Toronto
OK y’all. I promised I would blog about my trip to Toronto, so here it is!
Tues Aug.27 -
Are we just in another US city?
Arrived in hotel approx. 4pm. Took a nap before heading to Mata Hari Grill (Malaysian restaurant) since I was tired out from traveling all day. It was clearly a Malay-owned restaurant, since the Hokkien mee was just OK. Mike’s beef rending was exceptional though.
Wed Aug.28 -
Attack of the Aflac Ducks
Had crummy hotel breakfast (complimentary – they call it “European Plan”, different from the “Canadian Plan” which serves nothing, and the “American Plan” which serves breakfast, lunch and dinner … now who would have all their meals in a hotel?) We decided to walk to Harbour Front that day, so we started our walk at 10am. Took a ferry to Centreville on Toronto Islands and walked some more. It’s a beautiful place! We got hungry, got ourselves some hamburgers and sat by the lake. Some tame ducks (think: Aflac ducks) started to get hungry too, and very soon the whole herd swam up to us. They got off the water and started walking towards us. Pretty aggressive ducks! After a while, I felt they were invading my personal space and had to walk away. I was afraid the head duck was going to just grab my food. As we walked away, the gangster ducks appeared to be following us, but fortunately they were too slow for us as we ran for shelter.
After about an hour and a half there, we headed back to mainland. We walked more, this time heading to the
CN Tower. Took a tour up there, and it was amazing. They have a glass floor level where you virtually stand on a transparent glass looking down 1122 feet! Not for the faint-hearted or ones afraid of height. It got boring pretty quickly, so after 20 minutes, we headed back down.
My legs were starting to kill me, so we headed back to the hotel. Walked towards the subway station, and realized that our stop was only one subway stop away. We decided it wasn’t worth the money, so decided to walk the PATH back to our hotel. (The PATH is this huge underground walkway that has retail shops in it. It’s like a regular mall, only underground.) Finally made it back to room – 6 hours later! (We had been walking for 6 hours straight.) Needless to say, dinner had to be somewhere close by. Thank goodness for the wonderful Bombay Palace just a block away. Mike had an awesome Seafood Vindaloo and I had lamb.
Thur Aug.29 -
Miss Scarlet with the rope in the conservatory?
Terrified of walking too much today, so we decided to hop on a Gray Line tour instead. The tour was wonderful, the tour guides very informative and funny. Hopped off at
Casa Loma, which is a beautiful castle in Toronto. As we toured the castle, I felt like a suspect in the game Clue. The castle had a conservatory, dining hall, billiard room … it even had a secret passageway!
For lunch, we stopped at Chinatown for some dim sum. Needless to say, it was fantastic. For dinner, we went back for some Vietnamese. At this point, we were also getting worried about being able to get a car rental for the weekend to drive to Niagara Falls. Fortunately, there was a nice manager at the Chinatown Budget who gave us a car on Friday.
Fri Aug.30 -
Wine, water, and a bowl of stolen soup
Picked car up at 9am and headed to Niagara Falls. Driving in Canada is just the same as driving in the US. Stopped by
Peller Estates Winery in Niagara-On-The-Lakes (that was actually the name of the town). My salmon lunch was great, and so was Mike’s beef. Had a taste of some wine, including icewine (very interesting taste). But we felt we weren’t sophisticated enough for wine, so we left without any exclusive bottles.
Drove by the river heading towards Niagara Falls. Spent a good 3 hours there. We took the
Maid of the Mist tour, which took us all the way to the bottom of the Falls where we could feel the mist (as indicated by the name of the tour). Took plenty of good pics.
Drove back into town to return the car. Had dinner in Chinatown again since it was the closest thing. My Hong Kong-style chicken rice was not too bad, but it was an eye opening experience nonetheless. For the longest time, I have not had to “thap thoi” (share table). The waitress asked us if we minded, and we said we didn’t, so we shared this big table with 2 other couples. The elderly couple next to us had also ordered chicken rice, but for some reason did not get a bowl of soup like I did. When his wife asked the waitress, the astounding response was “Yee ku ngo tei mong leh, em hai yat teng oi pei tong geh. Yao see wui pei, yee ku mong leh, chao mou tong. Pat kuo em hai yat teng oi pei tong geh.” (This was spoken in Cantonese, translation: “If we’re busy, you might not necessarily get soup. We usually give soup, but not when we’re busy. We’re not obliged to provide you with soup all the time.”)
Later that night, as Mike and I talked about it more, we came to the conclusion that I had in fact stolen the old man’s soup by accident. Soon after I placed my order, the waitress comes back with a bowl of soup. The old man was in the restroom at that time, so the waitress uncaringly shoved the soup my way. I naturally assumed it was for me. Later i found out his wife and I had both ordered small chicken rice, and he had ordered a big one. At some point over dinner, he explained that the soup comes with the big orders but not with the small ones. They were kind enough not to insist that I give up my soup though (of course, I had already drunk it). He smiled and told me I was lucky after the waitress gave his poor wife that erroneous and rude explanation.
But since I was dead tired from the day’s activities, I slept very well. :)
Sat Aug.31 -
Sex and the City
Mike insisted on dim sum again for lunch that day. And in exchange for not trying any other kinds of food, I made him agree to go to the
Art Gallery of Ontario with me. Ahhh … I sure felt like a Charlotte York for an afternoon, what a glamourous feeling it was. I must have over analyzed all those paintings too, because after a while it got mentally exhausting. I figured it was probably because my brain had been out of school for so long.
We took a subway up to Bloor St. It is the 5th Avenue of NYC, the Michigan Ave of Chicago. I was pleasantly surprised to see a Tiffany’s there, and in keeping with my Charlotte York impersonation for the day, I decided I had to go in. I found the ring that I’ve always wanted! Princess-cut diamond with sapphires on each side on a platinum ring. But there were so many other beautiful rings too, so I decided not to stick with just this design. I also decided that they were too expensive for me to try on and drool over, so we left the store pretty quickly.
Bloor St. intersects Yonge St., which is yet another street bounding with life. It was a more “diverse” street, compared to Bloor. This street had all kinds of stores imaginable (and some even not so imaginable) ranging from mega-hairstyle-products-stores to sex toy stores (they even had XXX theatres!) to street vendors selling jewelry and sunglasses.
For dinner, I persuaded Mike to explore other types of food, so we head to
Mövenpick for Swiss food. It was less than I had expected. Their Swiss-famous Rösti turned out to be hashbrowns, and the veal I ordered turned out tasting like beef (Mike says it tasted like Chicken). I reluctantly admitted I was wrong, and we scrap our plans to have French and Canadian food the next day, although I badly wanted to taste some Yukon Caribou that I read about in our guidebook.
But when we got back, I didn’t feel too bad since I found out that the restaurant serving this Caribou is closed on the weekends! Hah! :P
Sun Sept.1 -
Two rounds of the city makes one fat girl
Mike indulged me by agreeing to splurge on an expensive lunch in the 360 Revolving Restaurant up on the CN Tower. Our waiter, Randolph, was the most enthusiastic waiter I have ever met. The food was spectacular too … mmm, my mouth is watering just thinking about the Canadian AAA Prime Rib of Beef that I finished all by myself in that 2-hour sitting. Dessert was compliments of the waiter, so for that he got a big fat tip. The total came up to about CAD$90+, but it was totally worth it. If any of you decide to go up to Revolving Restaurants anywhere in the world in the future, make sure you don’t pay separate to visit their observation decks. The restaurants provide just as good a view that you can enjoy with your meal for as long as you like.
We had to walk it all off after that, so we went back to Bloor and Yonge. We explored Queen St. too, which was a little like Yonge with all its quaint little stores. Chinatown was the closest thing, so we headed back for more chicken rice.
I was sad to think that my vacation was over so quickly, for I have immensely enjoyed this trip. Toronto is a fascinating city to be in, a very livable one.
