My Toronto

As our time in Toronto has drawn to a close, I'd like to take you on a short tour of my favourite places:

Old Town
Our tour begins in Old Town Toronto, naturally, as it's been my neighbourhood for over two years now. Any good day starts with a good breakfast, so let's head to Le Petit Dejeuner on King Street East, a quaint Belgian diner. I highly recommend the Brussels waffles with strawberries, they're light as a cloud and taste just as heavenly. We'll walk through the Farmer's market if it's a Saturday, or the Antiques market if it's a Sunday, and across the road to the St Lawrence market. Let's take a look at the delicious selection of seafood, meats and cheeses, do some ice wine tasting, pick up a bunch of fresh flowers and a couple of butter tarts for later. If you're up for a coffee, we can head to The Black Canary where they make a mean Nutella latte. Time for a bit of light exercise - The Yoga Lounge on Church and Richmond offers a variety of classes and if you're lucky, the studio's resident cat might join you for a few poses. If you need to reward yourself after the effort, we can get a cupcake at Prairie Girl, or eat some gelato in the flower garden at St James park. Feeling in need of a new look?  I get my hair cut at the nearby Aveda training salon, it offers cheap cuts by aspiring new stylists. Now that we're looking all pretty, we should head out for dinner at one of my favourite restaurants, Origin. They offer a shareable menu of modern fusion-style dishes. Special mentions go to the truffle popcorn, chinois duck wraps and the dulce de leche dessert. If you feel like a nightcap we can pay a visit to Pravda, a Russian themed vodka bar decorated in red velvet drapes and gold furniture. My favourite cocktail there is the Chocolate Siberian Martini, which comes garnished with white chocolate flakes and a strawberry.

Distillery District
The Distillery District is a great place to spend a lazy summer afternoon. It's made up of a number of old brick buildings that used to house the Gooderham & Worts Whiskey Distillery. In recent years the space has been revitalised into a series of beer gardens, restaurants and some very cool boutique shops that sell vintage and designer goods. The chocolate shop Soma is a must visit, I recommend that you have a shot of their 'Dark Side of the Mug' hot chocolate and pick up some interestingly flavoured chocolate bars to sample later. El Catrin is a relatively new addition, it's a funky Spanish tapas restaurant that pumps out tasty tacos and deceptively boozy margaritas on the colourful outdoor patio.

Nathan Phillips Square
Many festivals and events are held at Nathan Phillips Square, including Nuit Blanche, the Christmas Concert, New Years Eve fireworks and art shows. The square is cornered by New City Hall to the north and Old City Hall to the East. The fountain in the middle freezes over in winter and becomes a free public ice skating rink.

West Queen West
One of my favourite ways to spend a day in Toronto is to walk along Queen street west. From
Spadina to Bathurst is pretty cool, but the further west you go, it just keeps on getting cooler. This is hipster central, so the shops are very trendy, the coffee is decent and the people watching is incredible. Feel free to express yourself with your fashion and personal grooming choices here, but don't expect anyone else to bat an eyelid. It must be time for lunch! Let's pick up some gourmet fig and brie croissants and a couple of delicious macarons from Nadege. We can stretch out on the lawn at Trinity Bellwoods park for an impromptu picnic and admire the cherry blossoms in Spring, or the spectacular colour change of the Maple leaves in Fall. Afterwards we can browse in my favourite stationery shop across the road, where they stock cute greeting cards and an incredible range of Japanese washi paper.

High Park
This park is the largest green space downtown, which makes it the perfect spot to relax and get away from the noise of the city. In spring there are some lovely cherry blossoms and the fall colours are very pretty too. In winter we skated at an outdoor ice rink and I've also heard that there is a small zoo within the park. The south end of High Park meets up with the beautiful waterfront along Lake Ontario.

Downtown Yonge
Yonge street is the middle of downtown Toronto and it divides the city between East and West. The Eaton Centre is a large shopping mall that dominates Yonge street between Queen and Dundas street. It is three levels tall and is long enough to have a subway stop at each end. Some of my favourite shops there are Jacob, Loft and Sephora. Across the road from the south end of the Eaton Centre, the shopping continues at the department store The Bay. The north end of the Eaton Centre is across the road from Yonge & Dundas Square, a public area that hosts festivals, music concerts and markets. There's usually something interesting going on there.

Harbourfront
Lace up your sneakers, we're going for a run! The waterfront is my favourite place to run in Toronto, as the greenery and view out across Lake Ontario make you feel like you're escaping the big city (even if it's only for half an hour). Sometimes I head east past Sugar Beach, a man-made patch of sand equipped with deck chairs and pink beach umbrellas. It gets its name from the nearby Redpath sugar refinery which often emits a burnt toffee aroma. If you keep heading east, you will pass Cherry Beach which has a nice leafy green bike path running alongside the water. If you feel like heading west instead, we can run past the Toronto Islands ferry terminal and continue along the boardwalk to the Harbourfront Centre. There is a pond that turns into an ice rink in winter, plus an international food court and weekend cultural markets and festivals. We'll look out across the lake and see many boats and canoes, plus the planes taking off and landing at the Toronto Islands airport.

King West
King street West is considered the Entertainment district as there are several theatres, plus it is close to sporting venues such as the Air Canada Centre (ice hockey, basketball) and the Rogers Stadium (baseball). It is also home to the TIFF Bell Lightbox theatre, ho,e to the Toronto International Film Festival. There are lots of restaurants in the area to have dinner before a show or game, and there is also one my favourite shops MEC, the Mountain Equipment Co-op which sells an incredible amount of outdoor, camping and sporting products that change from season to season.

And... Action!

You begin to notice it slowly at first...

Something just feels a little... off... but you can't quite put your finger on what it is...

Then you realise - hey! This isn't William street! Who changed that sign?

Hmmm, that's odd, there never used to be a subway station here... and our subway stations don't even look like that!

And why is there a cop car outside my apartment? Is something bad going down?

Then it hits you - you're on the set of a movie!

Toronto is a very popular movie-making destination as it can easily be made to resemble New York city, although it's much, much cheaper to film here. In fact, the city is often nicknamed "Hollywood north". In the two years we've been here we've seen countless advertisements, TV shows and movies being shot around the city. It's amazing how little is needed to transform a block into a New York scene. Just add a couple of UPS post boxes, a trash can and some yellow taxis and hey presto - you're in the big apple! My new favourite game is called 'Toronto-spotto', where I watch a movie filmed here (such as Robocop) and try to recognise where the scenes were filmed (such as a high speed chase scene in Robocop that passes by the gelato shop one block away from our apartment). The Pac-Man themed Mini Coopers in the first picture were for an Adam Sandler movie called 'Pixels' - look out for it in 2015 in a cinema near you!

Canadian Cuisine - Part 3 (Stereotypical Canadian foods & drinks)

Maple syrup

This quintessential Canadian sweetener is made by boiling the sap collected from maple trees. Different cooking temperatures and processes are used to make maple sugar, maple butter and maple taffy. It's best eaten on waffles or pancakes, but I've also seen maple flavoured cookies, maple fudge, maple chocolate, maple doughnuts, maple coffee, maple beer, maple sausages and even maple potato chips.

Poutine

Poutine is Quebec's version of the dirty late-night kebab. In it's most basic format, poutine is a pile of french fries smothered in gravy and topped with cheese curds. Many interesting variations exist, including poutine with pulled pork, poutine with curry sauce, duck poutine and so on. McDonald's has even started serving McPoutine! I know it's not pretty, but it tastes a lot better than it looks, I promise.

Double Double & Tim Bits

Tim Horton's is an extremely popular Canadian coffee & doughnut chain. It's fiercely loyal following is due in part to the rock-bottom coffee prices, but it's also based on a strong sense of national pride. Not only was the company's creator a famous hockey player, but the brand itself is uniquely Canadian, and therefore considered the 'anti-Starbucks'. The most popular beverage by far is a Double Double (coffee with two creams and two sugars). Doughnuts and doughnut holes (called Tim Bits) are available in many different flavours and offer a welcome distraction from the awful tasting coffee.

Butter Tarts

Butter tarts are a simple yet delicious pastry, with a sweet and gooey filling made from butter, sugar and vanilla. Controversially, some butter tarts contain raisins or pecans, but purists such as myself prefer the plain, unadulterated version.

Nanaimo Bars

The Nanaimo Bar is a no-bake slice made with a chocolate biscuit and coconut base, a vanilla custard layer and a chocolate topping. They are named after the city of Nanaimo in Vancouver Island, British Columbia. Nanaimo bars are readily available in most bakeries and cafes (including Tim Hortons).

Beavertails
Picture a cinnamon doughnut that's been flattened into a long, thin slab in order to maximise the deep-fried surface area, thereby exponentially increasing the yumminess (and calorie content). These are best wolfed down piping hot in freezing cold conditions, such as ice-skating along a frozen canal.

S'mores

A tasty treat best enjoyed by the campfire. Take a graham cracker (a square, sweet biscuit), place a couple of pieces of milk chocolate on top, then add a toasted marshmallow and sandwich the whole sticky, gooey, delicious mess together with another graham cracker. Bonus points awarded if you can eat one without getting any on your face!

Montreal smoked meat sandwiches

Montreal smoked meat is seasoned, cured beef that is cut into thick slices and typically served in an enormous sandwich with yellow mustard. The oldest and most famous placed to get a smoked meat sandwich in Montreal is Schwartz's Deli (which incidentally, is co-owned by Celine Dion).

Mac & Cheese (Kraft Dinner)

This is a Canadian comfort food that fills people with a profound sense of nostalgia as they recall the heavily processed, artificially coloured and flavoured snack of their childhood. For the sake of cultural research, I consumed a serving of Kraft Dinner and was not entirely convinced that it qualifies as a food product.

Peameal Bacon

I'm not really sure why this is a thing, but I'll tell you about it anyway. Peameal bacon is made from pork loins that are rolled in cornmeal. It doesn't sound very appealing and the taste did nothing to change my initial opinion. Back in the day, the coating was made from ground peas (hence the name 'peameal') in order to preserve the meat. Eating a peameal bacon sandwich from the St Lawrence Market is considered to be an authentic Toronto experience.

Ice Wine

Ice wine can only be made from grapes that freeze naturally on the vine during winter, when temperatures drop to between -8 and -14 degrees celsius overnight. Once the conditions are just right, the grapes are harvested and pressed immediately. The water molecules in the grapes are frozen, so the juice that's extracted is high in sugar content and flavour which results in a sweet dessert wine. It's also much higher in price, with a 375ml bottle (half the size of a normal bottle of wine) often costing anywhere from $40 to $100. Although ice wine is made in other countries such as Germany, Canada is the largest producer of ice wine, with over 75% of its vineyards located in the Niagara Peninsula in Ontario.

Caesar

A Caesar is a cocktail similar to a Bloody Mary, with one notable exception. Instead of tomato juice, this drink calls for Clamato juice, which is a mixture of clam broth and tomato juice. It's typically served with a salt and pepper rim, plus a garnish such as celery. This drink is very popular, so bars and restaurants in Toronto have been creating increasingly more elaborate garnishes to set themselves apart, like asparagus, sausage, cheese, olives and so on. The craziest one I've heard of included a mini cheeseburger on a skewer - it's a drink and a meal in one!

Jasper, Banff & Lake Louise, Alberta

After our adventures in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland, our next stop was the Canadian Rockies. We spent five days travelling along the Icefields parkway from Lake Louise to Jasper and back again to Banff.

Amazingly, as we drove into Lake Louise on the first day, I spotted a mummy bear and her cub on a grassy hill next to the highway! I think they were grizzly bears, although I didn't manage to get a photo.

Lake Louise is every bit as spectacular as all the pictures I've seen. The calm turquoise water framed by majestic ice-capped mountains is so other-worldly, I had to pinch myself to believe it was real. We followed the trail around to the back of Lake Louise and hiked 5km to the Plain of Six Glaciers, which offered a stunning view of the surrounding mountains. I was surprised to see ice and snow still on the ground in spring, although it probably won't last much longer as it was already melting and trickling down the rocks in mini-waterfalls. A Swiss tea-house at the top of the trail allowed us a brief rest before we made our way back.

The next day we started our drive north on the Icefields parkway to Jasper. Every stop along the way was breathtakingly beautiful. From the mirror-like reflections at Herbert Lake, to the stunning turquoise water at Bow Lake and Peyto Lake, the powerful Sunwapta and Athabasca waterfalls and the many large glaciers attached to the mountaintops, it's incredible to see so many natural wonders in such a short amount of time.

We took the 'Ice Explorer' bus which drives you up onto the Athabasca glacier. It was interesting to hear about the science behind these formations and pretty exciting to walk on top of a real glacier! I filled my water bottle with fresh glacier water to drink, I wonder if it made me look any younger?

After spending one night in Jasper we drove back along the Icefields parkway, stopping to take in the scenery at several points along the way. At the 'Valley of Five Lakes' trail, we had a surprise encounter with a black bear! It was sitting on the path in front of us, so we promptly (and quietly) retreated to safety. Fortunately a group of Dutch tourists (equipped with bear bells and bear spray) let us join them to finish the trail.

Banff itself was much larger than I expected, with a population of about 7500 people. We took the Banff gondola up to the top of Sulphur mountain for an incredible view, getting there just in time to see a beautiful rainbow spread out across the valley. Outside of Banff, we walked the trail around Johnson lake and drove by the Vermillion lakes and Lake Minnewanka.

We learnt that a good way to spot wildlife from the safety of your car is to look out for 'bear jams', which are traffic jams that occur when multiple cars stop to take photos of a bear. We saw two more black bears this way, happily munching away on dandelions by the side of the road. In addition, we also spotted an elk, a deer and several bighorn sheep. Sadly there were no moose, however I made a special visit to Toronto Zoo last week to see one (I think it was a lady moose, as it didn't have any antlers). I did get to see two grizzly bears up close though!

This was an amazing holiday and I feel very lucky to have seen so much of Canada during our two years here. I hope we return to the Rockies one day as the scenery is just so spectacular. One thing's for certain, I'll be sure to carry some bear spray with me next time!

Lake Louise

Plain of Six Glaciers trail, looking down to Lake Louise

Herbert Lake, Banff National Park

Icefields Parkway

     Athabasca Glacier

Black bear, Icefields Parkway

Elk, Icefields Parkway

Grizzly bear at Toronto Zoo

View of Banff from Sulphur Mountain

Sulphur Mountain, Banff

Lake Johnson, Banff National Park

Calgary, Alberta

Yee-ha! We spent one night in Calgary, Alberta before embarking on our trip to the Rockies. It was the week before the Calgary Stampede and cowboy fever was in the air. The city reminded me a bit of Perth, with large open streets, low-lying suburbs and a similar feel in the city centre. Maybe it was also the hot day, which quickly turned into a thunderstorm with hailstones! The saying in Calgary is, if you don't like the weather, just wait 5 minutes, as it's likely to change again soon.

    

St John's, Newfoundland

After flying to St John's, Newfoundland at the eastern-most point of the continent, you start to get a feel of the sheer magnitude of Canada and the incredible variety of scenery that exists here.

St John's is considered by many to be Canada's cultural capital and there's certainly a vibrant, creative feel to the community. We enjoyed exploring some of the cool shops and cafes in the city and had an authentic 'Newfie' dinner of codfish and scrunchions at O'Reilley's pub, while a local musician sang traditional Newfoundland folk songs.

The so-called 'jellybean row' of brightly coloured Victorian townhouses in St John's is very charming. It's said that the vibrant hues enabled sea captains returning from voyage to correctly identify their house through the thick fog, however I've also read that the colourful paint was part of a revitalisation project in the late 1970s.

We drove north along the coast from St John's to visit a couple of sleepy seaside villages and do some iceberg spotting. Fortunately we were able to see two large icebergs directly off the coast of St John's at nearby Signal Hill. When the ocean temperatures rise in spring, the glaciers in Greenland start to break up and the resulting icebergs migrate south through 'iceberg alley' towards Newfoundland. The 'bergs are at least 10,000 years old and incredibly, the visible 'tip of the iceberg' (so to speak) is only 10% of its entire mass. We took an iceberg cruise to get even closer and it was quite magical to see these beautiful formations just floating along.

 

  

 

Peggy's Cove and Lunenburg, Nova Scotia

After completing the Cabot trail, we headed back towards southern Nova Scotia. Peggy's Cove is a popular tourist area, featuring a tall lighthouse overlooking a rugged coastline of granite boulders. Lunenburg is a historic fishing town with some very colourful architecture. It is said to be one of the best examples of British colonial settlement in Canada and is a designated World Heritage site.