Rain or Shine, Toronto is Always an Interesting City to Explore

When French people are bracing for train strikes ahead of the many long holiday weekends that make everyone love the month of May, across the Atlantic, Canadians are glued to their weather app—the weather gods and their weird sense of humour rule the country, and they can derail travel plans anywhere, anytime.

Last week was hot and sunny, finally. You could almost hear the entire province of Ontario breathe a sigh of relief—goodbye winter, hello summer!

Of course, it didn’t last. The temperatures were set to drop “dramatically” on Friday, and “spectacularly” with a series of thunderstorms scary enough to prompt Mark’s school to cancel the charity walkathon. The Victoria Day long weekend would be rainy and chilly—better than a blizzard in Nunavut, I suppose, but still inconvenient when you’re trying to pack for a three-day trip to Toronto.

And here I was on Thursday night trying to figure out if I needed to bring a blanket for these chilly nights when heating systems have been off for a few weeks, but it’s still cold indoors because it’s not exactly hot outside yet.

Packing for the weather mattered because we were going to stay in Markham, 30 km northeast of Downtown Toronto. Staying in the Greater Toronto Area is cheaper, but it also means we don’t drive back and forth; we leave for the entire day, hopefully appropriately dressed.

We used to stay downtown in Toronto. Rent has always been ridiculous, but hostels and even hotels were affordable. We slept twice at the Bond Hotel, just a couple of blocks from Dundas Square. We even experienced the fancy condo life for a few days when we booked a 50th-floor apartment in the ICE Condominium on York Street in 2018. The last “cheap” downtown Airbnb we got was in 2020 when Toronto was a ghost town.

It’s okay, I like the place we found in Markham. It’s affordable, very clean, and close to a bunch of Chinese restaurants plus an amazing giant 24/7 supermarket with favourite ingredients from China, Korea, and Japan. Yes, we stocked up.

Two years ago, we travelled to Toronto to see Crowded House. Last year, Feng surprised me with tickets to the Neil Young & Crazy Horse, the tour with a Woodstock vibe. No concert this time—we just drove to Toronto for a change of scenery and for the sake of it.

So, what did we do in Toronto? The usual, basically. We explored several neighbourhoods, ate Chinese food we can’t find in Ottawa, took pictures, went to see Final Destination Bloodlines, enjoyed the sun, avoided the rain, and watched so many different people from so many walks of life live so many different lives.