Toronto - Part 3 (Finale)

You can see part one of our Toronto trip HERE and part two HERE

Our final full day in Toronto was one filled with music. While searching the web for interesting things to do, we found the Toronto Jazz Festival schedule and planned most of our day around that. There are a large number of musicians and venues during this event and it is really cool that something of this magnitude was going on while we were there. Many of the concerts are free of charge while others charge as much as $70 per ticket and the times range from 8:30am until 11:00pm. Overall I think there is something for everyone here.

For our first concert of the day, we made our way to Nathan Phillips Square to enjoy an afternoon of music by Heavyweights Brass Band. This band was a lot of fun and very energetic.  Here they are getting ready to play.

 

Toward the end of their concert, they walked around the entire Square playing their instruments and many people followed dancing along behind them. It reminded me of a New Orleans funeral procession. 

 

 

 



I think Jack enjoyed himself!

  

 







Besides our musical tour of the day, we continued our culinary tour as well. We stopped at Swatow on Spadina Ave. and enjoyed a delicious Chinese meal. Jack's BBQ pork dish was awesome and my szechuan vegetables were yummy! This restaurant is just one of probably a hundred in just a short stretch along the road. I don't know exactly why we chose this one, but I'm glad we did.

We continued on our musical adventure to the Pure Spirits Patio in the Distillery District where the Andre Roy Trio would be performing.  We had planned to arrive at the venue quite early so we had a chance to walk around and explore this very unique area. This blurb from the District's website will help explain what I'm talking about.

Home to many of Toronto's hottest designer boutiques, unique cafes, artisan shops, performance venues and award-winning restaurants, The Distillery District is the place to see and be seen. An internationally acclaimed pedestrian-only village, The Distillery features more than 70 ground-floor cultural and retail establishments in the restored red brick, Victorian-era buildings of the renowned Gooderham & Worts whiskey distillery. One of Canada's hottest tourist attractions, centrally-located and just a short walk from downtown Toronto there is always something happening at The Distillery. Have you visited us lately?

There is still a lot of construction happening at the Distillery but there is one place in which I am particularly interested. Do you think this may be the back wall of a bar or restaurant for quilters?

 

There are actually two of these walls with the cool star pattern.

 

 

The structure below looks like a bar or counter that has a tumbler pattern in the tile work. I'll have to keep my eyes open and watch the progress of this place. 





 

 

I forgot to mention something that Jack saw while making his first trip to the pharmacy the other day. While walking through the park around 8:45am, he saw a group of women doing T'ai Chi together. He stopped to watch briefly and was thoroughly pleased. He went back later to see the tail end of their exercise and returned the next morning to watch as well. On that final day, he spoke with the leader, an older Chinese woman who noticed his interest. In her broken English, she invited him to join them every morning at 8:30. Oh, if only he had seen this earlier in out trip! That would have been wonderful for him. I don't know if I've mentioned it here, but Jack helps facilitate a local T'ai Chi Chih group twice a week and he just gets so much pleasure when the entire group (15-25 people) are all doing the same thing at the same time. I have to agree with him. It is beautiful.

 

All in all, we had a wonderful time in Toronto! My foot still hurts and I'll call the doctor tomorrow to see what he says. I'm not using the crutches, but it doesn't take long for me to want to sit down and give the foot a break. I've been doing my plantar fasciitis exercises faithfully in hopes that is the problem and that it will end soon. Keep your fingers crossed for me, please. It has to be ok! After all, we're soon heading out to visit a quilting friend in Tennessee! 

Toronto - Part 2

Day two in Toronto wasn't what we had planned, but it was fun anyway. As I said in the last post, we would have to move slowly because of my foot, but we did move and explore.  (Click HERE to see the previous post about our Toronto trip.

I know that we've all seen posters and flyers stapled to telephone poles and just about everywhere else, but when I saw this pole, I thought it was pretty funny. Just look at all those staples!

Ok, back to our trip. We visited AGO - Art Gallery of Ontario and that was really fascinating. I am continually amazed at the talents of so many people! Take a few minutes and click HERE to check out the current and upcoming exhibits.

When we left the Gallery, we wanted to find a nice shaded area to sit and relax - and perhaps people watch for a while. We headed down McCaul street a ways and found some benches next to the Ontario College of Art and Design (OCAD U) which is also called "Canada's University of the Imagination." We could see in the windows and were really impressed with some of the works. I think in the maybe 30-45 minutes we were there, we saw at least ten students walking out of the buildings with paintings and various other project. I finally got the nerve to ask one of them if I could see his work and was happy that he obliged. He had been working on a series of self-portraits that were quite interesting. The basic shape and features were the same in all the paintings, but his colors changed to represent his various "moods, feelings and emerging persons." I didn't exactly "get" everything he was saying, but it sure was intriguing.

I forgot to mention that we got a late start on the day so our first stop was actually for lunch. (Remember, the trip is really all about Jack's culinary tour of Toronto!) We chose a Vietnamese restaurant that Jack had seen  on one of his trips to the pharmacy. The food at Pho Tien was delicious and there were so many choices!

After lunch and the Gallery, we found a couple more book stores and enjoyed some time in each of them. I spent quite a bit of time looking at the local sections of the stores to see if I could find some "hidden treasure" within the city. I never did find that special place, but I did learn a lot about the city and the Alexandra Park area that is slated for renovation.

Just for fun, we rode the metro, street cars and busses. We could have walked to each of the places we went, but decided the ride would probably be best for my foot and what the heck, it would be fun. In case you don't know it, I do not live in a large city or town by any means. We don't have street cars or busses to get around, let alone a metro system. Heck, there aren't even cabs here. I know it will sound strange to those who live in the city, but it was fun for us to use the transit system.

Knowing that we wanted to end up in Greektown for our evening meal, we made our way to the Danforth Ave. area and just bummed around. There are LOTS of interesting people and shops in the area and that was fun. We went to Pappas Grill for dinner and enjoyed ourselves while dining on the patio. The restaurant was not very crowded at all so we were able to chat with the staff quite a bit. Lisa, Yaman and Jane were very nice and answered all of our questions about the various foods offered on the menu as well as some basic information about Toronto and Greektown.

We stopped back at Alexandra Park on our way "home" and enjoyed the skateboarders and other park-goers. It was a wonderful day and even though my foot was pretty sore, I was happy with our choices of the day.

Stay tuned for part 3 of our Toronto trip... Click HERE to see the final post on our Toronto trip.

Toronto - Part 1

Jack and I spent a few days in Toronto and I snapped a few pictures to share.

Here are a few glimpses of our accommodations. Jack and I both think this hotel (Alexandra Hotel) was originally built as an apartment complex or dormitory. Here's the hallway between the door and the living area. On the right is a decent size closet with shelves on one side and hanging racks and open space on the other. (The bathroom is across the hall from the closet.)

 

Jack and I have both been talking about downsizing and we noticed the amount of storage in this room. Besides the closet space, do you see the shelves over the television? These were pretty good sized and deep too.

 

Here's Jack at the desk, which is right in front of the window. This was a good size desk with lots of drawers. Do you see the bed and kitchen in the mirror?

 

 

Jack liked the efficient kitchen area. When we first talked about this trip, Jack said that he wanted to go to Chinatown, Greektown, Little Italy and the Spanish and Vietnamese areas of the city. In other words, he wanted a culinary tour of Toronto! We didn't cook anything while we were there, but we did use the refrigerator under the sink.

 



 

And finally, the "living room" which was across from the kitchen. You can see our unmade bed - sorry! This was very comfy and there was plenty of light for reading or hand work. 

 

 

Since we arrived in Toronto around 4, we quickly put our things away and ventured out to enjoy the city. It was a beautiful day (a bit warm, but that's better than rain) and we headed out to Kensington Market. We had heard quite a bit about the market and that it was a cool vintage or retro place, with lots of small stores that carry old-style clothes, unique art and small restaurants. Perhaps we had a romantic vision of what to expect but unfortunately we were disappointed in the market. Many of the shops were closed (boarded up-closed, not closed for the day) and many of them carried identical merchandise. It was still an interesting place to go, so it wasn't totally wasted time.

 

It took us a while, but we finally got our bearings straight and headed to Little Italy for dinner. As we knew would happen, we walked passed a huge number of "hole in the wall" restaurants, bars and shops. It always amazes me and is really fun to see how a motivated individual can take a tiny space and make a retail store out of it. I saw this in Madrid a number of years ago when I saw a TINY store that sold nothing but women's sock. I was intrigued with how such a small store with such a limited inventory could survive, so I struck up a conversation with the owner. She told me she had started the store as a way to supplement her husband's income and that she chose socks because she knew about socks. She had six sisters and three daughters so she was always buying socks. She had been in business for three years and it was going well. When Jack and I went to Spain five years ago I found that the shop was still in business in the same spot. Good for her!! :-)

 

Ok, back to Toronto... Once we found our way into the center of Little Italy, we had a decision to make. Which restaurant? After looking at a few menus, we decided on Capitol Trattoria Pizzeria. Jack had a delicious penne dish while I dined on pizza that had a wonderful crust - my test for truly great pizza.

 

 

Upon finishing our meal, we strolled along the streets just soaking in all the sights and even stopping in a bookstore or two. (We love bookstores, new and used!)  We were feeling pretty good about our "feel" for the city and decided to begin making our way back to the hotel when we heard a bunch of singing coming from a bar on College Street, so in we went.

 

There were a bunch of people (probably 50-75) in the back of the bar singing while one guy played the guitar and another directed them. They were having lots of fun and so were we. When we left, I noticed the sign that said "Choir, Choir tonight!" but I had no idea what it was all about.

  





On a whim, I did a Google search for Choir! Choir! Choir! and found their website HERE. I also found a link so you can listen to more of their songs HERE. Enoy! 

Continuing our way back to the hotel, we passed through Alexandra Park and found some very interesting things going on. This was truly an evening out for many people - young and old.

Here a group of people are ballroom dancing.

 

And right next to them a bunch of people are playing basketball.

There was a pretty busy skateboarding area at the edge of the park and I was fascinated watching this. These people are talented!

 

As nightfall approached we returned to our room and discussed our plans for the next day. We already knew we wouldn't be doing the typical tourist things like visit the CN Tower (we did that when we were here a number of years ago) so we just tossed around ideas of places to go and things to do. Of course I did a search on fabric shops in the area and found a few, but quite honestly that wasn't a "must-do" thing for me. With a few ideas in mind, we went to sleep.

The next morning proved to be a bit different than we had planned. Look what made it's way into our personal items.

 

Yep, that's a crutch. There were actually two of them, but only one was needed. Who needed it? Was it Jack?

 



Nope. That's just him messing around.

It was me. Upon standing up after dinner the night before, I felt a pain in my left foot and it continued to hurt during our walk back to the hotel (about 1.5 - 2 miles). I didn't pay too much attention to it and actually forgot about it until I tried to get out of bed and go to the bathroom the next morning. Whoa Nellie! That sucker hurt and I couldn't put any weight on my foot. Holy Cow! I hadn't felt anything like that in a long time.

The foot was swollen so I iced it for a while and tried to do the exercises that I had done when my plantar fasciitis reared it's ugly head in my right foot. The pain was somewhat similar, but different. I was not a happy camper!!

After about an hour, Jack and I decided that no matter what we decided to do, I would need crutches to help me walk. So, off to the pharmacy he went (about a five minute walk) and he returned with the crutches and some tape because I told him that it felt better when I applied pressure to the area. We both just laughed when we realized that the crutches he got were for someone 5'10" - 6'2" and that is definitely not me.  :-) Back to the pharmacy he went and upon his return he taped my foot.

Yes, we know he is much better at lots of things than taping a foot. I don't care what it looked like; it felt so much better to have that support. I had actually started to move the foot and with the tape, it felt much better.

After much discussion, we decided to try walking for a bit and learn the transit system of Toronto. (I really did not want to go home. That would have been a pretty darned expense and long trip for a good Italian meal.) We were slow, but we did spend the day exploring the wonderful city of Toronto! 

 

More to come.... Click HERE to see part two on our Toronto trip and HERE to see part three.