), but in the meantime it’s a great venue to see Asian art – in particular Chinese and Japanese – and the history of Europe through art. From the ROM I made my way south to the CBC Museum. CBC is Canada’s version of ABC or BBC (hence the acronym), and is surprisingly good. It is seemingly well-funded and produces some excellent documentaries. Plus it hosts the Hour and Rick Mercer. With those two shows alone I’d watch it!

However, the museum was small, and lacked anything to make it stand out. It focused too much on the technical improvements in broadcasting, and less on what makes CBC important, interesting or historically engaging. A pity because it could have been so much better!

I also headed to MEC (Mountain Equip Co-op) to check out the day bags (mine is just a little worn!), but I completely forgot that you need membership to buy anything. Bugger. Another thing to add to my Vancouver to-do list.

Wednesday evening was destined to be a highlight of my time in Toronto due to one thing – the NBA! Norm bought us tickets a few weeks ago and so I’d been really looking forward to it for some time. The game, between the Toronto Raptors and Orlando Magic was wicked fun and pretty close. Neither team played their best, but it took me back to primary school and collecting NBA cards. Back in the day! The final score was 113-103 to Toronto! We won!!

Oh, I almost forgot – for dinner we went to this little Japanese place in their apartment building. Great food and clearly Norm & Anne are regulars – we were treated like royalty! I even tried Sushi Pizza, which is raw salmon on crusty rice. Good stuff!

Thursday
As I mentioned earlier, today was the big day: I got internet again! And had a really nice mocha to boot! I started the day at St Lawrence Market – an old-style food market, similar to Eastern Market in DC or possibly a small version of Flemington Market in Sydney. The downstairs part has given way to a large number of tourist-style shops, but the upper level still feels like a proper weekend food market. It was definitely another side to Toronto, which was great as in a city of 5 million people I was beginning to feel it was all just commuters, businesspeople and work.

At St Lawrence I picked up my pride and joy, a Tim Hortons tshirt. Well, not a real one, but one that I think is even better! It says “As long as I get my Timmys no one gets hurt!”. Gotta love that, eh?!

After a brief stop at Pizza Pizza (What would Toronto be without Pizza Pizza?!), I met Carol at Union Station. Carol and I studied together in Singapore, and it was great to see her again. Within a few minutes it was like we’d never left and in this cold weather it made me smile. Somehow talking about Singapore made me feel warm! Odd, eh?

Later on we met up with Jane and Ira (also ex-NUS exchangies) at Starbucks and went hunting for some Moroccan cuisine. The place, called 93-Harbord or something similar to that (my memory is a little hazy!), served Moroccan fusion cuisine and did it very well. I think the place was far more ‘nice’ than we had expected, but the food was amazing and the service (especially for Ira!) was great. Jane’s friend Louise also joined us and made sure we didn’t talk about Singapore the whole night!

We had our nightcap and said our farewells at (where else) Tim Hortons. There’s nothing like a double-double (my first one!) and TimBits to warm you up! And that was it! I was back at Norm and Anne’s for one final night. Luckily Norm was awake and we got to have a good chat about politics, Canada and everything in between. Despite all I’ve said against Toronto, it does have its charm, and in a city this big it is always the people that make or break a city. For me, it was the people that were its savings grace. Thanks guys!