Mom’s turn again: We spent the whole day walking, walking and more walking. My feet and legs are so tired, I don’t think three days on the train are going to give me enough rest, but I am ready to see.

Toronto is a big, busy, eclectic city and after spending the whole day walking in it, I now remember why I don’t like the city. Too many people, too much traffic, immense skyscrapers all around dwarfing everything in their shadows. The one thing I found very interesting is the juxtaposition of the old buildings with the new. Naturally the old buildings were drawfed by the new, glass-laden buildings but it was nice to see that some buildings did survive the wrecking ball.

We began the day by having breakfast at a place called The Richtree Market. It is like a food court but oh so much better! The food is all fresh and looks so yummy. I would call this a slow food court. If you are following any of the new trend in food, you will know that slow food is becoming more popular by people who use fresh food and cook it from scratch, using less fats and fillers. We had wanted a hot chocolate with pain chocolat and we knew they would have this because we had seen it there the day before. I also purchased an apple and Dad a banana. The cup of chocolat cost $4, but the cup was at least twice the size of a regular cup. It was made like a latte with hot, steamed milk. Breakfast was good but for the little we had it cost a whoppping $17+. But we are on vacation…

After breakfast, we took a quick walk to the train station. When we arrived Tuesday evening, we took a taxi to the hotel. But as I looked at the map last night, I noticed that the train station was just around the corner from us, so we checked it out to get our bearings. We decided to go into the train station to see exactly what we would need to do tomorrow morning to board our train. Knowing where we need to go and what we have to do will make our arrival at the train station go, hopefully, smoothly and be more relaxing than trying to figure it all out while trying to access our train.

From the train station, we walked to the post office which was a block past our hotel in the other direction. I then wanted to come back to our hotel. The day was turning out warmer than I thought, so I needed to leave my coat and put a short-sleeved blouse on. Boy, was I way more comfortable now although by the end of the day it did get a little cooler but walking kept me warm.

We decided to walk to the museum. Our hotel is on Yonge (pronounced young) Street which we learned is the longest street in the world. I believe it! I think we walked around the world today, but it just seemed we walked that much. We started up the street looking for the Easton Shopping Center which is like Lloyd’s Center in Portland. At first the people we passed were obviously working people in suits and nice dresses (and, BTW, 90% of them were either holding a cup of coffee or smoking a cigarette or both) but as we progressed up the street, the people became more eclectic and bohemian looking. We also saw more young people which we found out later was because we were near several universities and training hospitals. In the course of that walk, we also saw two car accidents but were not surprised after the 5-minute cab ride from the train station on Tuesday, the cabbies in this town (and probably most towns) are accidents waiting to happen. One of the two accidents did involve a cab.

We did find the Eaton Center and enjoyed walking around although most of the stores were ones we would also find in the US such as Eddie Bauer, Skechers, Old Navy, Sears, etc. But, there were some Canadian stores as well. We ended up here looking for the Canadian Made store which we found. We also had lunch here and ended up at Arby’s. Wouldn’t have been my choice but I really needed to eat a salad instead of the heavier lunches we have been having. I noticed today that my pants are now tighter than they were a couple days ago, so it looks like I will not get away without gaining a few pounds on this trip. I had hoped to keep it off until the train ride cuz the food on the train is going to be fabulous and very fattening! But, you only go on this kind of vacation once–at least I will only go on this kind of vacation once.

After lunch and shopping, we resumed our walk up the longest street in the world toward the Royal Ontario Museum. It borders the college district. We were rather stunned by the price of admittance-$38 and that was the senior rate. Most of the exhibits and artifacts we saw were surprisingly old. We started in the Asian exhibit where we saw replicas of Chinese tombs from the Ming and Qing dynasties which were in the 900BC. It was amazing what artifacts they had on display from China and how old they were and the wonderful shape these things were in.

We then saw the artifacts from the Bronze age which was in Cypress (did you know that Cypress was the center of bronze way way back a long time ago?). But, we soon tired of seeing all these artifacts and broken pieces of whatever. While interesting, it sure wasn’t worth $38.

We moved on to the European section and that was a little more interesting. We started in the medieval area and worked our way up to the 20th century. The exhibits were interesting because they were not just pieces of pottery, jewelry, and statues of the era but recreations of what the rooms in the homes would be as well as audio presentations of daily living.

The real interesting part of the museum was the exhibit on Josial Wedgwood. Since I own Wedgwood and remember how beautiful it was when I saw it in the stores in England. There was a very nice presentation on Josiah, not only describing his pottery but the techniques he used to improve on the clay, the transport of the pottery to market, the marketing of the product and more. He was really an interesting man. Someone said that he did more to meld art with everyday life than anyone in the world.

I realized when we got back to the hotel that I had missed seeing Chief Sitting Bull’s head dress which was advertised when we walked into the museum. Don’t know where it was because we did not see anything in the museum North America which is surprising since we are in North America. Guess we didn’t read the guide book very well.

During our time in the museum, Kris called to tell me of some restaurants that his friend from Toronto suggested we patronize. Dad had wanted fish for dinner which sounded good to me, so we decided to go back down to the harbor to find a restaurant the friend suggested called Captian John’s. I wanted to take the bus or subway cuz my legs and feet were hurting, but it was only 5:30 which Dad thought was too early to eat, so he wanted to walk. (Have I mentioned that we won’t be going on a mission together?)

So, we began walking. Fortunately for us, it had rained while we were in the museum, and the sun was beginning to come out again but the wind had come up and the temperature had dropped. I was a bit cold but knew that if we walked briskly, I would stay warm. So we began to walk; we walked and walked and walked. I didn’t think we would ever get there. I think we walked almost an hour to get down to the harbour. We did find Captain John’s but Dad thought it was a bit expensive. There were two other restaurants we had found suggested in a brochure but Dad had thrown the brochure away at the museum. The only one I could remember was Pier 4. We didn’t know where it was so we asked. We were told three traffic lights down the road, so again we began to walk. I was so tired I could have cried, but I kept walking. Well, the restaurant wasn’t three lights down, it was six and they were long blocks. We did find the Pier 4 Restaurant and it was a bit less expensive that Captain John’s, so we stayed to eat. It was right on the water and the view was beautiful. I did take some nice pictures and we did enjoy watching the activity in the harbor as we ate. There was a landing strip on Centre Island just off the shore as well as ferries, sail boats and kayaks. In fact, about 15 kayaks came from the island as we were eating. We saw some lights in the water as we began our dinner but realized that they were slowly coming our way. Sure enough, by the time we finished dinner, the kayaks had made their way to our side of the water. That was fun.

After dinner, we, of course, had to walk back to our hotel. Fortunately, it was not too far away. It was now a bit colder and still windy as we walked home. But, there were far fewer people on the sidewalks so we were able to walk fast and got to the hotel in about 20 min.

We are now getting ready for our three-day train ride to Vancouver. We will both enjoy not having to walk too are any time soon. Our feet hurt and our legs ache, but we did have an enjoyable day. I just wish I had seen Sitting Bull’s head dress, DARN!

Luv, Mom