Walking, Walking, Walking

Spent the day in downtown Toronto today. Met up with Shan and we took the bus and then the train into downtown. Got to know how the transit works out here in the boonies. (hour long wait on the weekends, makes Charlottetown's system look like a model of efficiency by comparison. There are 3 transit operators that I saw running independently of each other if you don't buy a huge pass, you don't get a free transfer between them. But eventually we got to the train station at the very top of the horsesohe and went right down to the southern part of downtown with the CN tower. It was cloudy at the time and kind of shitty so we didn't go up the tower. Walked down to the ferry to the Island though, and then up past a few neat little landmarks like the sugar factory.

Sadly I forgot my didital camera at the hotel, so no pictures. But everyone knows what Toronto looks like anyway, so screw it.

Then we went up to Kensington Market and enjoyed the chaos. It was quite a welcome contrast to the corporate ghost town that is Markham after 5:00pm. China towns are my conceptions of what cities must be like if you jsut let them grow organically. Sort of intersting to observe, but I'm still not a big city person, unless it's some place with built-in personality like Montreal or San Francisco. Some place like Calgary or Edmonton would stifle my soul pretty damn quickly.

After that we had late lunch at a little Mexican restaurant called Hernando's on Younge near Queen's Park, nothing out of the ordinary but a good tuck-in for sure. Then we went off to the ROM, with very good timing since we got there right at an hour before it closed, so we didn't have to pay to get in, but still managed to see every floor. They have a great exhibit of ancient Chinese art, culture and architecture on, which was very cool to see. They have one of the
Terracotta soldiers on display which I sort of came upon without looking until I turn around and was eye-to-eye with the thing. Pretty funny.

After the museum we walked around a bit more, I always love spending a day when I get to a city and just walking around as much of the city as I can, to see the different neighbourhoods and basically experience the city as someone who lives in it would, instead of just going to the various attractions. So it was great to just jaunt all over the place and stick my head in random little shops and such. Then once again it was time to negotiate the transit system out here to the boonies, which included a lovely half-hour wait for the changeover from the TTS to the YRT. Gah this sucks.

Will probably have a quiet night tonight, actually it's not like I'll have much choice. The only life I came across walking on the streets in Markham was a dog barking out a condo window at me, as if to say 'HEY! I'M HERE! HELP!'