A short Canadian trip

My mother, eldest brother and I are now in Canada to meet some family relatives and do some sight-seeing. For this very short trip, we didn't have much chance to go around but we made the most out of our time to explore the city.

We arrived late in the afternoon and after we checked in, we met with our relatives for dinner. And in true pinoy fashion, rest of the night was spent with singing with a videoke mic.


We spent a few hours the next morning to go around the city as we are leaving by noon for an overnight in Niagara. After hearing a mass in St. Michael's Cathedral, we went to places that are within the vicinity of our hotel. This is the Old City hall of Toronto.


The curvacious towers on the right is the new Toronto City Hall. On the left is an ice skate park.


On our way to Niagara later that day, we passed by Rogers Centre and the CN Tower. Due to the lack of time, we didn't go up or spent time here. My mom and I went up the tower on our last visit to have dinner in the revolving restaurant.


After 3.5 hours of travel, we reached Niagara and immediately checked-in our hotel. Our room had a nice view of the falls and we can't help but be awed. We usually want to go out of the room and explore the nearby areas after checking-in but this time we just spent the rest of the afternoon in the room. The falls on the left is called the American Falls and on the right is the Horseshoe Falls.


Later that night, we went down for a stroll and went closer to the falls. Unlike last year when my mom and I were here just for a day trip, we had a chance this time to see the lighting of the falls at night. It is nice to see it at daylight, but I like it even more at night.


After breakfast the next day, we went down again to see a closer look of Horseshoe Falls.


I really love these cities. Toronto is such a nice and cozy city while Niagara obviously draws me to come back because of its magnificent surrounding. Even if this is my second time to come to these cities, I still felt like it was my first and there are things for me to do and explore. I'm definitely looking forward to have a chance and be there again for the third time!

Worst snowstorm of 2008 in Toronto

My mom and I arrived in Toronto, Canada right on the date when the worst snowstorm they had for that winter season was beginning and experienced real snow falling before our eyes. For someone like us who lives in a country like the Philippines with only rainy and summer seasons, this might sound a "treat" for us.

Here's a view outside our window during that night, the wind then was beginning to blow harder and snow is has been falling non-stop.


This is the view outside our window the next morning. Roads were very slippery, if not impassable by this time.


The road visibility was still clear when we left Toronto that morning.


An hour later, while driving by the highway going to Kitchener, Ontario, road visibility was already very poor.


When we arrived in Kitchener, these are the scenes that greeted us.


For my mom and I, it was fun to see real snow on trees, houses and cars passing by. However for locals, a snowfall like this is not welcome because it meant shovelling of their front lawns.

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CN Tower

Toronto's icon, the CN Tower, is a communications tower which held the title as the world's tallest building for 31 years until it was surpassed by Burj Dubai last 2007. We went up this tower on our first night in Toronto to dine (see previous post) and see the view from up above.


The bridge going to the tower


One the way up to the tower


Information about the tower


View from the tower


There was no one in sight (as if my mom and I had the observatory for ourselves) so I "played" a bit with the glass floor of the tower.


Right outside and across the tower is the Rogers Centre, a multipurpose stadium home to Toronto's Blue Jays and Argonauts.


Different colors of the CN Tower at night


CN Tower in the morning


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Dinner in 360 The Restaurant at CN Tower

On our first night in Toronto last March 2008, we decided to do something special and so we went to have dinner in CN Tower's famous revolving restaurant. I'll be blogging more about CN Tower next but for now, I'll be talking about our dining experience here.


360 The Restaurant, boasts to be "one of Toronto's finest and features unforgettable food combined with a magnificent revolving view of Toronto" is a lovely place to dine in and relax. Located about 1,151 feet above land, it serves fresh seafood cuisine that is really a delight for everyone. They serve shrimps, fish, steaks and ocassionally lobsters, crabs and other seafood.


My mom


Me


View from the revolving restaurant


This is what I had that night, a pan seared east coast halibut fillet.


My mom had fettuccini with torn basil leaves, grill gulf shrimp and littleneck clams.


Me and my mom


Elevation (or ticket) to the observatory is complimentary for every dining individual who will have a main course. We went up the observatory after dinner which I'll blogging about next.

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Ontario, Canada

After Washington, DC, my mom and I went to Canada by plane with the main intention of visiting our relatives whom we haven't seen for years. Our entry point in Canada was in Toronto Pearson International Airport, an hour away from downtown Toronto. From there we took a bus that connected us to a Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) train station (Kipling). From there we transferred trains until we got into College Station.

Our hotel, Courtyard Toronto Downtown, is just a couple of blocks from College Station of TTC.


We got a suite for less than 500 USD for 3 nights. This is how our room looked like. It was big and spacious for the two of us.


It was hard for us to go around the city. It was drizzling and snowing already and the roads were slippery for walking. We also were not "armed" with heavy weather clothing.


So that we have something to do, we decided to go out and do something else. We planned to have dinner in a good restaurant that night but we had the whole afternoon with nothing else to do. We were looking for not-so-expensive clothing shop because we have been out of the country for a week and my mom will soon deplete her supply of clean clothes to wear. We passed by these scenes on the way to Eaton Centre


College Park


Restaurants and shops


Toronto Eaton Centre, the largest shopping mall in Eastern Canada and is a famous attraction among the locals and tourists alike.


On the way to the tower, we passed by the Union Station, a historical train station that was built in 1927.


CN Tower. We had our dinner in the revolving restaurant on top of this tower. I'll blog about this experience next.


If you have been following my blog, I made mentioned in a blogpost that I have the habit of checking out local softdrinks that are not available in our country. For this trip, I had a great find of Diet Coke with Lime. Years back there was a Diet Coke with Lemon in the Philippines for some time but this has been discontinued already.


The next morning, the snowstorm was getting worse. My uncle and cousins came over our hotel to pick us up that day. We planned to stay overnight in their house in Kitchener, Ontario.


When we got in Kitchener, the storm was already getting worse. Yet, we were still happy to see real snow falling on my head. We stayed here for a night.


We came back to Toronto early next day because we are booked for a Niagara Falls tour. We came back just in time for us to be picked up in our hotel lobby.


Niagara Falls


When we came back to Toronto that night, we had a take-out dinner from Sushi Sky, a Japanese restaurant in Yonge street serving sushi, teriyaki, teppanyaki, tempura and other popular Japanese dishes. Authentic taste, very palatable and most of all, affordable. We had tempura, beef teriyaki and some miso soup.


Our hotel at night


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