US / States / French Canada Tour 09

After yesterday's longish day - we decided to have a bit of touristic/lounging start to the day - I don't think we left the hotel to late morning (past the hoardes of Wushu - aren't they some sort of blacklisted terrorist group or something?).

I had breakfast at (the shameful) Golden Arches because maybe I had one two many Saporros at the Japanese restaurant the other night - but Ant did the muffin thang from the nearby deli-style restaurant at the train station.

We walked downtown to the Olde and Semi-Olde City Hall. The Olde City Hall is a very lovely old style building - and the Semi-Olde City Hall is a Cameron Offices/1970s concrete nightmare. Speaking of concrete nightmares - the Semi-Olde City Hall was designed by the same architect that made the attractiveness that is the UN Headquarters in NY... Holler! Speaking of semi-olde - everything here in Canada seems to have peaked in the 1970s (the CN Tower, the Semi-Olde City Hall)... Sort of feels like the economy might have peaked back then and everything is on a slow decline towards "Dawn of the Dead" apocolyptic goodness...

We headed through Chinatown (which didn't really exist anymore - but not due to some ethnic clensing from the Toronoto City Council) to the Art Gallery of Ontario. It was a bit of steep entrance fee ($18 CAD) but it was quite interesting in the way it was put together - very thematic. Sometimes - it would have very "ecletic" art in terms of age or style - but it would always have a common theme and an explantion which would draw everything together. There was a less impressive bit about Canadian Art (come on - who has ever heard of Canadian Art - and no... Bryan Adams or Celine Deon do not count) and some group of eight or something who were all a bit shit. Nonetheless - I think it was worth while checking it out - if not for the cool building which was all new-a-zied and swish in a timber sort of way.

For lunch - we headed to the only other cool building in Toronoto - a Design College (which sort of looked like the upper levels were standing up by several thin straws). I had some more Japanese and Ant had some underwhelming Mexican (more Mexi-can't than Mexican).

We went for a bit of wander after lunch up to the Ontario Parliment House (which is the equivalent of visiting the ACT Legislative Assembly - errr no thanks). We wandered back to the hotel - after which we did a bit of browsing at the shoppes (excitement she wrote at 15% sales tax).

I did another bit of a workout at the gyme (there were hot wushu players in the spa - making it look like hot gay pron). But instead of the crazy Russian Wushu guy from the other night (almost swift kickboxing me in the head) - there was an equally crazy Brazillian guy who seemed to be overdosing on the roids...

For dinner - we headed to (how original) Gay Street (aka Church Street) to the Rainbow Cafe (not affiliated with the Rainbow Bridge at Niagara). Tis a bit hard to distinguish the food here in Canada from the food in the States - portions are still super huge - and most things are fairly calorific. The Rainbow Cafe was no exception (despite it being on gay street and most gay men being fairly body conscious). We called it a night after dinner (which is sorta hard going to bed after a full stomach of calories).

US / Canada / French Canada Tour 09

There have been a distinct lack of early starts for us these holidays - but today wasn't one of them. Before we left for the States/Canada/French Canada - Ant bought some half price Canadian train tixs including a return trip from Toronoto to Nigeria - and today was that trip.

The ride to Central Station (or whatever it is called) was fairly smooth (considering it was peak time). The Canadians seem to have this weird thing going on about queueing for trains (hours in advance). Probably has something to do with not having any seating allocation. Anyhows - the station was sort of weird because you queue up in the basement - and catch an escalator (only if you have a ticket) up to the train platform.

As the trip to Nigeria is a NY bound train - the train was an Amtrak train (ie: no windows). But it wasn't too much of a hassle because there was not much of a view to Nigeria (very industrial grunge if you like that sort of thing).

The train ride took a couple of hours and when we got out - it was quite cold, miseriable and sort of wet. Arrival at the station was a bit random - we weren't allowed to go into the station from the platform - rather we had to navigate thru several nigara sized puddles to make it out to the street.

Downtown Niagria city makes Queanbeyan look like a busy metropolis (no hyperbole here). I'm sure it would make a great setting for a Resident Evil 6 game. There were random chinese restaurants which looked like they had served their last customer in 1983 and a complete lack of any signs of life anywhere.

We walked for about 30 or so minutes until we saw the US/Canadian "Rainbow Bridge" (I hope they rename it the "Frrwrendship Bridge" to make it sound cuter). This is a link over Niagara between the two countries and acts like a border crossing (duh). Once we got a bit closer - you could make out one of the falls (on the US side). There were also some dodgy looking Holiday Inns and stuff on the US side. I remember commenting to Ant "Trust the Americans to build some much tacky shit next to something of great natural building". However I spoke way too soon - because the best tacky shit was all on the Canadian side. Did I say tacky shit - because I meant to say more tacky shit than Vegas and Reno combined. The Canadian side was full of dodgy casinos, revolting restaurants (aka revolving) and lame arse tourist attractions. I like tack - but tack is not right in some places - including Niagara.

Anyhow - one of the attractions Ant wanted to do was ride the Maid of the Mist (no - she isn't a prostitute, rather some old boat where they hand out raincoats and get everyone abosolutely drenched under the falls if that is your idea of fun). However - everything had the same abandonned look that Niagara Falls City had and the Maid of the Mist was closed from the 25th of October for the winter (we missed it by a couple of days). Dang! (Ant said). Yes! (I said - because getting soaking wet when it is 5 degrees isn't my cup of tea).

We walked over to the Niagara Visitors Center (which is sort of smack bang on the top of the Canadian side of the falls). The falls were pretty awe-inspiring. Volumes and volumes of water gushing past was fairly spectacular. Coming from Australia - you aren't really used to this much water in one place at any given time. Anyhow - you could almost forget about the tack for just one minute standing up close to it.

We headed into the Visitors Center for our first Tom Horton's (hears a who) experience - underwhelming filtered coffee with sugary buns and the like. Although I was really expecting rip-off tourist prices here - they appeared to be normal prices.

We made the call to buy a dubious "Winter Magic Pass" thingy (sounds very peterphile-y)- which gave us entrance to some dodgy Butterfly Park (which we never went to), "Behind the Falls" experience and "Niagara Rage" 4D movie... The whole thing set us back $20CAD (plus tax which is a super rip-off here in Canada - it can be up to 15% sometimes). Apparently we saved up to 45% - woop woop...

Our first stop was "Niagara's Rage" a 4-D movie. We were all given plastic ponchos which had the "Niagara's Rage" logo on the back - superstylin... We were all ushered into a room to be greeted by a 4th-rate Pixar movie about some fat squirrel/chipmonk thing who is teleported back in time (who got detention from an owl) and meets a bear (with a bad Canadian accent) and discover how Niagara falls were created... I made a fairly audible comment to Ant during the first 30 seconds "WE PAID MONEY FOR THIS???!".

After the lame, non-4D (what is 4D anyway) - we were ushered into another room with screens all around and a metal platform on which you were supposed to stand on - which was precariously positioned about a pool of water. The movie then sort of went into "IMAX" mode - with real shots of Niagara (from a helicopter) and occasional blasts of water, fake snow and wind coming from the ceiling. I was more afraid of getting electrocuted from the pool of water beneath than anything else.

After the 4-D experience that was "Niagara's Rage" (I think all that makes something 4-D is if someone switches on a fan or something), we were ushered into the "Niagara's Rage" giftshop - where Ant's urge to buy plush animals was somewhat rising.

After that - we did the "Beyond the Niagara Falls" experience - where you don another sexay raincoat, catch an elevator (with the woman operator who is almost suicidal) and go through a tunnel and see from behind the waterfall. It was quite cool (temperature wise) but all you could see was just a wall of white with the occasional splash back if the wind was blowing the right way.

You could also go out and visit a viewing platform at the bottom of the Falls which was pretty cool and well recommended. Thankfully - when we did it - the weather was a bit dryer and less windier than before - so we didn't get wet.

After that - we had some more "Tim Horton Hear's A Who" for lunch (another ridiculously underpriced meal given the touristic nature of the location). Ant did a bit more "...ummm should I buy this overpriced stuffed animal??" action - but his urge to buy the stuffed animals wained. What these giftshops had in abundence were mini personalised licence plates... Although "Anthony" was a fairly rare name - but apparently - Chastity and Destiny weren't... I repeat - we are out of Bort licence plates...@! Hell - you could even get the "Nicolas" Cage variation of Nicholas...

Anyhows - we had a bit of time to kill to our train back to Toronoto - so (when in Rome) we headed to the Casino... which was surprisingly packed of old people (median age was about 86). It's sort of weird being a couple of thirty somethings and getting carded to go into a casino. Perhaps I should be taking this as a complement - but it appeared as if they were carded anyone who looked like they had a pulse. My favourite slot machine was the "Alien vs Predator" slot machine (when you think of people getting hidiously murdered... wait I mean - when you think of lucky - you think of Alien vs Predator".

We wandered for a bit until we found the epicenter of tackiness in the known universe - "Clifton Hill". It is about a half mile stretch of pure tackiness. Hell - it not only has one Ripley's Believe It or Not - it has two... And several haunted houses including one where it claims to have made 900,000 people wet their pants or something. I really didn't expect anything like this to be in Canada - let alone - right near Niagara Falls - but it was... and we took some pictures. After a very underwhelming experience at Wendys (where I ordered a thickshake (emphasis on thick, with a dollop of whipped cream and cherry on top - vomit) - we spent $5 on tokens at the "Great Canadian Midway Center" - where we played those ticket machines for about half an hour (you know - the ones where you throw basketballs into a hoop for tickets which are redeemable for really lame prizes). We did the whole Simpson's cheating thing (you know - two fully grown men passing each other balls to score maximum points) - and managed to get about 82 tickets - which only equated to a dodgy Mickey Mouse keyring and plastic head thing (which is too lame to talk about).

We headed back to the station and it either was pissing down (or it was mist from the falls pissing down on us). Either way - we were really really damp and miserable. I felt really underdressed for the day (just wearing jeans and a light hoodie) which sort of added to the effect of being depressed in Niagara.

The train trip back to Niagara was fairly harmless - it gave us a chance to recoup and dry ourselves (my socks were damp the whole day) :-(

We chilled for a bit at the hotel and tried to avoid the Wushu players as much as possible (Damn those Wushu!!).

We headed back out to gay-ville for dinner and we had Japanese/Thai confusion. Ant thought it could be a decent mix - because those two countries hadn't been to war with each other. Japanese food here is hella cheap (when compared to Wagamama) and usually comes out at the same time (unlike Wagamama). High Five...

I sort of felt a bit tired and Ant felt like going partying in Toronoto - so I headed back to the hotel whereas Ant went out and had a bit of an underwhelming Toronoto gay bar experience (or two)...

US / Canada / French Canada Tour 09

After the fairly unsatisfying lunch - we hit the streets to the gay part of town (aptly named "Church" street...). Toronto has a fairly bigish gay scene and it was used (X-Files style) to shoot the Queer as Folk US TV series. Things didn't really feel happening (cause it was mid-afternoon) - but there was one club packed to rafters - full of retirees or something.

It sort of felt like Toronto had been beaten rather hard with the ugly stick. There was some gawd awful architecture to be had, and everything was rather flat. Ant made the comment that Tornoto reminded him a bit of Melbourne - flat, with trams...

Anyhows - we did some walking down Church Street in the direction of downtown Tornoto. We checked out the main train station (in order to work out where we had to catch the train to Nigeria falls the next day). Everything felt rather dead - lack of people, lack of shops (a lot of closed down things about) - perhaps it is the GFC at work here?

From the station - we travelled down the "Sky Walk" - a fairly gawd awful Cameron Offices / Belconnen Bus Interchange vintage above ground concrete pedestrian overpass which wouldn't look too out of place in a zombie/apocalyptic movie. Again -there was a complete lack of people which added to the errie feel of the place.

The Sky Walk links the train station to the CN Tower - the world's largest free-standing structure... or something. Sort of think like the Telstra Tower or a Communist Communications Tower (which are sort of the same thing) - and you have the CN Tower. At the base of the tower - there were plenty of "Ticket Offices" and some bizare "eco herb farm" - but no tourists or open ticket offices... We managed to find an open ticket office - and forked out $28CAD for a ride up to the tower and the "Sky Ball" (no it isn't a porno - rather an extra lift up to a higher observatory). We bailed on the "3D ride of Tornoto"... We may be tourist suckers but aren't complete tourist suckers...

It all felt really dead quiet (ie: no tourists) and felt like this could be a bit of a money-losing operation. Let's hope they could afford the upkeep on the lifts. After the ticket guy (who seemed a tad gay) commented on my negative body language - we made our way through the 2 mile queue area (sin tourists) before heading up the lift. At the observatory level - you got to see a fairly decent view of Tornoto and surrounds - pity that Tornoto was raped by the ugly stick tho...

Of interest was the "Glass Floor" - where you could walk out over a "glass bottom floor" and look at the ground. I did a bit of dancing around and jumping (to freak Ant out). After 5 minutes - Ant finally found the courage to walk out by a couple of inches onto the glass floor (but he had to hold me and was somewhat shaking violently the whole time).

The Sky Ball was another lift ride up - with even less tourists - but funnily enough - it was the sameish view.

We headed back to the hotel - when suddenly there was a bit more life in Tornoto. Probably had something to do with it being 5pmish.

It was sort of hard to find differences between here and the US (except for the funnier accents - "It's aboot dignity. It's aboot respect."). The food seemed the same. The shops seem the same. The TV sort of seemed the same... Oh well...

We made our way past the Wushu hoards to chill for a bit at the hotel. I've been on a fitness kick ever since the calorie-horror that was NY - so I did a bit of a gyme session at the 27th floor gym where I almost got a swift kickbox to the head by a Wushu competitor from Russia or somewhere who was going a little bit too crazy near me while I was on the exercise bike.

For dinner - we headed back out to Church Street where we went to a sort of "Mod-Oz" restaurant which doubled as a bar. I had a pizza, Ant had a steak and the 50 yr old woman who served us (who looked a little out of place working as a waitress at a flashy club) was super friendly and very interested in our itinerary (just like the Canadian Immigration peeps). Until next time... XOXO...

US / Canada / French Canada Tour 09

We caught a shuttle for $7.50 Canadian (which was a bit of pain because we had to have the exact change and the ATM machine machine only spat out $20 bills). In order to get to downtown Toronto (which appeared to be a very long distance from the airport) - we had to catch this shuttle bus to a nearby subway stop - then transfer onto a subway till we got to the Yonge Street station. The trip was longish - about an hour and I was still venting about the Canadian immigration to myself.

At the subway station - it was sort of weird because you had to walk through a foodcourt and mall in order to get out on the street. We had no probs finding our hotel (Delta - not affiliated with the airline). When we checked in - Ant was a bit pished that we weren't given a single bed (hotwire bookings seems to do this to us a fair bit) - but she was fairly apologetic by saying the hotel was full... The room itself was pretty good - sort of a similar standard to the Doubletree - but you know you feel kinda lame when your room is on the fourth floor of a 27 storey hotel...

There was a bit of strange mob in the hotel lobby. Apparently - the "Wushu" Martial Arts World Championships were being held in Toronto and that the Delta Hotel was the "Official Hotel for competitors". Never really heard of Wushu before although it does sound like the name that Paris Hilton would call one of her toy dogs... (Come here lil wushu!). I've subsequently checked out wikipedia and it all appears to check up... although it ain't an Olympic sport and Ant did spot an Australian team - who aren't endorsed by the AIS... or something.

Anyhows - we wandered back to the Food Court for lunch and I had (the shame) some calorific Taco Bell monstrosity. Not only do you get the badness of french fries - but here at Taco Bell - they pour that plastic liquid cheese and some dodgy mince all over it for that added calorie effect..

XOXO