Toronto

May 11-13, 2018

May 11.

My apologies that isn't going to be a typical "travel blog entry" since in a way it was more of a personal trip and less of a touristy one or a trip for travelling's sake.  I'm still debating whether to actually publish this or not for this reason.  But I'll type it up anyway to see where it goes.

I actually started this blog when I was living in Toronto with my parents in 2011.  They were working as managers for a youth program with our missions organization that handles 18-20-year-olds from Germany who used to be required to do military service, or in the case of abstaining, could do a volunteer year.  Our organization set them up with programs with inner-city or other cultural communities in Toronto and my parents managed them.  Military service is no longer required, but many kids still use the organizations to do volunteer work in the time between high school and college.  I didn't have a job, couldn't find one since I graduated in 2010 at the height of the recession and so I went to spend some time in Toronto with them.  Got involved with a German family with our organization who worked with the Bangladeshi community there, as they had spent time doing missions in Bangladesh and spoke Bengali.  It was truly an eye-opening experience for me and I can definitely look back on that time and say that I learned a lot and it was overall a good experience to have as I could at least be somewhat productive despite the fact that I couldn't work, having no work papers or even having skills necessary to even apply for a work permit (story of my life, really).

One of my brothers was with us as well, and he volunteered at a local house for refugees, and ended up meeting and falling in love with a Peruvian-Canadian girl and married her, and he lives and works in Toronto still in a tailor shop.  Being as the last time I was in Toronto was in November 2011 for his wedding, I felt it was high time to head back up there for a visit.  I took my travel buddy, and had a great time.  Tickets to Toronto from New York are super cheap, and the airline Porter is perfect for short or long trips, as the flight itself is only between 1-2 hours max (usually an hour and a half), as opposed to an 8-hour drive and dealing with immigration at the border.  Immigration at an airport is a far easier process.

So we headed to Newark after work, had a slightly delayed flight, and landed in Toronto around 10:30 pm, and my brother came to pick us up.  Billy Bishop, the city airport of Toronto, is super nice and convenient since it's right in the city, and it's small enough that immigration is a cinch.  Porter even gave us Lindt chocolate, offering high-cacao bars plus dark chocolate Lindor truffles.  So yeah, Porter is pretty awesome.  Anyway, my brother lives in the Parkdale neighborhood off King Street, about a 10 minute drive from the airport.  We got caught up for a bit because I hadn't seen him since January when he came down after Christmas with his wife, and then went to bed on his pull-out couch.


May 12.

My brother normally works on Saturdays, but he called out that day to spend time with me, which was super nice of him, to be honest.  He said we didn't have to spend it with him, but he's my brother and I knew we'd get our walking in, so my friend said it was okay to hang out with my brother, so we did.  I did get to have a really nice chat with my sister-in-law that morning before she headed to work, and then we headed out to see Toronto and how much, or how little, it had changed.

The forecast was originally grim, with rain and chilly weather, but it ended up being sunny and relatively warm, though still chilly compared to what we were getting in New York since it had finally started to warm up.

One of my favorite streets that I used to wander down in Toronto was Queen Street.  There's a lot going on and the progression from residential and "ethnic" and then into the residential and "hipster" is very gradual but fascinating.  It showed me how much Toronto really had changed in seven years, and at the same time still kept a lot of its "feel" as an immigrant city.  Once we reached the downtown area around City Hall and Eaton Centre, my brother took us down Bay Street (kind of like the Toronto version of Wall Street) and then past the shop where he works in a bespoke tailorshop.  We stopped by the St. Lawrence Market to use the restroom and wander through the stalls with international foods and wares.  We then headed towards the Distillery District, which I hadn't been to while I lived in Toronto, and mostly because it was on the other side of town, since we were living off of Bloor near Landsdown on the southwest side of the city.  It's a really cool area to walk through, as it was the old complex where whiskey (and probably beer) were made and it's been converted into hipster shops and restaurants.  It's not so hipster that it looks fake though, which is really nice, and the old brick architecture is really gorgeous and they've preserved that industrial feel.  I feel it's the kind of place that's actually prettier when it's overcast and a bit rainy, because there's something about "industrial" and "dreary" that go really well together aesthetically, though that may actually sound kind of tone-deaf given the working conditions that existed when these buildings were functional.  But anyway.

Ahhh, City Hall

"Outskirts" of the Distillery District

After that, we headed closer into the downtown to get something to eat.

We ended up stopping at Basil Bowl, sort of like Chipotle but for Thai food off of Yonge, fairly close to the Ryerson campus and near Dundas Square and the Eaton Centre.  If you like Thai food and being able to choose exactly what goes on your rice, noodles, or quinoa, Basil Bowl is the place to go, and apparently it's one of my brother's favorite places to eat.  I can't say it was spectacular, because fast food places rarely are, but I would definitely go again to relax and have a nice meal (and a Thai iced tea, because theirs is pretty legit), and it's definitely better than your KFC and McDonald's, for sure.  So it's a yes from me, in case there's one near you you'd like to check out.

After that, we walked through the Eaton Centre back down Bay Street so we could walk along the Riverfront, since I was sure it had been expanded since I was there last.  We walked most of the length and then through Liberty Park back by King Street as we headed back to my brother's apartment.

View of Downtown from the Distillery District

Skyscrapers on Bay Street

CN Tower sandwiched between condos

CN Tower and Rogers Centre

We chilled back at the apartment for a bit, watching some show on Netflix my brother mentioned because of its focus on "how to survive in the middle of nowhere", and a particular episode which featured an actual Prepper (a person who's convinced the Government and the Economy are going to collapse and all will be left in ruin and someone needs to survive, usually him and his family, or just someone who believes in any or every Doomsday scenario) who trains other people to be self-sufficient Preppers like him, leading to discussions on paranoia and conspiracy theories.  Then he put on Talladega Nights because my brother is a huge Will Farrell fan before heading out to eat dinner at our favorite Middle Eastern fast-food non-food truck chain restaurant.  Good stuff.

May 13.

Mother's Day dawned and Torontonians like their brunch, so it took us a good hour-long walk to find a good restaurant with a good brunch that didn't have an hour-long wait, but we're walkers so walking was fine by us.  We stopped at Oretta on King Street, which is a place my brother and sister-in-law seem to frequent, and it's a lovely Italian place with amazing brunch, and because I'm a non-foodie foodie I took pictures.

I can't remember what the meal was on the menu, but it's the one with poached egg and focaccia.  You'll know it when you're there.

After enjoying our meal, we headed up Spadina into Chinatown and Kensington Market, which is the hippie capital of Toronto, but it's really so much fun and made me wish we had more time in the city because I could spend hours in Kensington Market wandering through the random shops and Latino grocery stores, among other things.  We then took the long way back to the apartment, heading up College, down Ossington, and then down Queen Street where my brother has a vintage shop for men (In Vintage We Trust) that he likes to pick stuff up at since he knows the owner, and who gets his stuff from places around North America, often picking up collections of old sports jerseys or motorcycle club t-shirts.

We continued walking down Queen till we reached Roncesvalles, and the weather was nice enough and the sun hitting directly enough that we stopped at Ed's Real Scoop, a local ice cream shop that had wonderful ice cream and where half the population of Roncesvalles and Parkdale decided to show up that afternoon.  We took our cones and cups and headed down towards the waterfront to Marilyn Bell Park, walked almost to Etobicoke, and then turned back around to head back to the apartment so we could get on a Skype call with our mom to wish a Happy Mother's Day and finish arranging our stuff so we could head back to the airport.

View of Etobicoke from Marilyn Bell Park

The Toronto skyline from one of the bridges over the Gardiner Expressway

From the Bathurst bridge on the way to the airport

View from Billy Bishop Airport.  You don't get this at Pearson!

All in all, I had a great time with my brother and sister-in-law, albeit for such a short period of time.  I'm definitely going to be going back much more frequently now that I know how easy it is.  I've been getting invitations from the family I worked with in the Bangladeshi community, so I'd love to see if I could stop by and visit them as well, plus the other neighborhoods and areas I used to walk through all the time while wandering when I had nothing better to do.  Toronto really is a great city.

All in all, we got in over 25,000 steps during the two days we were there.  That's a lot of walking.