After checking in to the Residence Inn Entertainment District in the morning, my parents and I pretty much crashed and slept for the next couple of hours. By the time I'd gotten up, it was already late afternoon. My mom, was itching to go out and about so I decided we would go down Spadina Ave to Chinatown and Kensington Market Neighborhood. We headed out of our hotel and walked down Wellington towards Spadina Ave which was busy with people heading home after work. After further walking up Spadina Ave towards Toronto University, we walked right into the heart of Toronto's Chinatown. This was the first Chinatown that we did not see the ubiquitous Chinatown Gate. Along the way, I did go into a Scotiabank to get some Canadian Dollars just in case. Later on during this trip, I learned how important it is have cash with you in Canada. In May when we visited Copenhagen, for our Northern Europe Cruise, EVERYONE accepted bank cards, but during my little over a week in Eastern Canada, I had to withdrew cash 3 times at an ATM $200 CAD at a time because of many businesses that are CASH ONLY. Even back home I probably maybe withdraw cash twice a month and its usually $40 USD at the most.


After visiting the bank, we continued into Kensington Market which I was expecting a "market" but in reality it was neighborhood with many indie stores and restaurants. Walking through the neighborhood, the air smelled of a mixture of incense and marijuana. Many of the storefronts were old and or covered in graffiti which they call "art" in this part of town but it wasn't for us. We headed back out onto Spadina Ave and tried to figure out what to do for dinner.

After dinner, we headed back towards the Lake Ontario on Spadina. Along the way, we stopped at a LCBO store, which is owned by the Ontario Government. Correct me if I wrong but, all alcohol in the Province of Ontario is sold by the government. I've never seen a government controlled alcohol vendor so I was curious to see how it looked inside. When I think of "government controlled" the DMV immediately comes to mind, but the LCBO store was clean and reminded be of BevMo back home. The LCBO was BUSY when we visited with what looked like office workers picking up some alcoholic beverage before going home.



On our way back to our hotel, we stopped at a Petro-Canada gas station and bought a case of bottled water, which we dropped off at the hotel before continuing our walk to Lake Ontario. We changed course and instead took the shortcut between CN Tower and Rodgers Stadium to reach Bremner Street. We eventually ended up at the small park at the end of Harbour Square where we had a different view of the CN Tower and the rest of the lights of Downtown Toronto.




It was windy at the lake and after I had finished with picture taking, we walked back towards our hotel, the Residence Inn Downtown Toronto, but we stopped at the Boston Pizza on the corner of Front and John St at my moms suggestion. We were on vacation so we figured what the hell. My dad and I ordered ourselves a Molson Canadian along with a order of wings and one of their specialty pizzas. I've heard the joke about how Coors and Molson, two terrible beer companies from both the US and Canada merging to create one sh&*y beer but I thought the Molson Canadian was really GOOD. We took the leftover pizza back to the hotel since our room has a kitchenette. We figured one of us would eat it before we left Toronto.

More pictures from Toronto Trip Report