My legs...I can't feel my legs!

SATURDAY: Got up super early to go to Toronto. Dawn and I were going to get driven downtown, which takes an hour from Oshawa. We slept most of the way and by 10:30, we were there. Dawn started work at 11 and had a 12 hour shift, so the plan was to meet back with her at 11pm and we'd go back to Oshawa together. So 12 hours to myself in Toronto - what is a girl to do? I did have some walking tour things that I wanted to do. I knew that it was going to be walking day at my own pace (which is usually quicker than the others!) Started off the day with going to Kensington Market, which is 4-5 blocks from Union Station. Now these blocks are HUGE. It would take around 5 minutes to walk up just one block. And ordinarily I wouldn't have minded. But it was PISSING down with rain. And with me being the stubborn one that I am, I was not going to go in the underground and heated PATH just yet when there were so many outside sights I wanted to see.

So the first block I walked was all construction and rubble - was starting to think that the PATH wasn't such a bad idea after all. But I persisted and the second block was mildly better, with more shops, cafes, your mandatory McDonalds and things were looking good. 3rd block up and all the shops on this block were all opened and clumped together, basically with the look of a market, but not the one I was looking for. As I kept walking further North, the look of the markets and shops had an Asian feel, with lots of kanji, tone deaf screaming of random prices of fruit and vegies, people all mingled and stuck on the sidewalk trying to either buy something or get out of the way. It was official: I hit Chinatown with a vengeance! There was no warning of it, no signs. It was a very distinctive change - similar to one I have experienced back at home when I was going to work: once you crossed a certain set of lights and tram tracks, you just knew you were in Jew Town - no signs necessary! This was alike in so many ways. And Chinatown is pretty big, but not a lot of eateries, just outdoor market style stalls. I was on the hunt for Kensington Market, further up north. Chinatown continued for the next 2 blocks until I hit a left, went through the backstreets and accidentally found what I was looking for! This market is on a one way street, but it's a very eclectic one. It has eateries from all around the world - there's a place to buy African antiques, Chilean food - YUMMY (After all my bitching about food here, you have no idea how satisfying it was to get some empanadas! MMMMMM!), your typical fruits and vegies, second rate soccer tops, some great international music, especially from Senegal. Then the one that grabbed my attention was the multi level indoor organic market. Now it's not only organic produce, but it was all fair trade items and with lots of clothes from local designers. Since my best mate is a fashion designer, she has taught me the value of local clothes items and also the difficulty of obtaining material from places other than China. So when I saw that everything was made in Canada, that just took the cake for me. The dresses - just for casual days - were amazing. It took a lot to walk away empty handed (and the wise thing I did was leave my credit and debit cards in Oshawa and not have a lot of cash on me, so that also made things easier!) After bumming about for around an hour, I then made my way to the Ontario Art Gallery, that had been closed for re-development and were opening up again on the weekend for free, so I went there. The line up was HUGE! Although the line was moving pretty quickly. I was at the end of the line at midday and by 12:30 I was in. And luckily I got there when I did. People had lined up at 2pm and didn't get in til 4pm. I was relieved to get out of the rain because it was pouring down so much that I had to cancel my initial outdoor walking tour I had planned. There were 3 floors of things to explore. I have to say I'm not really an art kind of person. I can look at something and think, 'What the hell is that?" and my next question would be, "Why???". I'm very analytical and things have to make sense. A lot of the time, especially in the abstract stuff, I just don't get it. Thankfully there wasn't a lot of that. I really liked the photographic section. So funny, there was one photo of a completely naked guy hidden in a corner. All of the kids passed by it, parents barred their kids from seeing it, but the old women just kept looking at it - totally amazed! Don't you just love people watching? The gallery was so huge that I ended up staying there for 7 hours! It kind of helped that it was raining and it was fairly cold to go out and walk around Toronto. But I managed to go through every corner of that gallery and was on my feet for the whole time. I hadn't even had anything to eat anything in the morning and despite all of my time in the gallery, I wasn't hungry at all. (OK, I'm gonna have to finish up this blog, as I have to go and wait for a package that Mum is sending me from home and it's meant to be here today. I'll be back soon to finish this up, I promise! BYE!)

I'M BACK! Now where were we....ah the gallery. At 7:30 I decided to leave and go to the PATH and challenge myself to get lost in there. Went back to Union Station in the subway and tried hard to get lost in there. It didn't work. My sense of direction is way too good. I went outside to walk around and saw how pretty the CN Tower is at night. It's all lit up in red and blue, then the actual pathway to the entrace is all lit up with treelights and Christmas decorations. Back in the PATH I managed to bum around there and find the Toronto attractions by night. It's almost eery, as there were not that many people about, it was almost scary. But the PATH is well heated and secured, so technically it's safe. It was just interesting to see a quiet side of buzzing and busy Toronto.

Somehow it was 10:00pm before I realised I needed a break, so I sat down and spied on Dawn at work and was trying to distract her by being a tool. Just the usual. I sat and was making my legs relax before meeting up with Dawn at 11pm and going back to Oshawa. But my legs were so so sore. 7 hours on my feet and the DOMS from the gym just took its toll. Got back home at 12:30am hoping for a lazy Sunday sleep in, only to be told that we were going to go to The Big Apple directly after dropping Dawn off at work in Toronto. It took me ages to get some sleep but then had to be up at 8am. So this falls under Sunday's blog, so were' going to continue onto the next post, OK? Good! See ya in the next one!