mokudekiru

Screw going south for spring break – Toronto made a pretty kickass spring break destination this year.

Inspired by Ryan North who drove down from Toronto for Reflections | Projections 2009, I realized that Toronto was easily reachable by automobile.

Or not so easily – we spent the first day of our trip dealing with car trouble, and returned back to where we started (see Dave’s blog for details). On day two, our new plan worked and we made it all the way across the border and to Niagra Falls.

Lesson 1: Niagra Falls in March is a GOOD IDEA
$115 gets you a 42nd story suite overlooking the falls. We did not have to actually go visit the falls, which is nice, because it was cold.

On day 3 of trying to get to Toronto, we got up and left Niagra Falls, drove another 1.5 hours away or so and finally reached our destination!

After navigating the numerous one-way streets of downtown, we finally found our hotel, the Strathcona which had a great location (right in the middle of downtown) and sadly no parking. We did manage to scam our way into free parking though, by finding a parking lot where they had a flat overnight rate but no ticket or any marking on the car, and then leaving it there for 3 days without leaving the parking lot. 1 day’s parking cost for 3 days (and it was like 20 bucks, so it’s pretty significant savings here!)

One other essential item the hotel did not provide was free internet. We looked for a coffee shop, and got extremely annoyed at the sketchy internet connection at Second Cup, so we paid for one day of internet and laid out a game plan, using the map. Having this map was really helpful, and it highlights kinda the “important” neighborhoods in the different colors and explains them. Yes, Gaybourhood is the one in pink.

Tuesday Adventures
1) Headed for Yonge, the downtown shopping district (in yellow on the map). Checked out some record stores and such.

2) Went to the World’s Biggest Bookstore which was sorta big, but really not all THAT big. There was a smaller bookstore right next to it.

3) Took the subway west to Koreatown which might be my favorite place in Toronto. We went to a restaurant called “Buk Chang Dong Soon Tofu” and YOU ALL SHOULD GO THERE TOO. Look at our glorious feast. SO DELICIOUS!!!

Wednesday Adventures
This is the day we walked way too much.

We started by walking east to the St. Lawrence Market, where we found wonderful baked goods and tea to eat and drink for breakfast (my first scone consumed in the country of Canada).

Then we started walking farther east to explore the less city-like parts of the city and eventually arrive at Pizza Pide, a Turkish pizza (and some lahmacun) place.

Area near the hotel

The CN tower is visible pretty much anywhere

My delicious feta/spinach noms.

We took a streetcar west, passed through little Italy but did not stop, and walked south until we were in the Queen Street West neighborhood. It was artsy and we stopped by the very small Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art.

Afterwards, we needed to regroup a bit and get some internetting done. Due to our horrible experience at Second Cup, we realized a bit more research needed to happen before choosing a cafe to visit. Luckily, blogTO had an article about the best cafes with free wifi. We went to the White Squirrel, which was just about the size of a living room, but somehow reminded me of the Dolores Park Cafe in San Francisco (there was also a park near this one, and something about the layout of the cafe… I dunno.)

Queen West as a neighborhood was pretty interesting. It had a lot of clothing stores and kind of a wilder bunch than most of the other parts of Toronto we’d walked through. The street itself sort of reminded me of being in downtown Santa Cruz. CRAZY.

On the way home, we hit up The Beer Store to get Dave’s precious Labatt 50. The important thing to know about The Beer Store is that when you walk in, there is NO BEER. There is an empty room, and a menu on the wall of beers, quantities, and prices. You walk up to a guy behind the counter and tell him what you want, and he brings it to you. Based on the signs around the store, they have a pretty serious recycle policy too, when you bring back empty beers. Oh yeah, and The Beer Store is a chain. We saw like 50 of them in the week we were there.

The fruits of Dave’s Beer Store adventure

Later that evening, we hit up Chinatown for some noms, and went to Bread and Circus, a bar with a stage, and a stand-up comedy group was performing that night. Small place, pretty cozy, hilarious show. blogTO strikes again at giving us a good suggestion (downside: now I want a blogTO website for every city in the entire world).

Thursday Adventures
Today was the day to visit the University of Toronto. First we went to The Dark Horse Espresso Bar in Chinatown, where you needed a cell phone to get texted a password (and we didn’t have our phones with us) so that didn’t work out so well. Next the Kensington Market, and then walking up to the University.

Lots of little Hogwarts-like areas too. But the best part was the Computer Science building, which blows Siebel Center out of the water:

Very magical.

Next was the Shoe Museum (this is like the equivalent of the beer store for me), walking through Gaybourhood, and chilling out in the hotel again in the evening, stealing internets from our paying neighbors.

And that, my friends, was Toronto.

On Friday we packed up, headed out, and stopped at a bagel place in Mississauga on the 10-hour drive home. Ahhh bagels.

Overall Impressions
– The weather: was no worse than the midwest. Toronto is a perfectly acceptable spring break destination

– The Europe: You definitely felt the French influence. Most cafes and bakeries were run by French people. This could help explain why there was so much good pastry in Toronto.

– The City: Toronto is kind of like one of those cities you see in movies: skyscrapers, parks, businessmen walking around, lots of people from different ethnic groups who all appear to be socioeconomically similar, and the appearance that nothing bad EVER HAPPENS. It was clean, there were very few homeless people, and even the worst parts of the city were not at all frightening.

– The transportation: Toronto had excellent (albeit slightly expensive) public transportation. We wanted to see a lot of things by foot so we rarely used it, but by using the subway and the streetcars, we could get across the city pretty quickly. The subway was clean and nice and reminded me of a less high-tech (PHYSICAL TOKENS! PHYSICAL TURNSTILES! WHAT IS THIS!?), less crowded version of subways in Japan.

One of the best subway pictures I have ever taken

– The coffee lids: This is my main complaint about Canada. Every lid I encountered was flat and the tab wouldn’t stay down. Here is some other guy’s rant on the same issue. Come on people!!

– The fashion: NO ONE IN TORONTO WAS WEARING PANTS. They all had those stupid leggings. I sent these pics to UIUCNoPants. The no-pants epidemic definitely crosses international borders:

In short, I would totally live there, and just hope they figure out that whole fashion and coffee-lid thing beforehand.

Also, I too, like Canadians, love to eat the Internet for breakfast: