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Jun 03

Toronto

Travel

toronto01.jpgtoronto02.jpgLeft pic: Toronto Downtown view from the island. Right pic: random historic houses nearby Queen St. It's one hour and a half driving distance to Toronto from Niagara. Unfortunately we didn't do any research so we have no idea where to go or what to do. Joan and I only heard of Queen St. at Toronto Downtown. Turns out on that very same morning there's some massive protest (Jews & Isaral related) where lots of streets were closed off, causing the already narrowed and crowded streets of Downtown all the more impossible to move about. In addition there're trams going back and forth. It's an absolute nightmare for my parents so we had to escape to the pier.

So we headed off to the Toronto island by a ferry. Turns out there're some Nike sponsor Marathon event happening in the island, so we were swamp by people in orange shirts. ^^;;; Then the rain came pouring down. We can't do anything (the island park itself ain't that awesome anyway) so we headed back to the city. -___-;;;;

queen01.jpgqueen02.jpgBy the time we went back, the protest crowd disburst already so we can explore the city. In a lucky turn we found Chinatown (much bigger than LA's). Finally my parents were desperate for Chinese food so they split off to Chinatown, whilst Joan and I went back to Queen St.. Thank god for this stop so it redeemed Toronto in our eyes ^^;;; Queen St. is much like LA's Silverlake or Seattle's Capitol Hill, where the graffiti-covered streets looked ghetto but it's a hipster hangout with lots of record shops, cool boutiques, cafes, galleries. ^^ Other entries on Queen St: Vienna Cafe, Red Tea Box, Taxali's Toy Monkey.

Joan | June 3, 2005 11:34 AM


Comments:

exactly I was hoping to find guidebooks for "locals'", like some sort of "eat.shop.Toronto". My parents of course devour Chinese food at once. ^^;; They bought guava and lychee too. A large part of the China Town are Vietnamese businesses, that's very much like LA.

Freda | June 5, 2005 06:43 PM

Haha, most tourists would have bought the tour guides and studied them before they got there...^^;;;; But it is true that in Japan, you only get the real juicy interesting local guides at the local book stores, which are not actually for tourists but for the people living there.

Did your parents eat anything in China Town?? The food should be very good.

seat | June 5, 2005 05:08 PM

hey I did do tiny bit of some research, I asked a friend who recommend me those places (ex: Queen st, Toronto island).^^;; but yeah I wish I had a guide book. In fact I was trying to look for a bookstore around the Niagara Fall area and can't find one!! Bookstore don't bother to invest at tourisy area or what?

Ha, all Chinese parents are alike, they suffer enough bad tourisy food though, even they can tell those food are BAADDD. According to them (since we didn't go), the China town in Toronto has lots of very fresh fruits/veggies and lots of varieties, many stuffs you can't find in LA.

Joan | June 5, 2005 04:43 PM

What? Poor you guys~! But you didn't do any research before the trip???? At least get a tour guide to read on the plane or something ma...^^;;;

Your parents, only away from L.A. for 2(?) days and they were desperate for chinese food already?? Exactly like my parents then!! ^^;;

seat | June 5, 2005 04:28 PM