I want to do some recollection of the places I've been to while the memory still faintly resides somewhere...Decided to go backwards but this is really a bad choice, as I don't have much recollection of Toronto really. Well, in my last post I said I was sick on this trip, so unfortunately that negatively impacted my whole experience with Toronto, honestly I didn't do all that much, but it's quite telling that I didn't even take a photo (I still can't quite believe it myself!!!) So for any Torontoan who accidentally surfed here, don't hate.Among many people, Paul is one of those who praises Toronto like it's the greatest city in North America, as he certainly thinks Canada is so much cooler than its filthy neighbor. I only agree on the surface, it is truly much cooler, the temperature was around mid 40F under bright sun in the middle of April. Canada may surpass US in many regard (size for example), but certainly not on the diversity of what its cities has to offer (am I stating the obvious?)
Toronto, unlike its more controversial counterpart Montreal, is a lot more like any other North American city. It's quite huge in size, spanning into several districts, but definitely without much of the spice you'd expect in a city of its size. The prime spots we went was China Town. As Chinese decents, we always try to show our respect to our root--food. For the record, Toronto has the most amazing Chinese food that I've known to, it has to be true because I felt that way during my stomach illness, isn't that something? But the better Chinese food are probably in the other sections of the city namely the 太古廣場 and Highway 7, as the old China town was way too congested and is more like a tourist scam for the Westerners. But 太古廣場 and Highway 7 are really only for the Asian Americans/Canadians. I don't think there's anything exciting to see for anyone who can't fully appreciate the authenticity of the food, including those who live in Asia who can taste authentic Asian food anywhere they go.
After the China Town, we went to the AGO, Art Gallery of Ontario. Well, maybe the whole trip was at a bad timing because it's under some major construction (lesson learned: research is key before any trip). So the admission was free, but as expected, nothing much was on site.
One famous attraction spot we didn't go was CN Tower. I'm really not a big fan to get on top of a city tower, besides the crowd, it is like viewing the city without its landmark so what is the point?
The other famous place was the Lake Ontario, but to our own mistake, we drove to the east side of the lake and it was just miles and miles of empty lands between us and the lake. I assume the nice part is on the west side judging by the fact east side was really not serving its name well, but by that time I was already feeling ill again and had to finish our short Toronto trip in a hastily fashion.
I certainly don't mean to disrupt Toronto's tourism business, but personally, I would probably never pick the city as my vacation spot again. My personal advice to my family and friends: go to New York, San Francisco, or even Chicago instead. It's a lot more fun there!
(Note: Photo from Toronto's official website as I didn't take any photo during the trip)
2 comments:
Ha - I was just going to say - what a nice photo you took!
I think as we get older, it becomes harder and harder to pick a hoiday destination. Do we risk the fact that we might hate it, to go explore somewhere we have never been before? Or do we risk being boring, to visit somewhere we love over and over again?
We are in the process of trying to pick our next holiday destination (aiming winter next year) and cant seem to decide among Northern Territory (Darwin, Kakadu, etc), Japan, the States, or go sailing in Whitsundays again, or, to use that money and sort out our investment property. As I said, decision, decision!!!!
Another great post, even you kind of highlighted that you were not impressed - I really enjoyed the read.
Yeah, the city tour wasn't too exciting after all. But in my defense, Toronto is actually an interesting place had we done the right things. There are several male strip bars in the city, but unfortunately Han didn't have the stomach this time.
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