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)...