Again we have been very fortunate with our hotel choice, though this one, admittedly is a little odd. We found a Super 8 in Toronto's Chinatown that was on the third floor of the China Centre mall, and while that seemed a little strange it had one huge benefit, the food. The food court at China Centre is an Anthony Bourdain dream, the perfect combination of delicious and cheap. There was in particular a nondescript boba stall run by a middle-aged Chinese lady who made what was simply the best bubble tea of all time! And this high praise is coming from Ursa who is a bubble tea junkie.
The other cool thing about Chinatown in Toronto is that it has become a forum for some of the best street art I've seen. This is one of the things that I love about Seattle as well was the high level of graffitti artists on display throughout the city. Always in interesting places, it makes every glance behind you, every peek down an alley a new adventure in art. At Bumbershoot in Seattle we saw a street art exhibition with graffiti artists at their best, and the stuff on the walls of Toronto is way, way better. There is even a
graffiti tour that you can take, and mark my words, the next time we are in Toronto we WILL be taking it.
On the whole Toronto, like Montreal, had a much grittier, urban, lived in feeling than more touristy places like Quebec or Ottawa. This was "the city" you can take that for what it is. Some people love these urban environments, some loathe them. We were both a little surprised however by the sheer amount of downtown living in Toronto. Condo high rises were everywhere! That's not a bad thing, it makes for a lively, bustling community; it's just that you usually don't see communities THAT densely packed. But not all of the communities downtown were centered around the stark high rises.
One of the coolest neighborhoods was
The Distillery Historic District. It was a wonderful cultural area with tons of art galleries, shopping, restaurants, and of course microbreweries, all built in and around the buildings the city's old breweries.
Not far from the Distillery District we found St Lawrence Market, which was voted the
Best Food Market by National Geographic, and I can see why. The food stalls featured everything you could imagine, from meat to mustard. This is the supermarket of the masses that live downtown, and it has been so since it's opening in 1803. I only wish that we would be in Toronto longer so we could splurge here, but to be totally frank, by this point in our travels we were just happy that they had some open benches.
No trip to Toronto would be complete without a stop by Yonge-Dundas Square (known as YD Square by the locals), it's Toronto's version of New York's Times Square. A commercial and cultural epicenter of the city. This is the busiest intersection in Toronto and served 100,000 pedestrians daily.
We had one last, ubiquitous stop to make during our stay in Toronto was to the Provincial Capital of Ontario. This is the last of the capital buildings that we will see on our trip through the Northeast and I have thoroughly enjoyed using them as interest points to plan our road trip around. It has taken us to cities that we didn't expect to be in, or know about, as well as Canada's largest cities, and to the national capitals of two different countries. A very worthwhile trip. Now to celebrate with another cup of the greatest bubble tea ever!
No comments:
Post a Comment