On Thanksgiving or around, we don’t do turkey—we do birthdays. Much to his dismay, Feng invariably turns a year older on October 11, and the very next day, on October 12, Mark celebrates getting one year closer to the day he’ll finally be able to show off a decent moustache to his friends.

This year, their birthdays actually fell during the Thanksgiving long weekend, so Feng decided to go to Toronto for a Blue Jays game. That’s baseball, by the way. Apparently, Toronto’s beloved team had made it to the… let me go ask again. The World Series something, anyway. Semi-finals, maybe.

I just can’t get excited about baseball. Games last forever, and absolutely nothing ever happens.

However, I was happy to spend three days in Toronto. I no longer want to live there—it’s just not worth it with real estate so expensive—but it’s a fun city to explore, and it’s so much more alive than Ottawa.

In a way, we’re fairly predictable when we go to Toronto. It’s quite comforting, actually, like making a surprise recipe with ingredients you already love.

So, what’s a perfect Toronto weekend?

It invariably starts with leaving at 9 a.m.—well, closer to 10 a.m.—and me falling asleep to the music we love (Feng makes playlists on his USB). We stop at the Trenton ONroute rest stop for timbits (the guys) and a pee break (me), then eventually try to find the right freeway because we always book a hotel far, far away from downtown and the $300 rooms.

This time, we picked the Holiday Inn by the airport—not bad at all: clean and functional.

Of course, since we’re at least a 30-minute drive from downtown and Toronto traffic is brutal, we have to take everything we need for the day and plan for the weather. This is how Feng ended up buying sweatpants in Niagara Falls—shorts don’t work for chilly fall nights.

We always end up in Chinatown for food we love: sweet coconut buns, Hong Kong milk tea, Northeastern jiaozi, steamed baozi, delicious tomato beef noodle soup and, yes Mark, they do have fried rice too. Chinese food is surprisingly cheap—and unsurprisingly authentic—in Toronto.

There’s always something going on and catching our attention. This time, it was Diwali, celebrated at Nathan Phillips Square. I watched the fireworks with hundreds of very excited Indians while the guys watched the Blue Jays lose. Apparently, Diwali celebrates knowledge over ignorance. I think we should all celebrate Diwali, really.

And when we need a break from Toronto, we drive to Niagara Falls because I still can’t believe we can just drive to a natural world wonder. Yes, the main street is extremely tacky, but the falls never cease to amaze me.

We didn’t try to cross the border to the US this time—do I really need to explain why?

The three days went by fast.

Time goes by fast too. Holy shit, Mark has become a moody 13-year-old…