Springtime in Toronto - Day Three

 

Photo: ubdining.com

We're getting into a routine. The young 'uns went off to Tim Hortons for breakfast goodies while we did the bathroom thing, and we were set to hit the tourist hotspots quite early.

Our first stop was the CN Tower, just a few yards away from our room, but quite a few yards further from the door of the hotel, given the walk back to the elevators from our room. Outside, as we wandered along the edge of the Rogers Centre, some Blue Jays fans were already gathering for the day's game against the Guardians, bags strategically placed by one of the entry gates to the stadium. This was before 1100hrs, and the game kicked off, or batted off, or whatever, at 1900hrs. That's some devotion. I just looked up which city the Guardians represent and it's Cleveland, Ohio, so almost a local derby.

The CN Tower security gate wasn't too busy, nor was the ticket office, and we wangled a 15% discount on the production of a Metrolinx Presto card, that is the travel ticket for the TTC and GO Transit. It still cost an arm and a leg, though, and I can't help thinking that it's a bit of a rip-off, as are most of the attractions in downtown Toronto.

The queue for the lifts meandered around a sort of an exhibition, the tower celebrates it's fiftieth anniversary this year, but it didn't take long before we were standing in the glass-sided, partially glass-floored elevator and whizzing up the tower at 10-15mph. The young woman operating the lift gave us some statistics in a curious sing-song voice as we rose, but when asked questions, she answered in a perfectly ordinary voice, so perhaps her sing-song thing helps her to remember her lines.

At the main observation deck it was fairly busy, although it wasn't too bad. It's been smartened up a fair bit since DW and I were last here, probably twenty years ago now. A lot of the windows were now floor-to-ceiling, and leaned out a bit, so by pressing myself against the glass, I could look straight down and see the sloping window of our hotel room. The views are, of course, wonderful. Across Lake Ontario to Upstate New York, all of the lake's north shore from Hamilton in the west to Oshawa in the east, and the whole elongated conurbation that is Toronto. There are a lot more high-rise condominium towers clustered around the downtown core now, and where once you could see the Scotiabank Arena (formerly the Air Canada Arena) quite clearly, now it's mostly hidden by the new buildings.

There was, of course, an overpriced snack bar up there (there's a fancy restaurant in the evenings), and there was continual piped music, which was annoying its sheer presence, but also because the people that run the Tower would think it was necessary, especially given the ambient noise created by people talking. Having sated ourselves on the view, we moved down a stage to the area where there are glass panels in the floor. I was pleased, and proud, that Emma, Charlie, and DW, were happy to be joining me on the glass, three-hundred meters up. As I've aged, I have become far more aware of heights, and standing on the main observation deck I could feel the muscles in my legs tense, quite involuntarily, as I went to the windows. Intellectually I know that it's perfectly safe, but my body's built-in systems were telling me otherwise. Curiously, standing on the glass floor didn't faze me, nor everyone else, apparently.

Something else tweaked my old-age sensibilities, and I've noticed this in other places; cell phone cameras are king. Everywhere people were posing for pictures, and sometimes taking up quite large public spaces for long periods just to get that perfect shot. I'm always minded to walk through the space they've commandeered, but DW wouldn't be happy if I did it just to make a point.

As we went back down again, we were dumped into the inevitable gift shop and snack bar, and the place to pick up your "Commemorative Photo" that we'd been obliged to pose for as we were waiting in line to go up the Tower. I don't know why they still do this (see the moan about cell phone cameras above), or why people part with large sums of money for the printed product. But, it's all about milking the tourists.

CN Tower Giftshop Photo: Dreamstime.com

From the CN Tower, we went back to the hotel to drop off some stuff, then headed out to a vegan bakery at Queen West and Brock. We walked over to the streetcar stop at Spadina and Front West and waited on the little island in the middle of the traffic. Traffic is what Toronto is all about, but I'll come back to that in another blog. The streetcar duly arrived and we rattled along to Queen West, then changed to the 501 line that goes east-west along Queen Street. We had to wait a bit because we'd just missed one, and it was a wee bit nippy stood out in the traffic. There are little wind breaks on these streetcar platforms, but no seats, so it was a chilly twelve minutes stood waiting. The 501, at least on this part of its run, didn't have a dedicated running area, but shared the road with the traffic. Given that both sides of the road were lined with parked cars, it meant that the moving traffic was running on the tracks, so there was little speed advantage as the streetcar was stuck in traffic with the cars. That said, it has to be better than a diesel powered bus; much bigger, of course, and zero direct emissions. 

Spadina and Front West - Photo: Google StreetView

It was an interesting run out to the west, away from the downtown core. Queen Street was lined with hundreds of independent shops and eating places, so many of them reflecting the local racial makeup of the area. Tibetan and Nepalese seemed to be the dominant flavours, but there was a real mix. At Brock Avenue we descended from the streetcar and walked the few yards to the bakery, the "Vegan Danish Bakery on Queen". The sign above the door looked like the design from one of those tins of Danish biscuits you can buy at Christmas.

The bakery (right) and the streetcar tracks - Photo: Google StreetView

It is a bakery, but it's also a small restaurant, with the tiniest little booths in the long, narrow shop. The array of food on offer was wonderful and I had a Breakfast Sandwich, some very good coffee, and a cherry turnover pastry. I don't think it was particularly cheap, but the food was good, and all vegan of course. With the predominance of chain coffee shops these days, it's not always easy to find good European pastries, but these were good, very good. 

Our next stop of was Little Canada, a scaled down set of models of places in Canada located in a building at Young and Dundas, back in the downtown area. As ever, we just missed a streetcar and the wait for the next one was cold again. We went past Spadina this time and carried on to University, and Osgoode Subway station. We didn't need to use the subway really, but Charlie was keen so we jumped on the U-shaped line that took us down to Union again, then back up to Dundas, or rather Toronto Metropolitan University, better known as TMU. Little Canada is situated in the same building as the subway station, so it was up one set of escalators, and down another, to get there, all without having to go outside.

Photo: TTC.ca

What can I say about Little Canada? It's a series of highly detailed models of places in Canada, the first one being Niagara Falls. It's all built around HO scale railways, but it's not about the trains, it's about recreating all the buildings, in miniature, but to the same scale as a standard train layout. The trains all move, obviously, and there are road vehicles moving about, all lit I might add, and even the water features look real (indeed, the Bay of Fundy had been recreated with actual water, the tide going in and out - the tidal reach in the real Bay is one of its features). The lights in the models were great, and the ambient lighting changed every ten minutes or so from day time to night time. Other models included Toronto, Ottawa, Halifax NS, St John's NL, Vancouver BC and Victoria BC. There was a model of the Northern Territories in a special cold room, and they're working on a Prairie model now. It was fascinating, for adults and children alike. Me being me I was keen to look into one of the control rooms where all the lights, trains and road vehicles are managed from, and I was particularly taken with the little vehicle loop where road vehicles left the model, went round a loop and then paused to build a gap between their movements as they set out on the model again. We paid around $35 for an adult ticket and I reckon that was about the best value attraction we visited. 

Little Canada's Niagara Falls and Clifton Hill

Supper was in the subterranean food court at Union station again, before we joined the massed ranks of Blue Jays fans as they headed to the Rogers Centre for their game with the Cleveland Guardians, along the slightly grandly named Skywalk, from the station. The evening was spent doing last night stuff like packing, in readiness for our departure on Saturday, which was probably best given the masses of people milling around the hotel while the Blue Jays slumped to defeat. Ah, but they play again tomorrow.

Sad Blue Jays fans - Photo: Reuters and dailymail.co.uk

Springtime in Toronto - Day Two

 A good night's sleep was had, to be sure, the blinds on the huge windows in this hotel room are quite effective. DW was up and about before me, which is unusual, but I realised why when Emma and Charlie arrived in our room at about eight-thirty, which was obviously far too early.

We despatched the young 'uns to Tim Hortons to get some breakfast while I set to with my ablutions, but they were back quickly, Charlie desperate to get to the Old Spaghetti Factory restaurant. That it wasn't open until lunch time made no difference. The thing was that Charlie had seen a video of one of his YouTube people, Catie Claessens, filming a piece from within the restaurant, and he was very keen to go as a result. Catie isn't an "influencer", but an actor who does educational videos for pre-schoolers, and she's quite talented; Charlie likes her.

The Museum of Illusions was also on the list of things to do, and as we were so early we decided to go there first. Both the Spaghetti place, and the museum, were in a part of town known Old Toronto, and its so old that it's devoid of streetcar and subway lines. We could have walked the whole way, it wasn't too far, but we opted to go down to the lake first, then jump on a streetcar for a short run to Union Station, before walking the last few blocks. The lake was nice, and we watched an aircraft land at Billy Bishop airport, about which I was far more excited than anyone else.

The streetcar ride was short, but fun as it dipped below street level and took some seriously sharp turns to get to Union. Union station is Toronto's main transit hub and is built on many levels. Up stairs, down stairs, through barriers and under signs, I guess it's OK if you know where you're going, but very confusing when you don't. DW went to go through a barrier only to find that it wasn't a barrier at all, just a fixed panel, such was the confusion. But we emerged into the busy-ness that is Front Street, eventually, and were rewarded with a great view of the imposing station building.

We set of on foot towards the museum, amid Toronto's choking traffic. Like most North American cities, Toronto is arranged on a grid, so at every block there were traffic lights and a wait to cross the street, and the traffic was just never ending. Most of my city experience recently has been in London, and while it's busy there, you don't seem to be constantly crossing major thoroughfares all the time. Mind you, Toronto doesn't have a congestion charge, and public transit is basic in comparison to London, so that may be a park of the issue. There are parking garages everywhere, too, so vehicular traffic is positively encouraged, which seems a bit behind the curve in these energy conscious days. Nothing is going to change soon, though, because the current Provincial administration is wedded to private car use above all else.

We dropped the kids at the museum and made our way across the road to St Lawrence Market, a huge brick-built edifice that houses an indoor market. We hadn't even arrived at the front door when Emma called to say that the museum couldn't offer them a ticket until 1140, so she and Charlie joined us in our exploration of the market.

What can you say about St Lawrence Market? It's full of vendors selling (mostly) food, some prepared and ready to eat, some not, and representing just about every country's cuisine you could think of. It smelled divine, too, which had me salivating from the minute we entered. The kids settled on some fresh fruit and veggie juice, and we sat in the basement area soaking up the atmosphere, watching the world moving around us. If you ever doubted that Toronto is a multi-cultural city, St Lawrence Market will put you right. When the kids went off to the museum, DW and I toured around. We might have bought lunch there, the choice was mind-boggling, but the Old Spaghetti Factory beckoned.

Picture: Google StreetView 2023

The restaurant was a short walk from the market and we arrived a little after noon. This restaurant is stuffed full of stained glass, fairground parafernalia, posters for improbable circus acts, and the like. It's a big place, but we were shepherded to the rear of the place and seated with all the other patrons, and next to a noisy group. I understand why restaurants do that, but it's frustrating to be shoe-horned into one corner when you're facing a sea of empty tables. We did ascertain from watching Catie's video on DW's phone that Charlie was sat in the exact seat that Catie had occupied, so he was mightily chuffed about that.

The food was OK, not exceptional, and in my opinion was too expensive. That said, downtown Toronto prices for anything are through the roof, so maybe it wasn't so bad given the location. The service was very good, so good in fact that the server knew instantly that the pasta noodles in the restaurant, their staple dish, were not suitable for vegan, which kind of put a damper on things. The gluten-free pasta was the substitute, but in these days of better food understanding, restaurant franchises like this surely should work to make their basic dish appealing to a wider audience; it's not hard to leave the egg out of pasta, after all. You'll guess that I was a wee bit underwhelmed by the Old Spaghetti Factory, but at least Charlie enjoyed it.

Picture: Google StreetView 2021

Then we made our way slowly back to the hotel, by way of Union Station and the Streetcars. In the middle of the day the streetcar service is a little sparse and we ended up waiting on a busy platform for the best part of twenty minutes, which wasn't great considering we could have used either of the two lines that platform served. That is a great failing of Toronto's transit in that it's built for commuters and pays little heed to people moving around during the day who haven't driven into the city. Walking back up from the harbour area, you have to go under the Gardiner Expressway, which is a multiple lane highway running high above the ground on crumbling concrete supports. There's a busy road beneath it, too, so it's noisy and smelly under there and a pain in the bum crossing the area. 

Back at the hotel, we crashed out for an hour or so, then did our grandparent duty by looking after Charlie while Emma prepped for her Dave concert later in the evening. I should point out that I have no idea who Dave is, except that he's an English rapper and very popular with young people.

Picture: Google StreetView 2012

We all accompanied Emma on the streetcar out to Exhibition Place and the concert venue. The tram was busy with other young types heading to the concert, thus proving my point about Dave being popular. I was pleased that we went on the streetcar, we could have taken the GO train, but I quite enjoyed it rattling along up to Exhibition Loop. There were many, many, more young types outside the venue, quite a few dressed in football shirts, Dave himself being a bit of a footy fan. While were there we saw the ongoing expansion work at the BMO Field, home of Toronto FC, and host to a game or two in the upcoming World Cup. I have to say that some of the high-rise seating looked more than a little rickety, so it's just as well that I decided to boycott all FIFA events this year, not that I could have afforded a ticket anyway

Having safely dropped Emma off, DW, Charlie, and I made our way to the GO station for a short ride on the GO Transit system. Exhibition Station is being rebuilt and there was a distinct lack of signage or information screens, but we found our way to the correct platform and a train heading west. Even at 1930hrs, it was busy on the train with people heading home from work, but we found a seat and Charlie sat mesmerised as the train slid out of the station. We were only going to Mimico, the next stop, but managed to get into conversation with a young woman who was heading home from work, which was nice. In London, it would have been stony silence.

Photo credit: Unknown

At Mimico, we alighted from the train, went to the station proper so Charlie could have a toilet break, and I fell into conversation with a GO employee who was telling us that it might be crazy in Toronto because the Raptors (Basketball) were playing at home. The conversation quickly moved onto the BMO Field, FIFA, and the man's dislike of all things related to the World Cup. He was of Greek extraction (he offered that information, I didn't ask), so knew a bit about footy, but his Greek volubility certainly came to the fore and I had a job getting away from him. 

We were going to head back into Union Station on the next eastbound train, and didn't have to wait too long for it to arrive, despite the fact that the GO app was showing the train as running 20 minutes late. Of course this train wasn't busy at all, so we sat upstairs on the top deck and watched Toronto approach as we moved smoothly eastwards. I thought the service was going to terminate at Union, but no, it was going on to Oshawa under the guise of the Lakeshore East line. I only mention that because there was a stack of people waiting to get on when we arrived at the station and I could work out why.

Photo: Toronto.com

At Union, at 2030hrs, it was still really busy, and as we made our way to the food court for a snack, we were dodging lots of fast moving people. Half of the food court's outlets were closed, but there was still a crush down there, especially around the old standards, Tim Hortons and McDonalds. A grease-burger and stick fries later, we were walking the "Skywalk" back to the hotel. The name Skywalk is a wee bit grand, as all it is is a (mostly) covered walkway from the Station to the CN Tower. Not that we weren't grateful of course, as it had escalators to gain height, and no roads to cross.

Back in the hotel, DW prepped Charlie for bed and had him lie first on the big couch in our room, then on the bed. He did eventually crash out and slept without a pause for the next couple of hours. Meanwhile, I was called into action, to drive over to the concert venue to pick Emma up. It wasn't very late, maybe 2230hrs, which I was grateful for. DW called down to the front desk to have someone bring our car around, and ten minutes later I was launching myself into some seriously stupid downtown traffic, given the late hour. It was mayhem around the concert venue of course, but apart from a little misunderstanding about the rendezvous point, the Dave-struck child was in the car and we were heading back to the hotel. Quite what so many people were doing driving at 2300hrs in Toronto on a Thursday evening I shall never know.

Photo: Driving.ca

Charlie was roused, carried back to his room by his tired but happy mother, and we were finally left to turn in ourselves. A long day, for sure, but everything we planned came to pass, even if it wasn't in the original order. Oh, and I had 18,500 steps on my fitness app. Can't be bad.