This past weekend (CSW mod break) we decided to head up to Toronto for a few days on a family vacation. It was fun-- first time visiting the city for all three of us.
We took a Sat morning flight from Boston to Toronto on a newish airline (at least new to me): "Westjet". Flight went smoothly although it was a prop plane-- they are always a bit noisy.
Toronto has a nice new train service from the airport to downtown (Union Station), we we went that route, then took a cab from Union Station to our hotel (Grand Hotel, 225 Jarvis).
Nice weather, cool but not punishingly so. For lunch we walked down to the St Lawrence Market, a big indoor food market. Produce, fruit, meat, cheese, bread, all sorts of things, plus a number of restaurants and places you can get take-out.
The classic Toronto sandwich is apparently something called a "pea meal bacon sandwich", which looked interesting, but we decided to go for different options instead: I ordered a ridiculously healthy-looking vegan salad, Amy had a nice big egpplant + pepper sandwich (she gave me half of it, and just the half was plenty) and our offspring picked out a crepe of some sort.
After that we decided we would head up to see the Bata Shoe Museum, so we hopped on the subway and headed up the northern part of the University of Toronto area (Bloor St).
The museum was smallish but quirky and interesting for the most part -- it was a weird mix of "celebrity" shoes (something worn by Michael Jackson, or something like that) and peculiar shoes from history, mostly the 12th through 19th century. I came away feeling very glad hat I never had to wear 18th century footwear, most of those shoes seemed like torture devices of one sort or another.
Some photos:
What's this? A pair of ruby slippers?
These scary-looking clogs are apparently used in chestnut harvesting? Not quite sure how this works.
Horse-related?
We decided to walk home -- after only a couple of blocks we came upon a big football field where a large mob of ultimate frisbee players were working out, getting ready for a game. Turned out to be the Toronto Rush, a pro team. The younger generation was thrilled and wanted to stay to watch; after a brief period of negotiation, we arranged to let her stay and watch the game while we headed back to the hotel. We were a bit nervous (there were were, leaving our kid alone in a strange city in a foreign country, yeeks) but eventually reason prevailed and we parted company. The walk back to the hotel took a bit longer than we had thought (it was more like 40-45 mins).
Seen on the walk home -- didn't know this outfit was still a thing...
A Monty Python themed British pub no less:
After we had had a chance to relax and have a cup of tea, I texted our daughter to tell say "Leave the game by 5:30 so that you can make it to our dinner reservation on time". This worked for the most part (got lost once on the way back, leading to a lengthy text message exchange to get everyone re-oriented and headed in the correct direction), finally straggling in around 6:10.
We cabbed it over to Momofuku Daisho for dinner-- it was a nice meal. Momofuku turns out to be more of a pod of cluster of related eateries than a single restaurant. There is a noodle bar on the ground floor, then a lounge + "milk bar" on the second floor, and then up on the third floor is the slightly swankier sit down place. The third floor dining area is really a lovely space -- it's a sort of rectangular box that sticks partly our from the buildings, glass walls, tons of light, with superb views up and down University Ave.
Interesting sculpture outside (Chinese, very contemporary):
We had "crispy chicken" sliders (waitress talked us into it), two salads, a side dish of broccoli, a rice ball dish, and two mains. The salads were probably the most interesting part of the meal: the first one was slices of fresh apple coated with a sort of fine puree of kimchi, then surrounded by dressed arugula, pistachios, and a few thin crispy slices of bacon -- awesome combination of flavors. The second one was quarters of baby romaine with a tart, flavorful dressing of some sort (hint of blue cheese) accompanied by pieces of jalapeno tempura. Yum. The rice ball dish was very hard to describe; it was little chunks/bricks of rice that had been toasted or fried on the outside (so that they were chewy/crunchy) then mixed together with some sort of pepper/tofu sauce, very weird but good. The mains were lettuce wraps -- one grilled chicken and one grilled mackerel, along with sauces and other things to put into the package and wrap up.
All in all, it was an excellent meal, I would definitely go back for more.
We were a bit tired after that but decided that we still had some energy left, so we walked our way all the way back to the hotel (another half hour). Whew, long day!
It was good to veg in front of the tube/screen for a while in the evening. I found a good soccer game on the tube (Premier League, West Ham vs West Brom) while everyone else figured out something that they wanted to watch as well.
Sunday:
This morning Amy got up around 6:45 to hit the gym; the rest of us lolled in bed until 7 (bliss) and then went to sample the hotel breakfast. I worked out the gym after that, and we eventually got organized and headed off to the other side of town for our walking tour, which was in one of the city's Chinatown areas, also the neighborhood called "Kensington".
Weather was... in a word... crummy. Misting rain, cold, not really much to like, but we had our rain jackets and we soldiered on. We met up with our group at the Art Gallery of Toronto, a huge building with an immense glass + steel facade (apparently designed by Frank Gehry). We had a smallish group (12 people), one from Dubai, two from Toronto, four from Australia, two from San Francisco, and then our family. Our tour guide was a young man, a cheerful and fairly entertaining guy (lots of slightly sarcastic jokes).
We walked west from the museum, then northwest into Kensington, while listening to various stories about the city with a big focus on immigration-- people coming from all over (China, eastern Europe, Italy, Portugal, you name it). Our guide did a nice job pointing out interesting murals, street art, and bits of graffiti (the latter seems very high-quality here in Toronto). Kensington has a very hippy/artsy feel to it; we stopped in at a number of small shops + cafes along the way.
Lots of cool murals in Chinatown:
Houses in Kensington:
On one street we walked by a series of marijuana "dispensaries" with pseudo-official looking signage. It turns out that marijuana is in fact still quite illegal, but the government has basically decided not to prosecute anyone at the moment, since people are anticipating that the law will be changed to make it legal before long. Hmm.
Grafiti in Kensington neighborhood:
On sale at Jimmy's Coffee Shop:
More cool murals:
This guy on the left (the lovesick robot) apparently makes appearances on a number of walls around town:
We were pretty cold and tired by the time the tour finished up (it was more than two hours), but we did get a recommendation for a good Chinese restaurant from or guide, so we opted to eat at Rol San on Spandina. Good choice, nearly everything was excellent. We had two plates of sautéed pea sprouts with garlic (a family favorite), some pan fried dumplings, a couple of packets of sticky rice, and a scallion pancake. I also could not resist stopping to get a grilled pork banh mi from one of the local vietnamese places, so we definitely had a sizable lunch.
From there we walked (yet again) south to King Street to visit the MEC (camping/outdoor cooperative place, the Canadian equivalent of REI). The younger generation shopped (successfully) for hiking boots, and the older generation shopped (unsuccessfully) for shorts and hiking shirts.
After that we were really exhausted; Amy said she didn't want to walk another step, so we took the drastic step of ordering an Uber ride back to the hotel. In a somewhat ironic turn, the Uber ride for three was actually a bit cheaper than paying for the subway, even with the surge pricing extras due to the rain and the weekend. Who knew.
After relaxing for a bit at the hotel, we got ourselves organized and headed out to take the tram + subway off to the CN tower, where we had made dinner reservations at the "360" restaurant (a revolving deal that sits partway up the tower). We got most of the way there and then finally got cold feet when the guy at the entrance down below told us that there was "zero visibility" up top -- we called to cancel and then headed back north into the city to find place to eat. We settled on a sort of weird upstairs/downstairs place called "It's Not Fred / The Red Tomato", which was comfy and had decent food.
Somewhere up there is a revolving restaurant:
At 7ish we headed over to the Second City theater on Mercer and then took in the comedy show there after that. It was really good -- best comedy I had seen in a long time. It was short sketches, but rehearsed (not improv), with a teeny bit is singing thrown in. They did a very funny Justin Trudeau sketch (featuring a tall actor wearing a sort of mop of hair and dancing seductively while the press & pols swooned), a very funny scene in which two female film directors are pitching their ideas to Hollywood producers, even a short sketch featuring a mock Syrian refugee (very funny in spite of the nature of the material). We definitely enjoyed it, I think I would try to go back the next time I am in Toronto.
Before the show:
Monday:
Overcast this morning but not raining-- after a 7:30 breakfast Amy and I headed to the gym to work out for a bit, then we spent time trying to get our day organized. We didn't plan a lot of activities ahead of time, since we weren't sure what the weather would be like or whether we'd be carrying our luggage. After a fair amount of googling we decided that we'd try to visit the Textile Museum in the morning, then have lunch at a cafe in the Gardiner Museum called "A La Carte". This left us with a fair amount of time to relax at the hotel, but we couldn't find too much else to do given the weather.
Here is a shot of the Toronto subway on the inside. It's a lovely subway, nice and new. The cars are all connected together, so if you stand in the middle you can look all the way down to the end. Made me want to grab a skateboard and zoom my way down to the end...
Funny sign seen on the walk to the museum:
Lunch at the Gardiner was good -- very civilized, tasty food, and a nice quiet space in which to have a conversation.
After that we headed back to the hotel, got packed up, and spend the rest of the day contending with cabs, trains, planes, and cars to make our way home. Our flight was a bit delayed, but we did eventually make it.
A fun trip!
