Summer Break - Toronto, Canada

Toronto was only an hour drive from Niagara Falls, and we had organised to have dinner with Phil's cousin, Emily.  She had only been in Toronto for a week herself, and has recently relocated with the company she works for, in Sydney.  It was really nice to catch up with her, and we had a great evening. The next day, we got the ferry out to Toronto Island. It is only about a 15 minute ferry ride, and we got a great view of the Toronto Skyline. The CN Tower stands out, and looks very similar to Centrepoint Tower in Sydney. We had such beautiful weather, and the island was heaps of fun!

A nice shot, with the CN Tower sticking out the top of my head!

It is a beautiful island, just off the city.  It has lots of waterways where people can hire boats, kayaks and canoes, and their 'beaches', for swimming.  The boys found the first water they could, and were playing in the fountain.

Then we came across the sprinklers (you can see them as tiny dots in the photo above).  They had a great time playing in the water, and 'shooting' each other with them.  They took huge delight in pointing them at some girls feet, and helping them cool down - the girls did ask them to do it!

Then they got to cool off, and dry out, as we walked around a bit more of the park.

 Next we walked out on the pier, and got to see a bit of the beach.  It was a bit too cool for us - and we didn't have our cossies, to swim, but they have lifeguards everywhere.

We hired a bike, to see the rest of the island.  It was lots of fun, but the idea was to wear the kids out. Unfortunately, they couldn't reach the pedals, so Phil and I did all the pedalling, and we had to stop at the playground for them to wear off some energy!

The next day was rainy, and we were planning on taking it pretty easy.  We checked out some of the shopping in the city. We had lunch in the food court at the Eton Centre, which is apparently huge - no-one in our family are shoppers except me, so we didn't see much!  Toronto has almost 27 miles of underground shopping, called The Paths, which is amazing, as well as a little confusing.  It is basically an underground world, which would be very handy in winter when the weather is 30 degrees below zero! We walked into Dundas Square, which is apparently Toronto's take on Times Square.  In the square they have TO Tix, which is where you can get cheap tickets for same day performances that are on around the city.  We tried to get tickets for the Wizard of Oz, but they didn't have any left.  They told us that you can get 'rush' tickets at the theatre, which are cheaper still! We got tickets at the Ed Mirvish theatre for that evenings performance, which we went to with Emily.  It was an amazing production, as one would expect from Andrew Lloyd Webber, and the kids were suitably impressed (as were Phil and I).  Hopefully everyone around us wasn't too disappointed when Quinn announced, very loudly, at intermission, that "the bad witch actually dies at the end!"

 

On our last day in Toronto, we went for a walk to Harbour Square.  It is a lovely space right down on the Harbour, and has permanent stages and seating set up for outdoor concerts.  Unfortunately, there was nothing going on when we were down there, apart from some summer camps.  I don't think Canada had started their summer break, so it was all a little quiet.  Still, it was a great spot for the boys to run around, and that is where I got a picture of the boat, above, and is also where lots of Harbour cruises left from.  

Apparently, any visit to Toronto isn't complete without a visit to the Hockey Hall of Fame.  They are pretty fanatical about their ice-hockey, and we had a fun afternoon there.  There were heaps of pucks, masks they have worn through the ages, and shrines to different players going back to the early 1900's. There was plenty of interactive stuff as well - the locker room was set up above, where Ryan is sitting, and you could line up to have a go at shooting a goal in the simulator that Luke is playing above.  There were also Wii ice hockey games, and you could be an announcer for an ice hockey game, as well as a 3D movie.  It was lots of fun, even if you are not major ice hockey fans, like us.  Saying that though, we did watch some of the Finals series, which was between Chicago Black Hawks, and Boston Bruins.  When we were in Chicago the boys got photos with some people dressed up as the Black Hawks, trying to drum up support for the Finals series.  We were close to Boston when the Finals were played - so we kind of felt a bit a part of it!  For the record, Chicago won in 5 (the finals is best of 7 matches - they know how to stretch things out over here).  The couple of matches we saw went into overtime though, so it was very close.

I was hoping to get along to the St Lawrence Market, but everyone was tired and over it, so we didn't get there.  It is only a food market, but it is meant to have a great selection of fresh food, and is housed in an historic building. There is a market in Montreal, where we are going next, so maybe I will get along there.