Arriving in Toronto by train was very easy. As I came out of the Union Station terminal, it was night time, and everyone was looking up with their cell phones taking pictures. When I turned around, fireworks had just begun for the PanAmerican games closing ceremony from the CN Tower. It was a pretty cool thing to see as a welcome to the city.
Uber is very available and useful, so I Ubered to my Airbnb and despite a cumbersome instruction to get the keys and entrance, everything worked out with access fine. This was the first time (well second) that I had been a little disappointed from the Airbnb unit. There were several things that weren’t super confortable such as the noise from the hallway, the noise from the AC, the temperature regulation of the AC, the water pressure in the shower, the cheap towels that stayed wet after one use, and the instruction to take garbage out despite a $50 cleaning fee. There were long hairs in the shower and bathroom, and the place was just not as clean as I’d expect for it being a higher priced unit. Anyhow, it was doable, and I got to bed.
The next morning, my friend Sean came to pick me up and he drove me to another condo unit he and his fiancé own which gives great views of the city from the top of the roof pool. We then went back to their condo and got bikes and he took me around downtown on bikes and over to the terminal to take a ferry to Centre Island. This place was amazing! Just off the coast of Toronto is a beautiful nature park with residential areas and no cars. Cute, quaint homes lined wooded streets with pathways for walking and bikes. Beaches with actual sand to Lake Ontario made for beautiful sun bathing and playing in cool water and after a great work up for appetite, we stopped at a restaurant which amazingly had great food and normal pricing.
After a good exercise of this, we continued biking around downtown and we went by a cool distillery area with shops and restaurants. We biked all the way back to their condo and put the bikes up and got our bathing suits to go back up to the pool on the roof top and enjoy a nice refreshing reward of our day excursion.
When we finished our swim, Sean brought me back to my place and we got ready to go to dinner and I met him back downtown for a sushi dinner at a place called Japango. We did a chef Omakase and enjoyed so much sushi that we couldn’t even finish part of the last dish that was brought out. He then took me to the Times Square of Toronto with great city lights and people watching. We walked around and we got some ice cream to continue our walk around.
We finally ended our fun filled day with a good experience of Toronto and fun conversation. I headed back home and went to bed so I could get up for another full day tomorrow.
The next day, I got up and headed back downtown to go to the CN Tower to take a look out. These places are such rip offs. It’s really too bad, but $40 to ride an elevator up a tower and look out was really not worth it at all. I guess it’s a once in a lifetime thing to do, but none the less, it was annoying that it’s so grossly overcharged. After the CN Tower, I headed to walk all around the city towards Kensington Markets, and then over to a sandwich shop to have lunch. It was so hot, the walking with a backpack and camera was getting annoying with feeling sweaty, so I tried to stay in the shade as much as possible. After miles of walking around the city, I made my way back home for a quick recharge, and decided to go to a restaurant nearby for dinner after. I walked to this Farm to Table Italian restaurant that was highly ranked in Yelp, and was pleasantly surprised by a fantastic meal.
Hand made chicken dumplings with olive, Fig with goat cheese, and Arancini balls with Bolognese sauce created an amazingly cohesive meal of appetizers that worked perfectly together. I was very happy with my meal, relaxing and enjoying watching people walk by the restaurant. That evening I relaxed and got ready for bed for my day trip to Niagara Falls the next day.