I was still wearing my hotel outfit, i.e. Havaianas, old yoga pants and a t-shirt, when I went downstairs for a (free) cup of hotel coffee, then out for a smoke.

Bad idea. Not the smoking part, the outfit.

I sighed and took the elevator back to the fourth floor, then headed straight to my backpack to dig out the warm clothes I had packed two days earlier, back when I was still wearing shorts and wondering how the temperature could possibly ever go down.

“It’s cold!” I shouted accusatively as if Feng had turned on the air con behind my back again.

Sunday, October 8. Reality was catching up. The fall weather was rudely barging in on our lives.

Oh well. Good thing we went to Niagara Falls the day before.

I put on a sweater, my hoodie, a rain jacket and a scarf. Feng and Mark grabbed their hats and parkas.

It wasn’t that cold by Canadian standards, 10 °C maybe, but the wind was chilly and the change brutal. Rain or shine, we were heading out for the entire day as well—the hotel was in Burlington, a 30-to-60-minute drive from downtown Toronto, so we couldn’t go back and forth. Gone are the days when Airbnb condos in these impossibly high towers right in the city centre were affordable…

We started at St. Lawrence Market but it was closed for Thanksgiving. We walked around the neighbourhood and we accidentally found Kim’s Convenience, the convenience store of the Canadian TV sitcom used for exterior shots.

It started raining so like half of Toronto, we ended up at the Eaton Centre. We spent the rest of the day trying to find temporary shelters—Spirit Halloween where Mark had a blast, Chinese bakeries for delicious pastries and hot coffee, then eventually the movie theatre where Feng and Mark watched a Chinese movie while I was exploring Kensington Market.

Exploring Toronto again and spending a three-day weekend away from Ottawa was a lovely break despite the weather, so no regrets.