Day 3 - August 24, 2013
I'll start out by acknowledging that August 24 is the birthday of my sister, Amy. Of course it was impossible to reach her by cell phone as she is not electronically inclined. Neither was a posting on Facebook as she only looks at her page once a year. In any event, happy 44th to my Dork Sister.
We started out the day by having breakfast at the hotel restaurant. The Holiday Inn Express that we stayed at in Mississauga was not too shabby. Although it was situated in the middle of nowhere right off the 401 highway, the lobby had a definite European feel to it. Big spacious rooms (a bedroom and a separate living area) worked well for our family. After breakfast we headed to downtown Toronto.
Our plan was to see Kensington Market since we had heard good things about it from a coworker. Plus, we were under the impression that Casa Loma, Toronto's own European castle, was nearby and the kids could get a thrill out of seeing a real live castle.
Since this was the first time I'd ever seen Toronto closer than the outer expressway (I drove the outer edge in 1991 when taking my sister Kate back to college at Smith and 2000 when Peggy and I took Thane to Quebec), I was really impressed at how vast Toronto is. According to wiki (always the bastion of accuracy), it is the fourth largest city in North America, only smaller than Mexico City, New York, and Los Angeles in population.
There are pockets of skyscrapers here and there as you get closer to downtown. And the CN Tower loomed larger and larger. As you get closer to the CN Tower, it has a real dated, but space age flair to it, with the concrete siding and bulge in the middle. The waterfront area looks real neat, with the Toronto FC stadium crammed into an area close to the water front (as sports stadiums should be - none of this suburban sports stadium baloney here).
Our directions said that Kensington Market was right off Chinatown. So when we arrived in Chinatown, we parked. Public parking was unbelievably cheap for a large town - $2.50 an hour - almost as cheap as if we were in Madison! We walked down Spadina Avenue, which is apparently the main drag of Chinatown. What a great feel the street has.
We passed shops selling exotic fruits.
Who knew Canada's tropical climate was capable of supporting such exotic fruits.
The area was bustling with asian cuisine restaurants. But best of all, there were the Chinese knick knack shops. It's amazing what you can find in the shops - everything from cheap tacky souvenirs (like a wind up plastic baby that crawls or a plastic PSY who blares Gangnam Style) to washing machines to wash to cheap souvenir t-shirts that you can buy (5 for $10!). You can travel the world around but always find the same stuff in the local Chinatown shops.
We walked up to a castle looking structure. We thought, could this be Casa Loma? Although castle-like looking, it didn't seem large enough. Plus it appeared to be under complete reconstruction.
Definitely not Casa Loma.
I later discovered that Casa Loma was further up Spadina. Just like the Griswolds to travel hundreds of miles and miss the spot they were looking for.
We passed a really cool looking cafe called the Castle Board Game Cafe, which had bookshelves full of board games to play at large wooden tables. Thane would have been in heaven there. Alas the cafe didn't open until noon.
The scene on the street was definitely heating up as the kids were terrified by the dragon that appeared.
The look of shear terror!
Next up, I bought three lucky Buddhas for the kids at a $1.99 each. But as I would accidentally lose them at the restaurant an hour later, it turned out that they weren't so lucky.
I bought the kids sugar drinks - a man had a little machine in which he fed sugar cane (one of Canada's biggest cash crops - grown all the way up to Hudson Bay) and out popped a green sugary vegetable tasting drink.
The sugar cane eating machine has a voracious appetite.
Thane, Nastassja, and I sat down for a quick lunch at a Chinese restaurant. (Emily and Becky ate from a food cart on the street as all Emily wanted was white rice). We ordered several plates - the highlights which were the pork buns with orange fish eggs (Nastassja was horrified and scraped all the eggs off) and fried squid tentacle.
The girl loves her tentacles.
Thane was definitely the chopstick pro in the family.
But what about Kensington Market, you may ask? We missed it completely! We later found out that we were only a block away - but never found it among the hustle and bustle of Chinatown. We are the Griswolds!
After lunch, we made the long slog to Montreal. The route took us along the edge of Lake Ontario. Every time we would see the lake, I would point out to the whole family that this was the last of the great lakes - as if it was some sort of the endangered species. The family, especially Becky, thought this was hilarity at it's highest.
We made several stops at Tim Horton's on the drive. It's now becoming a running joke with especially Emily says "look there's a Tim Horton's - you don't see those very often in Canada." Emily adopts her step-father's humor in a hurry.
I found the transition from Ontario to Quebec dramatic. One moment you are on highway where all the signs are in English and you feel like you could be in the States, the next moment you are on a highway where the signs are in French and even the symbols on the signs are the European type. It almost feels like you are driving into Europe. Very cool indeed.
When we arrived in Montreal, the city Bruce Jenner made famous, the sun was setting and of course we got lost (no Google Maps since we had no data plan for our phones being in this foreign land and all). However, after driving around for a half-an-hour, Becky and I were able to muddle our way to the Beautiful Homey 3 Bedroom apartment (the decor is very dated - I don't think I'd call it beautiful) we rented in the heart of the city.
We walked a few blocks - the kids desperate for food as it was going on 9 pm. We saw a sign in the distant and thought it said "pizzeria" causing much excitement among the kids. But upon arrival at the restaurant, we realized the sign said "Philippines" food. Just what the kids mouths were watering for! We decided to eat at the Indian restaurant next door. Of course, Nastassja protested (Emily wanted to eat there - that's how we knew she was hungry).
Thane really liked the cuisine. In the end, Nastassja and Emily decided that they only really liked the naan bread - but they did consume copious amounts.
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