2011.06.15

Toronto Trip

Rosa and I are in Toronto. While she attends the ISSCR I am tooling around the city making new discoveries. Here are my notes after arriving last night.

We just got to the hotel (the Fairmont). The airport was clean, efficient and orderly, and the customs people were all friendly. The drive in was smooth, much different than American taxi drivers where sometimes you fear for your life. The roads were extremely well maintained which helped the ride in. I was impressed that we weren’t bombarded by billboards and neon. The city seems clean, too.

What’s not to like about Canada so far?

Today I woke up with Rosa and walked her to the conference after getting some coffee in the PATH at Second Cup. Then I started walking. I like to spend my first day in a new city on long walks to get a feel for different areas and scale. Here’s what I wrote after my first leg.

I’m walking around the city while Rosa attends the ISSCR. I started at the hotel, then up through China Town and the University (of Toronto) and am now on the north side of Queen’s Park taking a break before heading up to Yorkville.

Several things strike me about Toronto. Superficially, that the rattiest place I’ve seen so far is China Town. And while some of the buildings were a bit run down the place was still lively for a Wednesday afternoon.

The second superficial point is how few cars there are on the roads. Even in the areas where there was orderly construction, traffic wasn’t backed up and ran smoothly. Notably, and maybe not commonly (?), was the police presence at the construction site. Perhaps to ensure order.

On a deeper level, though, is that there are few signs of a flagging economy. People are out and about, I didn’t see any closed shops, and even the flag shop I stopped in looking for a Catalan flag had customers. Just no Catalan flags.

The city itself is quite large. Much larger than I expected. There are quite a number of large buildings interspersed with living neighborhoods. There is plenty of green, too, and I’ve already mentioned it is clean and orderly.

American cities really should look into this sort of place. I’m not saying Toronto is the ultimate in city planning but they clearly have something very good going on. The visible diversity (of the population) alone is something to be learned from.

And, something that Rosa would like, it is quite warm. For me, even hot.

After writing this I continued my hike, though in a more linear fashion. I clearly enjoyed the first half of walking to the second half.

I finally made it up to the Bloor Yonge area. I have to say I was a little disappointed with Bloor Street, though, unless modern, somewhat upscale shopping is your thing. It reminded me too much of San Francisco’s Union Square area, but without even the local boutique areas and shops.

Walking down Yonge all the way to Front was different, though, with tons of local shops. I suspect that though it looked quite diverse the shops were probably owned by a handful of families/groups judging by the clear lack of product diversity. Loads of the same style of shop carrying the same items. What was nice to see were the bounty of restaurants. Strangely there were plenty of Japanese restaurants. I wonder, even in our modern age, how fresh the fish truly is. At least the seafood. I imagine the fresh water fish is fine, though not particularly Japanese.

The architecture is fairly diverse and too much of it, particularly to my mind, is too modern. It’s my understanding that Toronto has torn down many oder sections of the city to make way for modern skyscrapers. I hear the Distillery District is different in that sense, and I hope to find that.

The day has grown hot and I have to say I was grateful for the taller building’s shade. I saw my first and oly traffic jam at the intersection of Yonge and probably King, and it wasn’t a big deal. I have also corroborated the idea that police monitor street construction. It says something that the police have time to do this. The streets seem very safe and I really appreciate that.

I’m thinking back on China Town and why I was so disappointed. I think it’s simply that it didn’t feel so much like a China Town as a place where a lot of chinese people live. It wasn’t even vaguely exotic. Perhaps I’m spoiled by San Francisco’s China Town.

The University and Legislative building areas had the best architecture I saw in one neighborhood. There was something lacking in it, though, and I can’t put my finger on it. Maybe it will come to me later.

Still, despite everything I can think of, Toronto is impressing me. It is unexpectedly urban , functional and lively. I am not sure what tour I will settle on for the group; I’ve only just scratched the surface.

As an aside, I apparently walked through the heart of the gay district along Yonge; I barely noticed. I thought that kind of odd…

I finished writing there, but what I meant was that it was odd because aside from on store dealing in gay men’s clothing, and one guy on the street who was obviously being queeny, there was nothing to indicate there was a gay district in Toronto that I saw. Not that I’m looking but in San Francisco it is way too obvious at times, and Toronto supposedly has a huge Gay Pride week.

I’ll update more as I get around the city more, but so far and without reservation Toronto is getting two thumbs up and I’ve barely dug into the depth of it!

3 Comments Categorized: life  travel

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3 Responses to “Toronto Trip”

1. roberthahn says  (June 15th, 2011 at 15:29:30 )

   glad to hear you’re having a great time! I’m only 1.5h west of you, and while I’d love to meet up with you, don’t think I can fit it into my schedule.

   Most of the “touristy” parts of Toronto — the interesting bits — tend to be close to the lakefront. As you head north, east, and west, the city tends to turn into neighborhoods surrounded by malls. Up near the 401 and 404 the office buildings come back into view; they’re there to make it easy for commuters to get to.

   I also suspect that areas of town, like the gay district, tends to show their colours at night once people are done their 9-5. But I haven’t seen anything like that myself.

   Depending on how long you’re there, I would suggest the following things to check out:

   * The World’s Biggest Bookstore – just to say you’ve been there. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World%27s_Biggest_Bookstore
   * The Art Gallery of Ontario
   * The Royal Ontario Museum
   * The CN Tower

   You should also take Rosa to Honest Ed’s for dinner :)

   I’m sure there are Torontonians who would add considerably to this list, and many Ontarians besides. All I have to say is: have fun, and come again real soon. If you like cities, consider moving here, our winters are pretty mild in the big city (relative to most of Canada anyhow ;))

   (PS: cheer for the Canucks too or they’ll look at you funny. You hoser, eh?)

2. douglas.nerad » Follow Up Notes from Yesterday says  (June 16th, 2011 at 06:48:01 )

   [...] yesterday’s post about my first walking day through Toronto… There are a few points I missed, forgot or [...]

3. douglas says  (June 16th, 2011 at 07:00:57 )

   @ Robert… Honest Ed’s looks CRAZY. I’m guessing you can do more than have dinner there… Just so you know, we’ll be heading to Niagra on the Lake next week, so we’ll still be in the area for a while. I haven’t been there in years, and then only for less than an hour as my friend Scott and I were en route from Florida to Ohio and decided to detour up to Niagra for the heck of it.