a tour of Toronto

Since the events detailed two posts ago, I've been finding my feet and getting myself settled in as much as possible. My room has all my stuff in it, I've sorted out a budget, and explored some more of Downtown Toronto. I was also shown around by my friend Laurie and her fiancée Chris, and that's what I'm writing about here:

We met at Bathurst Station in the morning of September 12th, then got a subway to Spadina and a streetcar to College. We walked South a bit, then went into Kensington Market. I'd seen it here briefly the night before, but it was a bit different during the day! There were people everywhere - it's not pedestrianised either (except on Sundays), but the roads were clogged with people milling around the stalls and shops. We joined the crowds and had a look around, I saw butchers, bakers, cheeseries (is that a word?), green grocers and fishmongers, as well as independant fashion shops, furniture shops, record shops and loads more. It was a great atmosphere; it reminded me of Camden without the drug pedallers.



From Kensington Market we went back onto Spadina and walked South through Chinatown. This Chinatown is the biggest of the 3 in Toronto I think, and it's quite impressive. The street signs are bilingual and Chinese shops and restaurants line both sides of the street. We strolled along, looking at the tacky souvenirs and random wares on the way, then went into Goldstone: one of the hundreds of restaurants in the area. I was intrigued by the menu: It had pig feet, beef tripe, beef tongue and several other "exotic" meats on it, but luckily we went for the familiar options (hot and sour chicken, beef with vegetables, spring rolls and rice), and it was delicious. Laurie also told me that if you ask for "cold tea" here in the evenings, they'll give you beer.



After Chinatown we went to Queen Street, and walked West along there. From what I can tell this is the hip end of Toronto, full of clubs, art shops and fashionable stuff. There were shops selling bongs and stuff too, as well as every kind of bar or coffee shop you could ever want. We reached a park after a while, and had a sit down (it was a hot day!). Laurie marked some stuff on my map, and told me about the dodgy areas of Toronto, before we headed back East to Squirly's for a drink.



The last stop on the tour was Yonge-Dundas Square, Toronto's answer to Times Square. We took a streetcar along Queen Street because we were too pooped to walk, and headed North along Yonge. Yonge is the longest street in the world by the way at 1896km (!), but luckily we only had to walk a little bit. It was cool here, but quite a lot of the shops were big chains, not too far from what we'd get at home, so it wasn't as impressive as the other places I'd seen today. We had a look around nonetheless, got some free chocolate bars from people in silly outfits, then walked to the subway and made our way back to Bathurst where we went our separate ways.



There's a map below of the route we took, starting at the green square and ending at the red one, in case my explanation was too confusing.