A Quick Trip To Toronto

Toronto is one of my favourite cities in Canada, and we’ve got­ten to know it pretty well through mul­ti­ple vis­its. This time, we were there for the Bryan Adams con­cert and only stayed for a day, but we still enjoyed a nice walk in the city and a stop at two of our favourite restau­rants: The Old Spaghetti Fac­tory on the Esplanade, and a small Chi­nese dumpling place in Chinatown.

Toronto, Here We Are Again

Labour Day in North Amer­ica always takes me by sur­prise, mostly because it is months after the rest of the world cel­e­brates Inter­na­tional Work­ers’ Day on May 1^st. But in a coun­try where hol­i­days are given spar­ingly, a three-day long week­end always calls for a short trip.

Tourists in Toronto

After vis­it­ing the Nia­gara Region, we stopped in Toronto. I know the city very well now but it’s always fun to revisit a few favourite places down­town: Chi­na­town (where you can get excel­lent jiaozi and baozi), Kens­ing­ton Mar­ket (for the funky artsy feel) and Yonge Street (for the shops and the crowd).

School's Out

On one side, my expe­ri­ence with uni­ver­sity in Canada is pretty good. First, I hope that even­tu­ally I will be able to com­plete a Cana­dian degree, even if the goal seems to be very far away. Sec­ond, it helps me keep a bal­ance with my crazy work envi­ron­ment. Cul­tur­ally speak­ing, it is also inter­est­ing to see how things are taught on this side of the Atlantic Ocean: per­spec­tives, espe­cially on eco­nom­ics, his­tory and pol­i­tics are quite dif­fer­ent from Europe’s.

Toronto By Night

There is some­thing very com­fort­ing in walk­ing around in a city after sun­set. Con­trary to pop­u­lar belief, most of them don’t turn into cut-throat places and it’s not like you risk your life at every block. Quite the oppo­site actu­ally: peo­ple tend to be more relaxed after a stress­ful day.
And when it comes to night sky­lines, Toronto has it all.

St Lawrence Market

Most of the mar­ket is nest inside a two-storey brick build­ing, between King Street East and the Esplanade. We went there on Sat­ur­day morn­ing, and boy it was busy! About half of Toronto seemed to have gath­ered around the baker, and the other half was queu­ing for meat, fish or appe­tiz­ers, such as fresh olives, red pep­per and feta cheese or artichokes.

Toronto Harbor

I grew up in Nantes, on the West coast of France. The Loire river crosses the city and I lived close to the banks. We were also a 45 min­utes drive from the coast, where I spent pretty much all of my sum­mers. I learned to swim before I could walk and believe it or not, I was an okay surfer and wind­surfer. All in all, I believe this explains my fas­ci­na­tion for water. I like the sea best but lakes and river will do as well. Hell, even glaciers!

Night And Day In Toronto's Chinatown

Of course, when in Toronto two weeks ago, we ended up in Chi­na­town — again. Looks like I can never really escape my Chi­nese roots — wait a minute… I’m not Chi­nese!
Nonethe­less, I feel at home in crowded Chi­na­town. The smell of the food, the col­or­ful signs and dis­plays, the mul­ti­cul­tural atmos­phere make me feel good. Plus, it’s a great place to take pictures.

Kensington Market In The Spring

Two weeks ago, for the Easter long week­end, we once again drove to Toronto. The weather was gor­geous: 25ºC in Canada in early April is def­i­nitely not the norm.
Kens­ing­ton Mar­ket was much more friendly than last time we were there before New Year — trans­la­tion, there were actu­ally peo­ple in the street this time. With the many ter­races (all packed), the restau­rants opened on the street and yes, street enter­tain­ment, it proved to be a great place to hang out for a few hours.

Downtown Toronto

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.