Walkathon Monday

Hard as it may be to believe, I still have not finished the entire account of my trip to Canada. Being one of those people who have to finish off what they started, I have to put down this last (yeah, really, it is the last part for the Canada trip) part. So, with a promise to myself to not write quite so detailed travelogues in future, here it goes. BTW, in case you are hunting, here are links to parts one, two, three and four.

So anyways, Monday was the last full day of stay for me in Canada. As there was not much time left for sightseeing, Shilpa and I decided to mainly spend time in Toronto downtown and in The Islands. In order to get an early start to the day, I optimistically set the alarm for 7.00a in the morning (when will I ever learn?). As usual, after many snoozes, we finally got up around 9.00a. So far, so good. But it turned out that both of us were rather lethargic after all the activities of the previous day - so we just lazed about for quite sometime after getting up. It was well past 11.00a when we finally set off to the bus stop.

Unlike the first day, we had to wait for quite some time before the bus finally arrived. The waiting wouldn’t have been so bad but for the fact that the day was scorching hot. It did not help that the bus stand was constructed of transparent material. It looked very cool no doubt but the designer had evidently not considered the fact that, on a hot summer day, standing under a transparent roof is equivalent to not standing under it. Anyways, by the time the bus arrived, about 40 minutes later, S and I were already exhausted.

From there it was to the GO bus stand from where we had to get the bus to downtown. Obviously our luck as regards transportation had changed. The next bus would arrive an hour later. An hour? An Hour? So S and I stood for another hour at the bus stop (the bus shelter felt like an oven so we could not sit inside). Finally, we boarded the bus and arrived at downtown. There, we learnt that the Toronto Transit Authority had gone on a flash strike. So no trams or public buses were operating that day. Great! Our day of sightseeing was turning into a total nightmare.

But S and I are made of stern stuff when it comes to sightseeing - so we bravely plodded on by walk to the ferry terminal. We were planning on taking the ferry to The Islands. But before boarding, we had to have some lunch - it was already past lunchtime. We finally wound up getting food from a grocery cum fast food store! I don't know if it was because of my hunger or not but the pizza we had there was one of the best I have ever tasted.

After lunch, it was on to the terminal. Finally, we lucked out - the ferry to The Islands left almost immediately after we bought our tickets - no waiting for transportation, hooray! From the waters of Lake Ontario, we got an awesome view of the Toronto downtown. The skyline looked really cool. The breeze as we sat in the ferry cooled us off considerably and was a welcome relief from the sun. As we approached The Islands, we saw lots of greenery and a quaint arched bridge. It looked promising!


The Islands is a tourist destination which consists of three, what else, islands. I don't know what their original purpose was, but now these are completely developed into centers for recreational activities. We landed at the Centre Island. The first thing we noticed was the serene greenery that surrounded us on all sides. We spotted a board which actually encouraged people to walk on the grass! There were rolling grasslands dotted with maple trees. A lake with occasional ducks and a steamer on it made the place look like something out of "Tom Sawyer". It was beautiful!


We had picked up a map of the place. Our first destination was a maze. S and I traversed it. It was a small one - nevertheless it gave us the feeling of being in the Harry Potter book four :-D! By now, we had walked quite a bit and it was time to rest. The soft grass made a comfortable bed and I would have fallen asleep had S not poked me awake!

All this while, we had seen many people riding a strange cycle rickshaw type contraption. We found that it was called a "quadricycle" and we could rent one and drive it around the island. We rented it and briskly pedaled away. It was really good fun and we covered a lot more distance and attractions on the islands than we would have had we decided to walk. After half an hour of brisk pedaling, we returned the quadricycle and strolled to the beach.

The beach had a jetty sticking out into the water. From there we had a good view of the Ontario lake as well as the CN Tower. As usual we got obsessed with taking pictures which would make us look like we were holding the CN tower in our hand. We did managed to get a couple of them but not before irritating the heck out of the other visitors with our constant "move left, move right, lift your hand, lower your hand, aaargh - follow my directions" ;-)!

Beside the beach they also had a row of stones in the water - it reminded us so much of the bridge to Lanka in the Ramayana! We spent some more time strolling around. By this time it was getting late. Factoring in our travel time to get back home, it was time to head back. We stopped on the way at a restaurant for iced tea. It was heavenly in the hot sun and I finished the contents of my tall glass in two gulps!

There was a short wait for the return ferry but the evening had cooled down and the wait was not as tiring as before. Once we got back to the mainland, we had to again resort to walking due to the transportation strike. We wanted to see The Path - Toronto's underground shopping destination. We managed to find it all right but we were either at the wrong segment of The Path or were there at the wrong time. Anyhow, we did not find it very impressive. By this time, we had added another mile or so to our rapidly growing "Number of miles we walked today" chart. The immediate need of the hour was energy-boosting coffee.


Shilpa remembered seeing a Tim Horton's on Bay Street the last time we were in downtown. We walked in the direction dictated by her hazy memory and mercifully found it on the first try. Once at the store, we got a whole bunch of Tim Bits and two cups of coffee and spent close to an hour cooling our feet there. After recharging ourselves, we set off to the Union Station, where we had to get the GO bus.

Since we were early, we thankfully got seats on the bus. The bus eventually got overcrowded (which apparently is unusual) due to the transport strike. From there it was back to Missisuaga. We took a break in between to shop for some stuff for S's aunt's house and finally headed back home.

There was good food awaiting us. S's cousins eagerly welcomed us - "let us make the video, let us make the video!". S had promised to make a dance video featuring them. We were of course tired - but a promise is a promise. C had actually made notes about what steps to dance! Both B and C had dressed up in good clothes for the "video-shoot". So S set up the camera and we all danced crazily for an hour. Finally it was time to go to bed.

S and me, as usual, spent a lot of time chatting, seeing pics etc. I was leaving the next day and we wanted to squeeze in as much talking as possible before that! Finally, when our eyes were involuntarily closing, we called it a day and went to bed.

The next day, S's uncle dropped me at the airport on his way to work. Surprisingly, immigration to the USA took place in the Toronto airport itself! This resulted in me getting very confused while answering the immigration officer’s questions. But I was hardly asked anything and made it through immigration without any issues. So I was officially inside the United States even in Canada!

The rest of the journey back home was a normal, looong coast to coast trip. I reached Cal in an extremely exhausted state. But the Canada trip had been simply awesome. The hospitality, the companions, the places we visited - everything, had been great!

And that concludes my Canadian Chronicles!

In case you are wondering, I have decided to stop giving ratings to my long trips as it is redundant. I usually take the trouble to write about trips with five star ratings only :-P!

Credit: All the photos in the posts about Canada were taken either by Shilpa or by me. Please to pay any royalties to us ;-P!

And, here are some announcements:

Tomorrow (July 10) is Shilpa’s birthday. Happy Birthday, girl :-D! Go, wish her folks! She is currently marooned (but happily so since Vikram is by her side :-)) in her internet-less place in Dubai!

Don’t miss Pirates of the Carribean, Part 2. Johnny Depp is simply awesome and I couldn’t take my eyes off the screen whenever he was on it! Watch it for him!

So dark the con of man

In case you thought I had forgotten all about it, the answer is no :-P. Here is the next installment of my Canada visit story (click on the numbers to read parts [1], [2] and [3]). The next long weekend is looming ahead - I should wrap up this story fast :-)!
Anyways, after visiting Niagara Falls on Saturday, Sunday was a more relaxed day. We got up late without feeling guilty. Shilpa's uncle and aunty caught up with household chores. S, the kids and me entertained ourselves by talking, playing and watching TV. After brunch, we set off to Toronto downtown - we were planning to visit the famous CN (Canadian National) towers - apparently the tallest tower in the world (is a tower is different from a building? Hmm, most of these tall buildings seem to claim that they are the tallest in the world - wonder which is really the tallest). CN towers being the quintessential tourist attraction of Toronto, S and me had, of course, insisted on seeing it. I have already been to the top of a variety of other tall buildings (Sears Towers, Space Needle, Empire State, KOIT tower - okay, the last is a kutti one) - yet, I had to see the view from this one too.
Our plan was to visit the tower, then wave good bye to the rest of the family, who, we were sure, wouldn't be interested in simply roaming around downtown. S and me were to then spend some more time in the downtown and finally return home by bus. So far so good. We made it to downtown in good time. Toronto downtown, as I said earlier, has a variety of architecturally interesting buildings. The skyline looks very nice too - apparently Toronto skyline ranks at the top along with NYC and Chicago skylines. We parked our car and then proceeded to the tower.

Shilpa's uncle had already bought the tickets online and hence we were saved a small wait to buy the tickets. We had tickets both to the glass floor level (at 342 meters) as well as to the sky-pod. The sky-pod level (at 447 meters) is the highest public observation deck in the world. We joined the queue to the top as soon as we entered the building. After security check and all, the slowly crawling queue inched ahead. B was in a bad mood from the time we stepped into the building and kept up a constant pout. The rest of us were in a reasonably cheerful frame of mind. But after an hour of waiting in the queue, with nothing to do but stare at each other's faces, we were all getting kind of edgy. Finally, after another 15 minutes, we were at the Observation deck!

We had an awesome view the buildings in downtown. Apparently on a clear day, you can even see the mist from the Niagara Falls! But it was not a very clear day when we visited. Nevertheless, we could see the whole expanse of the city before us. I never realized Toronto was this big!
As luck would have it, just then, a game had gotten over at the Rogers centre. Rogers Centre is another famous tourist destination in Toronto - the speciality being its retractable dome roof. Even as we watched from the observation deck, the hitherto open stadium roof slowly closed. It was very cool!

So far, it was fun. Then we noticed a long queue snaking around the center of the observation deck. Huh, what was everyone waiting for? Then we realized, that was the queue to the Skypod level! We quickly joined the queue. By now the first pangs of hunger were beginning to hit us - our light brunch of upma was already digested. So we looked around for something to eat.

There was a small snack store selling starbucks coffee. However, most of its shelves were empty and even as we watched, the remaining few eatables were fast vanishing as ravenous visitors bought them. We bought some coffee for S's aunty (it was almost the last cup and the lady behind the counter unapologetically said that the coffee dispenser would not be refilled!) and a packet of chips.
The chips soon vanished as the line looked like it was never going to reach the elevator. We tried playing some games - but by now, a combination of hunger and tiredness (we had been standing for an hour and half in this line) pulled everybody's spirits down. Also, B was extremely hungry. She had refused to have anything other than a glass of milk for breakfast (hunger had been the reason for her sulky mood). But of course, the snack store had absolutely nothing left now. The only other place to eat was a proper dine-in restaurant (with limited choice for vegetarians). It was unbelievable - a popular tourist destination not having adequate food facilities!
Anyways, another hour later, we finally made it to the Skypod. At that point, the only thing which would have enchanted us was a food store of some kind. Of course, there was no such thing there. Instead, we had another spectacular view of buildings. We got lots of lovely pictures without any effort. However, they failed to have any positive effect on our mood. We were clicking away more to justify the wait rather than because we found it truly amazing.
We hardly spent anytime in the Skypod - our first aim being, get back downstairs as soon as possible and get our hands onto FOOD. When we took the elevator from the skypod level, we were brought back to the glass floor level. Apparently this level had a glass floor through which you could see all the way to the ground. This fact, even though we were hungry, piqued our curiosity.
Well, I think we have too high expectations. S and me were expecting the whole floor to be made of glass (yeah, right). Instead, there were two large glass panels on the otherwise solid ground. Both these panels afforded a view right to the ground through the floor. We were disappointed but even the panels were novel enough that we tried many pictures (with B mostly as the test subject) trying to bring out the fact that we were 113 stories above the ground. I don't think they worked too much though.

Finally we got done with taking pics. And then, torture of tortures, we figured there was a big queue to get the elevator back to the ground too :-(! So another 30 minutes was spent in that line. By this time, we were ready to faint due to hunger - of course, the glass floor level did not have any food either. But we did make it to the elevator finally.

When we touched ground level again, it was five hours since we had entered the building. I couldn't believe that we had spend four and a half hours simply standing. S and me made an immediate on-the-spot resolution. No more wating in queues to get to the top of any tower. The views are great but definitely not worth it when you spend more time in the queue than in viewing those great views! So, hence forth, even if it is the Eiffel tower, I refuse to wait in line to go to the top. Of course, I made such a resolution even after seeing the Empire State Building. Which, I obviously did not keep up :-D - but as of now, I am standing by my resolution.
Anyways, from there it was on to the Richtree market restaurant. This restaurant has an interesting concept - you shop for food. Food from a variety of cuisines in arranged in a bazaar like atmosphere. You are given a plastic food card, which you use for purchases. When you leave, you are billed for the balance on the food card. Pretty nice!

S and me picked out thai-spiced noodles and flavored breadsticks as main courses. For the first 10 minutes after getting our food, there was no sound from anyone. All of us were busy doing pet pooja (stomach worship) by feeding our poor tummies with food. Then, as the food got in, all of us perked up visibly and there was fun and laughter again!

As dessert, S and I decided to try Irish Creme Coffee. Even though we knew the guy at the counter was probably just kidding, it still felt good when he double-checked that we were more than eighteen before serving us the drinks (in case you did not know, Irish Creme coffee has some liquor content). Neither of us were able to finish it though.

By the time sumptuous dinner got over, all of us had revived like watered plants. We spent some more time simply wandering around the building and nearby streets before getting a cab back to our van (we had taken a cab from CN tower to the Richtree restaurant due to parking problems). Then it was time to go back home. Of course, Shilpa and I had, somewhere midway in the line to the Skypod level, dumped all plans of wandering around downtown after the CN tower visit was over! So all of us headed back together.

The journey home was subdued. All of us were thoroughly exhausted after our day in the queue. When we got home, the rest of the family went to sleep. While Shilpa and I, as usual chatted... Wait a minute - that should be, while Shilpa and I, unusually enough, went right to bed without any further ado! I guess that is indication enough as to how really, really tiring our day was!!

That was the end of day three. I would have enjoyed it a lot more if I did not have to wait for so long in queues! On the brighter side, I do now get to say that I saw the view from the CN tower. Though, if you ask me, the whole thing is a big con. My sincere advice is: If you want to see what the view looks like from the top of the CN tower, just check out pictures online. It really isn't all that different. Besides saving yourself some money, you will also save yourself a whole lot of time and frustration!

Into the realm of the mist - Niagara Falls

After arrival in Canada and an adventurous first day, it was the weekend. S's uncle had planned out the weekend for us. Uncle, aunt, the kids C and B, Shilpa and me were to go to Niagara Falls on Saturday. Yippeee!

Saturday morning, we got up with a little less reluctance than usual because we were supposed to have breakfast at Saravana Bhavan. And wonder of wonders, the breakfast was a buffet! Where I come from, Saravana Bhavan serves food a la carte only and waiting for 30 minutes to get a table was not uncommon at all. You can imagine how excited S and I were.

The moment we entered the hotel (again, surprise, surprise, no waiting at all!), we made a bee-line for the buffet. Just looking at it made our mouths water. For the benefit of all of you who weren’t there, here is what the buffet had: halwa (yup the authentic red-orangey square one), som-paapdi, idli, sambhar, chutney, puri, vadai, ven pongal, upma, puliyogare, dosa, uthappam. I think I missed a couple of more dishes, but these were the main ones (I think). The food was yummmmy, slurp. Oh man, I feel hungry now :-(.

Anyways, after topping off the wonderful breakfast with filter coffee, it was: Niagara Falls, here we come! I have already seen Niagara Falls twice before this, once with my friends and once with my family. I had enjoyed both previous trips immensely. But both times, it was from the American side. I was wondering how much more different viewing the Falls from the Canadian side would be.

Niagara falls is just 100 kilometers away from Toronto. We reached in about an hour and a half. As we entered the city (is it called Niagara Falls?) and steered into the main road near the Falls, we could see a fine spray of mist from the background! It was the Falls :-)! We parked at a complex, took a restroom (or rather washroom as it is called here) break, dragged B away from all the video games there (which she wanted to play rather than see the Niagara Falls!!) and began our walk down the pathway beside the Falls.

The view was simply breath-taking. Standing on the American side, you can only see the side view of the American side of the falls. Admittedly, that view by itself is beautiful. But on the Canadian side you have the additional attraction of seeing the frontal view of both the American as the Canadian falls. Huge torrents of water, gushing down at the rate of some million gallons per second - it was simply awesome.


The first stop was for the Maid of the Mist boat-ride. Though the queue was quite long, the wait itself was not too long. When we reached the boat, we found a place on the top deck. Shilpa and I had decided to get drenched and so did not wear the ponchos we got before we set off on the ride. The ride was good fun - we got to view the Niagara falls from up close. We did not get very wet though as we were on the side of the deck away from the falls.



After the ride, it was already lunch time. So we all walked back to the city center. It was a long walk and a hot day. S and I had been under the impression that Toronto would be very cold, the city being further up north and and all. So we had brought along not-too-summery clothes for the trip (mercifully, S convinced me to not bring along my winter-jacket also - I am sure people in the airport would have pointed at me and laughed had I landed there lugging a thick jacket!). Sure enough, after some time, we were beginning to feel rather too warm. But the entire area around had a lively, carnival-like atmosphere. So we all had a good time looking at typical touristy attractions like horror-exhibitions, souvenir shops, palm-readers and so on.

We had lunch at an Indian restaurant. The food was so-so and the service was pathetic (if you folks want to avoid it when you go there, the name of the restaurant is The Guru). After lunch, it was souvenir-shopping time. B got a stuffed dog and C bought a t-shirt. Surprisingly S and I stopped with just buying "Niagara Falls" magnets (for quite sometime now, I have been buying magnets as souvenirs at any place I visit - lightweight, easily portable and not to forget, cheap too :-)). S's uncle got us some souvenirs too. After lunch, all of us were feeling very lethargic. But S and me really wanted to do the Journey Behind the Falls walk. The rest of the family though, was willing to skip it.

So we left them with a tarot-card/palm reader and walked back to the main falls. It was a long walk and a hot day. But, after sometime, the spray of mist from the main falls started showering us with refreshingly cool drops of water as we walked on the path near the falls. And, we spotted the rainbow! First, it was just a partial bit we could see. As we got closer to the falls, we could see the whole arch - at some point, we spotted two rainbows, side by side :-). We went berserk, clicking picture after picture. It was really beautiful and we thoroughly enjoyed the walk.

We finally got to the ticket counter for the Journey behind the falls attraction. We were told that there was a half-hour wait for the next available trip. We thankfully sank into some nearby seats and waited. Half an hour went off in a flash and we took the elevator down to the base of the falls. Once again, we decided to not wear the ponchos we had been given.

Once we reached the base, we followed the directions in the tunnel. The first stop was a view of the Canadian Falls from behind through a big window. We could hear the falls thundering down. The sheer force of the water as it came down in huge torrents was fascinating as well as frightening. We watched, mesmerized. After some time, we proceeded further down the tunnel and again watched the falls through another window.
It was very, very nice - but then, was this all to the attraction? Were these two views supposed to drench us with water - why were we given the ponchos? A trifle disappointed, S and I made our way back to the entrance, pausing to read all the pictures and descriptions they had in between (we were justifying the around 10 bucks-a-person entry fee, you see ;-)). Then, just as we had almost reached the entrance, we noticed another passage way which we had missed on the way in. We literally ran down that passage way and found ourselves standing on a deck next to the falls!

We were now looking up at the Falls from below! It looked as though the Falls was pouring out of nowhere from the sky. We gaped at it for quite sometime. Then looked at the side view of the Falls and saw how the force of the water had eroded the layer of shale at a faster rate (yeah, we did learn something from reading all those boards in the tunnel). We took lots and lots of pics.

I know I am being mean - but this story still makes me laugh. So here it is. As usual, after taking turns shooting lots of pics with either S or me in it (unfortunately, all of them turned out rather scary as our faces were too close to the camera) we wanted a pic with both of us in it. So we approached a lady, gave her the digital camera and then positioned ourselves on a ledge with the Falls thundering immediately behind us. The lady lifted the camera to her eyes and I noticed something very peculiar. The front of the camera, pointed towards us, had the close up of a huge eye on it - what on earth was happening!!

Then S and I simultaneously realized what had happened even as the lady plaintively exclaimed "Oh, I can't see you guys in the camera". This smart lady had turned the front side of the camera towards her face and was looking through the lens to shoot the pic! Which was why we were seeing a magnified version of her eye on the LCD screen of the camera!! Maybe she had never used a digital camera before - nevertheless S and I started shaking with silent laughter (we may be mean but we still are polite) as we tried to point out that she ought to turn the camera around. Finally her husband took the pic for us!

After all these stunts, it was time to descend to the lower deck. Everyone standing there was covered with the yellow ponchos. Except S and yours truly. As soon as we reached the lower deck, the spray from the Falls felt like a mild shower. Then we got to the side of the deck nearest to the Falls. It was as though someone was throwing buckets of water at us. It was simply heavenly. S and I stood there, arms streched out, giggling, tasting the water and generally feeling on top of the world. It was the single most enjoyable moment of the whole trip. Soon, we were completely drenched and the cool evening wind was causing us to shiver.

Finally, we reluctantly tore ourselves away from the lower deck and proceeded back to the elevator. Dressed as we were now, in completely drenched clothes, we got plenty of "are you crazy" stares. Looked like we were the only two souls in the entire vicinity who had decided to brave the spray without ponchos. We may have looked crazy but I doubt if anyone else there had enjoyed the Falls at that moment as much as we had :-D!

When we got back to the top, we were still laughing about our appearance. But we were decidedly feeling cold now and made a stop at the washroom to dry off as best as we could. In Canada, a lot of environmental-friendly measures seem to have been taken. One of these measures seems to be discouraging the use of paper-towels. Most public washrooms we visited had only electric dryers and no paper towels. So we were left with nothing to dry off with. S though, hit upon the brilliant idea of using the dryer instead and could be spotted in various convoluted postions beside the dryer as she dried off her clothes. I follwed suit and soon, we both were dry enough to begin our walk back in the open air to the Skylon complex where our van was parked.

The rest of the family was waiting for us inside the complex. B had finally got her wish of playing video games and was happily occupied (she won a couple of "prizes" too). We had a light dinner of shared pizza, banana-split sundae and chai-lattes. Soon, it was time to head back home. It was dark by then and the Falls had been lit up. We wanted to stop and look as the Falls from up close as it got lit up in red, blue, green and yellow lights in turn. However, there were no nearby parking spots and after all our exertions earlier no one (other than, of course, energetic B) wanted to walk a long distance. So we just took in the beautiful sight as S's uncle slowly drove by. The colored mist had an ethereal look to it. Finally, we had one last glimpse of the Falls and we were off on the freeway to Tornonto.

I remember, when I was small, in order to entertain ourselves during long car journeys, we used to play games like spot the license-plate, spot-the-thing, word-building, antakshari, bus-game, memory-game etc. Nowadays, the need for coming up with such games seems to be slowly dying out. You see, our van had a DVD player in it. We had got a bunch of DVDs along. In the morning, watching The Incredibles brought us to the Falls before we had even realized the passage of time.

During our return journey, we played a DVD with a collection of Shah Rukh Khan songs. The first song was from the movie Kaal and had some really funny costumes and dance steps. S came up with the idea that we should all dance for the song. We had a total rip-roaring time as the four of us in the back (B, C, S and me), strapped to the seats with seat-belts, but nevertheless waving our arms and legs, followed the dancers on the screen. Thanks to B's insistence, we played the song (and danced) some five more times before we reached home!!

We were all extremely tired and exhausted when we landed at home. The rest of the family went to bed immediately. While S and me, ha, you guessed it, were awake: chatting, downloading pics, putting up some of them on S's blog, laughing at our exploits and doing other such activities late into the night.

Thus ended day two. As I am keeping with my tradition of narrating every single thing (other than actually counting out footsteps ;-)), I think this post can also compete for the longest post ever :-)! Cheerio, folks!