I will always remember the first time I came to Toronto.

It was in 2002, after our crazy long trip from Mexico to Brazil. I had never been to North America before and I wanted to see Canada, so I flew back to Toronto with Feng. It was February and I didn’t have any warm clothes after a few months in Latin America. The only jacket I had was a thin leather jacket I had bought in Argentina during the Peso crisis. Feng had warned me: it was going to be cold.

In Ottawa, we have the Rideau Canal. In Toronto, local polish their skating skills on Nathan Phillips Square, where the New Year celebrations took place.

Torontonians seemed to have a blast with friends and family as they were skating around the man-made ice rink that covers the square. I wanted to try it, but the queue at the skate rental was huge!

Dundas Square, located at the intersection of busy Yonge Street and Dundas street, is famous for hosting public events. This is one of the busiest intersection in Toronto. The square is surrounded on all sides by gigantic commercial billboards, which is fairly unique (and controversial) in Canada.

Past Chinatown, we ended up in another cute multicultural neighborhood: Kensington Market. The eclectic shops and cafés are stuck between Spadina and Little Italy. We spotted Latino, European, Middle-Eastern and North African small businesses and vintage stores in old Victorian houses.

Toronto’s Chinatown didn’t disappoint me. It was colorful, messy and it smelled of exotic and spicy food. I observed the people attending their daily business: biking around, shopping, cooking and chatting.