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Published: November 2nd 2012
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I'll apologise straight up front for this blog but I didn't really like Toronto...there I've said it. I just feel like it was a city, and not an exciting one at that to visit. As a tourist, plenty of others cities in the world, have things to do, quirky areas which are fun to explore and a vibe to the city, however I just didn't feel like Toronto had any of these. I'm sure there would be plenty that would disagree with me, but for me this city just did nothing for me. Maybe it was the weather, maybe I was in the wrong headspace for the city, maybe I never made it to the cool sides of the city...whatever it was I was not in sync with Toronto.
On Sunday I visited the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) which was okay, however I have definitely visited better ones elsewhere in the world and most of those have been free entry! Monday morning I thought I would visit the CN Tower which has amazing views of Toronto and beyond...that's provided you don't go up the tower on a day like I did. In fairness to the staff, they did tell me
that there was zero percent visability and that if I did go up I would most likely have very limited views, however with only that day free in Toronto I went up to check it out. I was still able to see some of the city and I had fun walking out on the glass floor which is about 113 stories high. Once I had finished, I wandered the area labelled the 'entertainment district' which houses Rogers Place, the home of Toronto's football team the Toronto Blue Jays and also the Air Canada Centre which is home to Toronto's Hockey team the Toronto Maple Leafs. One thing I really want to do this trip is to see a hockey game, I'd really love to see how rough and tough they are out on the ice, however even though the season has officially started there has been no games played yet. This is all due to money and it has resulted in a lock out by the NHL - meaning no matches at all until this is resolved and the NHL has just announced that there all hockey games up to the 30th November have now been cancelled!!! That means that
there may not be any games at all this season, which will clearly be a loss of income for both the league and the players but I'm sure an even bigger disappointment to the fans of the game and those who rely on the games being played for their income i.e. the stadium workers...I am absolutely amazed by this, can you imagine if this was the AFL or NFL and no game were played for the year? And from what I was told, the same thing occurred only a few seasons ago when they were last going through their collective bargaining! Luckily the minor league are still playing so I will have to get myself sorted out and get to one of their games. Take note - if you ever come to Canada, or you are talking to a Canadian, do not refer to the game as 'Ice Hockey'...it is only hockey!
Monday night I met two Aussie guys in the hostel and we decided to liven up on night by going out to a sports bar to watch the NFL (San Francisco versus Arizona), drink beer and eat chicken wings. For those of you who don't know, chicken
wings are one of the staple foods here in Canada...it seems that pretty much every restuarant, pub and bar tries to lure people in to their eateries with the promise of cheap wings and a huge option of different flavour sauces. I really wanted to try some wings, so Andrew, Brad and I set out for the sports bar and took advantage of the half price wings option. By the end of the football game (San Fran won), we had made some new Canadian friends and we continued on to a Karaoke Bar where Andrew and I blatantly paid the girl money to get ourselves to the top of the queue for two absolutely terrible versions of "Land Down Under" and "I'm gonna be (500 miles)"...given that a) I was drunk and b) that I am tone deaf and c) Andrew was not much better, I'm sure people in the crowd would have been saying 'get the microphone out of her hands'...so for any Torontarians that had to witness and listen to our two songs that night I am sorry!!
Planet Traveller was my home for the few nights I was in Toronto and it was great. I arrived
on Saturday afternoon and they were gearing up for a big rooftop Halloween party; most people in the hostel went up and those who were prepared had really cool costumes, there was plenty of fake blood to be found in the bathrooms the next morning! The other good thing about the hostel, was it's location to Kensington Markets - the only area I found in Toronto that I really did enjoy. It is a very hip and cool neighbour where pretty much anything seemed to go. It was full of fruit and vegetable shops, mixed in with bakeries, restaurants, coffee shops and random shops, and by random I mean random. If you are ever in the neighbourhood you need to make sure you have a burrito from Big, Fat Burrito - they are yummo! When I was wandering around the city I came across the PATH, Toronto's underground shopping tunnels - a huge array of shops exist within the tunnels that have entrances from all of the public transport stations, you can pretty much make your way all around the city without coming up into the cold winter days, I love how you see a city adapt to it's surroundings!
On Tuesday I went down to Niagara Falls for the day, I'm going to type up a separate blog for it, but I will say it was fantastic! I loved the falls and it made me feel that my trip to Toronto had a purpose.
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Raelene Whitehead
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legend from down under
Hi Tanya. Very very very impressed with your singing talents!!!! Way to go!!!! Wish I could have been in the crowd. The Falls sound absolutely amazing!!! So glad you weren't in America when hurricane Sandy went through. Keep enjoying your travels. Love reading and following your wonderful trip!!! Take care and keep singing. Love the whiteheads xxxxxx