I'm in Tronno (or Toronto as us English would say) for another few days before heading back to Ottawa for a week. Tronno is the largest city in Canada and while I'm not usually one for endless, sprawling metropolii, this place is pretty damn cool. The vibe is palpably chilled and there are some really interesting areas to investigate.
Today I had a bit of a steroetypical tourist's day, first hitting the Distillery district just east of Downtown which contains some of the best preserved industrial Victorian architecture in North America. Formerly the Gooderham and Worts Distillery and at one time "contributing more to the Federal coffers than any other enterprise", it has been redeveloped with creativity and culture in mind to house artist studios, loads of funky design shops, an amazing bakery, a fantastic coffee shop and even a brew pub. It's a nice little area to wander around, I especially enjoyed a little exhibition by the Lithuanian (and adopted Toronotonian) photographer George Talas and then...
The Perfect Chai
Brilliantly, most Canadian cafes I have been to have offered one of my favourite drinks on their menu, the humble Chai. You get honey to stir in and cinnamon to dust. Today I got all the above and my glass even had CINNAMON FROSTING AROUND THE RIM - joyous!
In the News
The TTC system of one-pass-fits-all for the metro, bus and streetcar is perfect for getting around quickly and easily. En-route to the CN Tower and after downing some herbal zen-juice in anticipation of my mild vertigo, we made a quick shop stop for my sister to do some gift shopping... and somehow they ended up on the 6 O'Clock TV news! Here's some photos from when the presenter Mike politely accosted us in the shop and below is a link to the video from tonight's piece. About 25 seconds in is where they pop up.
"In forty minutes here, the only people remotely interested in buying were these English tourists..."
Funnily enough the asian lady who worked there was all like "don't take my picture, don't take my picture!" and then as we watched it back she's stood there giving an interview!
Watch the Full Report here
The Vertigo of Bliss
The CN Tower is Tronno's main landmark standing as it does 553m tall. As I don't particularly enjoy being up high, I was expecting to do my usual 'creeping around as far away from the edge as possible' act but today I felt fine about it and even plucked up the courage to lark about on their famed glass floor (which makes for a quite unique and bizarre feeling of floating high above a model village, but isn't quite as cool as they make out). The views were pretty immense.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment