Toronto -- Fear is the key

Toronto is the correct spelling of this Canadian city though most of the people pronounce the name as ‘Toranto’.

Avi had to visit Toronto this summer on official work and I accompanied him for sightseeing. This is a highly satisfactory arrangement between us - he enjoys work and I enjoy sightseeing, roaming the streets of a new city, staying and eating in the hotels, shopping, anything but work.

Of course, before going to Toronto, I had studied the maps and researched the Net thoroughly and knew that Toronto downtown is small - hardly 4 X 4 miles square.

For the first day I turned right from our Skydome hotel, which is attached to the Rogers Center, because most of the city lay towards right and just walked about the downtown visiting Eaton Center Mall.

(The Skydome hotel advertised that from certain highly-priced rooms, you can get a ‘balcony view’ of the events at Rogers stadium but when we saw the dome of the stadium from the same rooms, we just could not understand how anything that was happening under that solid concrete dome, could be seen from the top. We came to the conclusion that the roof of the dome must be retractable. This was unbelievable because the dome is so huge, but it is true all the same. Amitabh Bachchan’s show was held at the Rogers center one week after we had left Toronto and thus we missed the opportunity of seeing it ‘fukat’.)

The second day, I decided to walk to the end of the Yonge street because most of the ‘attractions’ lay along it. I walked and walked and walked but the Yonge Street stretched in front of me like a long grey ribbon. I was puzzled and at last I gave up. Later I came to know from the Net that Yonge Street is the LONGEST street in the world.

(I hereby propose that the misleading name Yonge Street should be changed to “Longest Street” for tourists’ convenience.)

I was very tired but I had to buy some fruits as generally our dinner consists of fruits when travelling. On a lady’s advice, I walked up to Wellesley Street to buy 5 kg of fruits from ‘Rabba’ and then took an underground train home, because the fashionable Yonge Street does not have many grocery stores. By the time I reached our hotel, I was totally fagged out.

Next two days Avi and I painted Toronto red, visiting CN tower, Center Island Park and taking the Hippo tour (In Boston, they call it ‘ducktour’.)

On the fifth day, I turned left from our hotel to go to the China Town and found, to my chagrin that a ‘Rabba’ store sits right across the road from the hotel. I felt like kicking myself for being such a fool as to lug 5 kg of fruit all the way from the Wellesley Street on the second day.

I need to do more research in future.

The Center Island Park is a nice amusement park. The ferryboat-ride to the Toronto Islands is quite enjoyable. The day was cloudy and we saw a peacock wooing his lady love there.

http://charuavi.sulekha.com/blog/post/2008/09/a-peacock-s-courtship.htm

The ‘Hippo’ tour bus is advertised as an ‘amphibian’ vehicle, which can run on roads as well as on water.

http://www.torontohippotours.com/html/home.html

Being brought up on a steady fare of James Bond movies during my teens, I had adrenalin-pumping visions of revving along highways at breakneck speeds and then suddenly diving into water from a crag; where, instead of sinking gracefully to the bottom, you gun your engines and race on the water, perhaps followed by scar-faced, armed-to-the teeth villains, intent on taking away your liberty or your life.

The hippo tour bus did nothing of that sort. It just ambled along the streets of Toronto while the guide recited the history of various buildings and parks in the city. Then it came to the Ontario Place, to the water’s edge, the driver made some adjustments, we cried ‘Hurray’ and the bus entered the water with a big splash, which died down as the bus calmly floated. For half an hour, the bus floated on the water and then again, with a ‘whoosh’, came out of water on the road.

It was a novel, though rather tame experience. However, while the bus was in the water, we were happy that we knew swimming, just in case.

BTW, the depth of water at Ontorio Place is only 10 feet.

The technology for the ‘amphibian’ bus is very simple. They just attach four large air-filled balloons called ‘floats’ under the chassis, which do not hamper the operation of the bus in any way while on road but provide floatation in the water.

Every monsoon, Mumbai public has a more thrilling experience as BEST buses run on flooded streets, squirting muddy water on passersby.

Most probably, I won’t go to Toronto again. If I do, I won’t go to CN Tower again. If I do, I won’t go to the Glass Floor Level again. If I do, I won’t stand on the glass floor again.

I did it once and once in a lifetime is enough.

http://www.cntower.ca/portal/

The link above will tell you all about CN Tower, including the ‘Towering Feats’ by daring (read ‘crazy’ for ‘daring’) people.

However, not being a ‘daring’ person, I lost all my reasoning power when Avi pushed me on the glass floor, because he wanted to take a photo of me.

The moment I stepped on the transparent glass, which looked too fragile, I became frozen. Fear had me in a suffocating, vice-like grip.

I just stood there petrified when one glimpse down the vast void below convinced me that the time to meet my Maker had come.

I felt dizzy and would have collapsed but for fear that it may break the glass and hurtle me down to my death.

I tore my glance away from the floor but I was so paralyzed with fear that I could not move. I was afraid to breathe even.

Some youngsters were jumping on the glass floor. I wanted to warn them, but my throat felt dry. I could not get a sound out.

I knew that I HAD to get off the glass floor for my sanity’s sake. Very gingerly, with my stomach pulled in, lips compressed and hands crossed over my body, I took one tentative step towards the steel stripe binding the glass. Very slowly I walked on the steel stripe towards the edge and as soon as I reached it, I jumped on the concrete floor and heaved a sigh of relief.

http://www.cntower.ca/portal/Secure/Community/417/Documents/PressKit2005/Glass%20Floor_Celebrates_10years_of_daring.pdf

They had told us the elephants can dance on that glass floor and nothing would happen.

I find several fallacies in that statement, proving that Canadians know nothing about the elephants.
1) Elephants are rather large animals and the stairs and lifts of CN Tower were not designed to accommodate them.

2) Elephants won’t reach the glass floor because none of the staircases or lifts is large enough.

3) Elephants don’t dance.

4) Even if they do, Elephants, being sagacious animals, won’t step on the glass floor, let alone dance.

Only fearless youngsters and silly adults like me would do so.

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