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).